Sunday, May 7, 1972
Kissinger Held Secret Talks In Paris
WASHINGTON --The White House acknowledged Friday that presidential adviser Henry A. Kissinger met secretly in Paris Tuesday with Hanoi negotiator Le Duc Tho, just two days before the United States and South Vietnam suspended peace talks there.Press Secretary Ronald L. Ziegler, in response to a question, conceded that Kissinger had made yet another clandestine trip to the French capital after reports that North Vietnamese sources had disclosed Tuesday"s session.Rumors had abounded here and in Paris that such a meeting had been held but, until Friday night, the White House declined to confirm or deny that.Ziegler said the United States had suggested at the outset that Kissinger's trip be acknowledged publicly. But, he reported, the Nixon administration did not do so because, as Ziegler put it, the North Vietnamese "urgently requested" that the fact of the meeting and content of the discussion remain completely private.The White House spokesman said:"I would just say this is another example of their (Hanoi's) bad faith."Kissinger attended a Monday afternoon White House session at which President Nixon met with American negotiators departing for Helsinki and the resumption of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks with the Soviet Union.Nothing further was heard from the foreign affairs expert until the White House said Tuesday night he had joined Nixon for an evening cruise on the Potomac aboard the U.S. Navy yacht Sequoia.Newsmen did not see Kissinger on that occasion but the President's national security affairs adviser was spotted through the windows of his White House office early Wednesday morning in conference with his deputy, Army Maj. Gen. Alexander Haig, and Ziegler.(In Paris, North Vietnam spokesmen Friday said Kissinger met secretly with them May 2.(A Hanoi spokesman, while confirming the meeting between Kissinger and Tho, refused to give any details of the outcome of the session.)State Department officials charged that North Vietnamese negotiators and other sources abroad are trying to drive a propaganda wedge between the United States and South Vietnam by circulating "disinformation" about the course of peace negotiations.The State Department officials said they were determined to counter this "disinformation" -misleading or distorted accounts -as effectively as possible.The State Department spokesman, Charles W. Bray, reasserted at the department's daily news conference that the United States was prepared to return to the public Vietnam peace negotiations "when the other side gives some evidence that they are prepared to discuss the issues embodied in the eight questions which Ambassador William J. Porter put to the other side yesterday."Bray also took the opportunity to deny a variety of reports which have been circulating in Paris and published there about alleged, sensational concessions by the United States."Kissinger Held Secret Talks in Paris", by (AP & UPI), published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes on Sunday, May 7, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.