Hanoi troops smash Rogers' talks claim

BOTH the USSR and China are in favour of a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam war, according to US Secretary of State William Rogers.

In an interview with the 'Philadelphia Enquirer', Rogers listed four reasons for believing North Vietnam would come to terms with the United States in the near future:

• The current North Vietnamese offensive 'has not been successful';

• 'Our bombing of targets in the North and mining of the harbours has been successful';

• 'I think the word is beginning to get back to the North Vietnamese people that [the war] is a hopeless endeavour'; and • 'The international community is largely supporting President Nixon.' Rogers said the Soviet Union and China are now in favour of a negotiated settlement and 'they are the ones who have been supplying North Vietnam'.

They are in fact the Americans' main hope for pushing through a dirty deal at the expense of the Vietnamese revolution.

Rogers' bombast about the 'failure' of the liberation offensive is not to be taken seriously -the liberation forces clearly hold the initiative on the ground and without US air power the puppet Saigon army would have collapsed in the first days of the offensive.

By far the most potent and sinister threat is that the two Stalinist powers will garotte the Vietnamese revolution and force the Vietnamese to accept US terms.

This accounts for Hanoi's exceptionally sharp and bitter attack on the 'big powers' which have succumbed to the 'Machiavellian policy' of 'reconciliation' with US imperialism.

North Vietnam has over the past few days repeatedly stigmatized Nixon's peace feelers as fraudulent and deceitful.

The army newspaper 'Quan Doi Nhan Dan' last Wednesday described the US plan put forward at the Paris peace conference as 'only a • hoax aimed at helping his election campaign' The paper said Nixon the Trade tariffs threat at Miami Beach TOUGH American plans for the introduction of trade protection if other countries do not take immediate steps to shoulder the US balance-ofpayments burden were spelled out in Miami Beach on the eve of the Republican Party convention.

Paul Rinfret, who is directing the economic side of Richard Nixon's campaign for re-election to the presidency, told reporters that the United States is 'getting to the point where it has to protect its own interests' Unless outstanding trade questions were rapidly settled by negotiation, Rinfret threatened, the US would take unilateral action to protect domestic manufacturers.

Rinfret said he believed in free trade, but he also believed in "fair trade', adding that the US had had the cards stacked against it for too long in international commerce.

Rinfret appears to have inherited the mantle of John Connally, who made himself notorihawk had not suddenly become reasonable.

The only plan up his sleeve was one for the further intensification of his barbarous attacks on the civilian population in Vietnam.

The following day both Hanoi daily papers published an article by Chien Thang which said Nixon's talk of 'winding down the war' was only a propaganda stunt to deceive people into thinking he was trying to end the war by negotiations.

The article concluded that the Vietnamese people would go through more bitter trials, but the trend of the war was clear: lose, will win and the USA will Will Will USA Clearly, the North Vietnamese themselves are not inclined to accept a compromise deal with Washington, and the Nixon administration is relying heavily on its friends in Moscow and Peking to force acceptance on Hanoi. ous as Nixon's economic adviser last year.

The blunt threat of tariffs implied in Rinfret's remarks is intended to warn both Japan and the Common Market that they will find the US closed to their exports if they do not voluntarily cut them back and agree to accept more American goods.

Rinfret said there were 'hundreds of things' the United States could do to protect its Hitler salutes in La Paz as Banzer shields Nazi criminal NATURALIZED Bolivian businessman Klaus Altmann has admitted he is Klaus sarbie, the 'butcher of ‹yons' wanted by the French authorities for murder and torture of resistance men during the war.

But a Bolivian government spokesman, announcing Altmann's confession, said there was no question of extraditing Rogers' statements about the course of the war were belied yesterday when liberation forces drove Saigon troops out of an important district town and a nearby military camp in the mountains inland from Da Nang.

The capture of Que Son town and Base Camp Ross were described by a South Vietnamese government military spokesman as the biggest setback since liberation forces overran several towns at the start of the offensive.

Heavy air, attacks on the liberation troops attacking the one National Tiberation Prone.

claimed 2,000 enemy troops had been killed in the battle for the town.

American officials in Da Nang said the liberation troops were well armed and had poured more than 1,000 artillery, rocket and mortar rounds into government positions before storming Que Son. trade if the need arose, though he was careful to add that the US was still seeking an "amicable settlement' of trade and monetary questions.

Events over the past 12 months -since Nixon imposed the nowwithdrawn 10-per-cent import surcharge and abolished the dollar's convertibility with goldhave shown that no such settlement is possible.

At the International Monetary him to France to face warcrimes charges.

The Bolivian criminal courts are now studying the possibility of trying the former Gesapo chief, the spokesman said.

If it ever takes place, such a trial would be a farce. Supporters of President Hugo zer yesterday celebrated first anniversary of the antiFund meeting on September 25 in Washington the US is certain to express its dissatisfaction with the monetary deal reached last December and the trading_concessions made so far by the European and Japanese governments.

Rinfret's remarks reveal that it already has plans well advanced to deal another series of blows to its capitalist competitors should the threat of tariffs fail to force them into line. communist bloodbath which brought his dictatorship to power.

Banzer, together with th chief of his Falange Party, addressed a large rally in La Paz and called for unity in the face of international communism.

The rally was preceded by a march-past of the Falange, who greeted Banzer by raising their arms in the Hitler salute.