Vietnam: the last phase Students and police join

Reporter OHNSON'S desperate last-minute attempt to save the stinking regime of Cao Ky by flying to Honolulu and sending Hubert Humphrey on a goodwill mission to South Vietnam has failed to elecit the kind of response he wanted.

Instead, the whole of the northern province of South Vietnam and the key cities of Da Nang and Hue have declared for the sacked General Nguyen Chanh Thu and openly defied Marshal I Love Hitler' Ky.

Thousands of Buddhists demonstrated in favour of the Mayor of Da Nang-Dr. Nguyen Van Man-when the puppet ruler of Saigon threatened to have the mayor shot after alleging that the National Liberation Front was behind the mayor.

Not the last This is the first time in the six-year-old war that a mayor of a provincial town has defied the central powers. It will probably not be the last.

The three-week-old demonstrations are getting bigger and noisier, despite the threats of Marshal Ky to send troops to Da Nang. So far the demands of the demonstrators have been confined to calling for a return of civilian rule and an end to US imperialist interference in South Vietnam.

However, behind the opposition there obviously lies a terrible war weariness and a sickening hatred of the imperialist - directed slaughter of innocent men, women and children.

Johnson has sent a frantic cable appealing to Saigon for a non - military constitutional government to be set up to prevent a complete breakdown of government administration and an irrevocable split in the South Vietnamese Army, which would signify the beginning of the end of the war in Vietnam.

Air base at stake Johnson, in fact, is riding a runaway tiger and there is little hope that he can extricate himself from this predicament.

What is at stake is not just the loyalty of 250,000 people, but the facilities of the biggest US air base in Vietnam.

Moves are now afoot for the calling of a national political congress to discuss the setting up of a constituent assembly.

These actions have been supported by the students of Saigon and other cities. Troops and police are joining the demonstrations in ever greater numbers and it is feared that Ky's regime will begin to crack if this process continues.

The only sanguine person in this critical drama is Dean Rusk. He still thinks that the downfall of the Saigon regime is not on the cards'.

Some hope! Some cards!

The collapse of the Ky regime -the most hated in the worldwould be a big blow to Johnson and a trenchant answer to the lie of the Labour government that the US is fighting against 'Communist tyranny' in Vietnam.

Now is the time for the whole labour movement to demand in one might voice:

Withdraw US Vietnam!

Call to re-register Lambeth Trades Council LEEDS TRADE COUNCIL passed a resolution on Wednesday calling on the TUC to re-register the Lambeth Trades Council. It was passed by 38 votes to 17 after being submitted by Leeds No. Il branch of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. (The Lambeth Council was disaffiliated by the TUC after its call for the January 26 campaign against anti-trade union legislation.)