U. S., Vietnam agree on Paris site
WASHINGTON —(UPI)—The United States and North Vietnam agreed today to meet in Paris to discuss conditions for possible Vietnam peace talks.
President Johnson told a nationally televised and broadcast news conference: "I have sent a message informing Hanoi the date of May 10 and the site of Paris are acceptable to the United States."
A Hanoi radio broadcast picked up by U.S. monitors only a short time before the President's statement proposed that "formal talks" between the United States and North Vietnam begin May 10 "or a few days later."
President Johnson, who said he had learned of Hanoi's willingness to meet in Paris at 1 a.m. EDT, said at his news conference that the United States had sought a site where it could be assured of "fair and impartial treatment" for both sides.
He said Paris was agreeable on this score, but he cautioned: "This is only the very first step. There are many many hazards and difficulties ahead."
Johnson said he hoped that
agreement on the time and place for exploratory talks would be "a step forward" toward "a mutual and serious movement toward peace in Southeast Asia."
He said that because delicate negotiations were involved, he would not answer questions on the talks.
North Vietnam named as its representative for the talks Son Thuy, minister without portfolio.
The United States earlier named Ambassador at Large W. Averell Harriman, and Cyrus Vance, a special presidential troubleshooter to take part in any talks with the Hanoi government.
North Vietnam's announcement that it would be willing to hold the initial discussions in Paris marked the first time Hanoi has budged from its insistence that the meeting take place in either Warsaw or Phnom Penh.
The United States has proposed 15 Asian and European capitals, but left Paris off the list. There has been considerable speculation that both sides would eventually agree on the French capital as a compromise site.
Students urge Strong sit-in
Twenty-one students, faculty members and non-students, pledged to go to jail if necessary "to gain a student voice" at KU.
The group apparently referred to the possibility that demonstrators who participate in a Strong Hall sit-in may be arrested.
"The only power students can exercise is the power of disruption," Richard Mabbutt, assistant instructor of political science, said.
The group, numbering more than 80, scheduled a mass meeting for 10 a.m. Monday in front of Strong Hall to decide what action to take because of what they termed the failure of Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe to answer the group demands.
These include repudiating that students are "transients" and naming students to half the positions on all committees dealing with student affairs.
The group discussed alternatives of waiting until the University Senate meets Tuesday to discuss the student representation and the scheduling of a talk with the chancellor.
Not all participants were this militant as the vice-president of the student body continually pleaded with the group to first employ proper channels such as the All-Student Council (ASC). The group decided to allow the ASC to act on the demands but agreed that this action would not affect their plans of "meeting" Monday.
After two hours of discussion.
four representatives were chosen to draft a letter to the Daily Kansan in reply to the letter printed Thursday from Chancellor Wescoe.
The letter was drafted by Hamilton Salsich, assistant instructor of English; Steve Herron, assistant instructor of psychology; Mabburt, and Joe Goering, vice-president of the student body and Moundridge junior.
Goering refused to sign the letter "because of his position."
The letter said the group could not accept the chancellor's reply for three reasons:
- The chancellor refused to repudiate that the "University is not for students because they are transients."
- The chancellor refused to arrange the introduction of legislation "allocating to students 50 percent of all positions or faculty committees dealing with student affairs."
- The chancellor's position in regard to the elimination of the ASC veto was considered "irrelevant since it is possible for him to agree not to exercise that veto."
"The only alternative left to us is to create genuine mechanisms whereby students are enabled to exercise control over the decisions in the University which affect their lives," the letter concluded.
Before leaving, the group decided to pass out the copies of the letter Friday morning, to meet Saturday morning to plan for the "mass meeting," and to explain the group's position to all living groups with handouts and speeches at meal times.
Salsich reappointed
"You cannot fire a man until
After the vote was taken and the decision favorable to Salsich was reported, a committeeman said:
The list was given to the committee during a meeting in which it voted to reappoint Hamilton J. Salsich, a Webster Grove, Mo., graduate student, to another year as a teaching assistant in the department. Salsich said last week he didn't expect to be asked to return.
A list of 20 English department staff members who would consider raising the grade of a student who might otherwise be drafted was presented Thursday to the assistant instructor committee.
The committee's decision occurred in the wake of controversy regarding a statement by Salsich that he would "give a student any grade necessary to keep him from being drafted."
The list, composed of eight senior English department staffers and 12 teaching assistants, was obtained during a two-hour period Thursday morning.
he acts, not intends—We'll consider whatever he does when he acts."
Salsich, who began the grading practice this semester, said he was encouraged by the response the faculty had shown to the poll
Those agreeing with the following statement signed their names:
"I subscribe to the following statement: I would possibly raise the grade of a student if, otherwise, he would be drafted."
President Johnson learned of the Hanoi broadcast immediately, presumably from news dispatches as official translation of the broadcast was hurried to Washington by American monitors in the Far East.
The North Vietnamese Foreign Ministry made the declaration in a statement in which it said that Hanoi and Washington should undertake talks "immediately" and that it was sending its representative to talk with American envoys
The Hanoi statement repeated the North Vietnamese insistence that the issue to be discussed at the talks was the "unconditional cessation by the United States of its bombing and all other matters related to the two sides."
The Hanoi broadcast said Thuy, a veteran career diplomat of the North Vietnamese Foreign Ministry, would head up his country's delegation.
"These formal talks will begin on May 10, 1968, or a few days later," Hanoi radio said in what it termed an official statement.
Part of the broadcast was devoted to thanking the French government for suggesting Paris as a site in a statement from its foreign ministry April 18.
The North Vietnamese statement, as monitored here by the U.S. government, said:
"The North Vietnam DRV—Democratic Republic of Vietnam—government welcomes the fact that the French government is willing to let Paris be the site for talks between North Vietnam and the United States, as declared by French Minister Couve de Murville, just as Phnom Penh and Warsaw, is an appropriate venue for the formal bilateral talks."
United Nations Secretary General Thant has suggested Paris as the talk site on several occasions.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk expressed optimism Thursday that the United States and North Vietnam would eventually agree on a site.
"We have reason to know that several third parties are working on the problem of finding a locale suitable for both sides," Rusk told a congressional committee.
From the North Vietnamese point of view, Paris is an adequate location because Hanoi maintains a mission there, headed by a senior representative Mai Van Bo, that could serve as a solid base for the expected complicated talks.
Communist China also is represented in Paris following the establishment of diplomatic relations between France and Peking.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY kansan
78th Year, No. 126
A student newspaper serving KU
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
Friday, May 3, 1968
STOP, TAKE IT TO THE ASC BEFORE PROTESTING
Kansan photo by Jerry Bean
Student body vice-president, Joe Goering pleaded last night for activists to try the proper channels such as the All Student Council before demonstrating as he waved a copy of Chancellor Wescoe's letter at them.
Abrams' case before AAUP
By Don Westerhaus Kansan Staff Reporter
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) will meet May 8 to continue a discussion begun Thursday night about the dismissal of a fine arts assistant professor.
Norman Abrams, who will complete his second year at KU in June, was asked last December "to seek employment elsewhere" next year in a letter from Marjorie Whitney, retiring chairman of the department of design.
An AAUP committee on internal affairs was asked to investigate the dismissal, and the hassle was kicked up again Thursday when the committee's report was given to AAUP members for approval.
WEATHER
The high today will be in the upper 70s, low tonight in the lower 40s. Precipitation probabilities 20 per cent today.
Exactly what the report says is not known; AAUP members refused to release the report to the public because it "is a private document intended only for the AAUP executive committee."
Before a Kansan reporter was asked to leave the meeting about 9 p.m., however, discussion centered on a statement by Gerald Rabkin, associate professor of speech and drama and Abrams' spokesman at the meeting, charging that the report contained hearsay evidence and was unfair to Abrams. Rabkin also said the report was incomplete and had been submitted to Francis H Heller, acting provost and dean of faculties, without approval by AAUP members.
Rabkin, who later said that the May 8 meeting was agreed upon, asked in his statement Thursday that the AAUP disregard the original committee report.
He also asked that the committee, headed by Paul E. Wilson, professor of law, draft a new report containing the information he said was left out of the original report.
Abrams and Rabkin refused to comment on the action taken at the Thursday night meeting except to confirm the May 8 meeting date, but Abrams said early Thursday he would not comment if he felt the AAUP was "going to give me a fair hearing."
Edwin Stene, professor of political science and a former AAUP national committee member, said at the meeting the AAUP's role in cases like Abrams' is to serve as a mediator with the university administration, not as an adjudicator.
He said the original committee report is a judgment.
Stene said according to national AAUP regulations, the local chapter does not have jurisdiction to conduct an investigation. He said the case should have been referred to the national chapter by the professor in question.