More on "thoughps on He March" From Willie Thompson

Alan Rooney's reply to K, Rintoul's remarks are scarcely any improvement on his original article. In it he repeats his allegation that, ".... the policies of the British Communist Party, the C.N.D. and the Parli-mentary Labour 'Left' have mainly been confined to acting as public relations agents for U. Thant's pontifi-_ cations...." If Mr. Rooney bothered to check his facts before writing he would know that in regard to the Communist Party this statement is sheer rubbish. The Communist Party has always called for negotiations on the terms laid down by the Vietnamese,and in fact condemned_U. Thent's latest peace proposals because they were unsatisfactory in this respect, Alan Rooney in his original piece also saw fit to sneer at the level of aid supplied to Viet Nsm by the Soviet Union. The North Vietnamese assessment is a little different: " eeeThe Vietnamese people constantly feel the sympathy, support and all-sided assistance of the Soviet people. We take this opportunity to express sincere gratitude to the Party, Government and fraternal people of the Soviet Union..." (Ho Chi Minh's message to the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U.). We can draw our own conclusions as to whether Ho Chi Minh or Alan Rooney is the best judge of the Soviet Union's role in Vietnam, As for Mr. Rooney's remarks on the personal motives of people he disagrees with: "comfortable complacent outsiders....", this sort of thing is the stock-in-trade of the Robert Pitman's and their kind, and is best left to them. There is of course a current of feeling in the peace movement so alarmed at the possible global consequences of the Viet Nam war that it is calling for peace on terms equivalent to surrender by the Vietmamese.speople. There is nothing objectionable in Alan Rooney attacking this position, What is objectionable is his holier than thou attitude to honest people, who, however mistaken, are nevertheless fighting the same battle as himself,