Peretz Sets Up Talks with NLF

Martin H. Peretz, assistant professor of Social Studies, returned from Paris last month after meeting with North Vietnamese and Viet Cong negotiators at the Paris peace talks.

Peretz went to Paris January 8 with Sam Brown, co-chairman of the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, to arrange the meeting for Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy (D-Minn.).

McCarthy, Peretz, and Brown met with Madame Binh, foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government, through the morning of January 13 and with Xuan Thuy, chief negotiator for the North Vietnamese, the next afternoon.

Mary McCarthy '70, who went with her father on the European trip, went to the first meeting, but flew back to Cambridge for exams on January 14.

Peretz termed the visit "long; informative, and cordial," but said he would not discuss the contents of the talks until McCarthy makes a statement early this week.

McCarthy is expected to renew his attacks on the Vietnam war in the statement-possibly recommending abandoning the Vietnamization program and a now United States initiative toward setting up a coalition government in South Vietnam.

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"The visit and the speech will mark a return to political activism for McCarthy," Peretz commented Saturday. Since the 1968 campaign McCarthy has remained relatively quiet on the war except for Moratorium speeches last Fall.

McCarthy frequently mentioned a trip to Paris during the campaign, but this is the first time he has met with communist negotiators.

Brown, former student coordinator for the McCarthy campaign, was not a representative of the Moratorium Committee at the meeting, Peretz said.