The Washington Post, April 2, 1967
LBJ, Kosygin: China Accepts Cease-Fire Terms
In a joint statement on behalf of the SEATO and Warsaw Pact alliances, President Johnson and Premier Kosygin announced Red China's acceptance of the cease-fire terms presented on March 27th, and that a cease-fire by their respective alliances will go into effect at Midnight Local Time on April 3rd (12:00 Noon EST). All SEATO and Pact forces will cease offensive operations as of that time and date, and until their withdrawal begins, will remain in a defensive posture. Both leaders also stated their demand that the International Red Cross be granted access to SEATO and Pact POWs held by the Chinese, while details for exchange of prisoners are worked out via the Red Cross. Chinese military officers may be sent to the Pact Theater Headquarters at Chita and the U.S. SEACOM in Saigon to work out details of troop withdrawals from occupied territories and to disclose the locations of any sea mines that may affect shipping in the region.
Seoul: Scattered Fighting Still Ongoing in North Korea
South Korean military sources in Seoul report that a steady stream of defectors crossing the DMZ confirm that scattered fighting between elements of the North Korean Army fighting each other, as well as Army and the Security Forces continue in Pyongyang, Wonsan, and other locations in the North. While most of the fighting is limited to exchanges of small-arms fire and ambushes, the occasional full-scale battle between North Korean Army units has happened, with major use of tanks and artillery. While offical North Korean Media has not used the term "Civil War" to describe the situation, many U.S. and ROK military sources in Seoul feel that is exactly the term that would describe the situation in the North.
U Thant: "Relieved" That Cease-Fire Will Go Into Effect
UN Secretary-General U Thant, speaking to reporters at UN Headquarters in New York, said that he was "relieved" that SEATO and Warsaw Pact forces will cease hostilities and that "peace and security will return to the Far East." Mr. Thant, however, deplored the "stubborn attitudes on both sides" that delayed this moment for many weeks, and cost thousands of lives on and behind the battlefields of Manchuria and Hainan. The Secretary-General offered UN observers to monitor the troop withdrawals and Chinese compliance with the Cease-Fire Terms, but has yet been no reply from the Tokyo Summit on his proposal.
One Senate Foreign Relations Commitee Staffer said to a UPI reporter, in response to Mr. Thant's suggestion, "If U Thant had had his way, Mao would still be in power, the Red Guard would still be a threat to everyone in the region, and we'd just be waiting for another war sometime down the road, only with nuclear weapons being used. What was it President Kennedy said in October 1962? With friends like U Thant, who needs enemies?"
In a very candid statement, Soviet Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Dobrynin had a similar remark, saying that "U Thant failed to recognize that neither superpower wanted war, and blamed both for responding to Mao's actions."
Rusk: "First We've Heard of It" in Response to U Thant's Proposals
After a meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, Secretary of State Dean Rusk said to reporters asking for his response to U Thant's propsals "First we've heard of it." Mr. Rusk said that for U Thant to try and take credit for ending a war that neither superpower wanted, but had to fight, was in his words, "preposterous." Foreign Minister Gromyko had a similar remark, saying that if U Thant expected the superpowers to ignore Mao's "provocations and aggression", he was naive and mistaken.