WaybackWire

NEW DELHI, Wednesday.—Chinese troops captured Towang, the monastery town on the old India-Tibet trade route, after bitter fighting today, a Defence Ministry spokesman announced.

The Government admitted that the Chinese had made steady advances all along the north-eastern boundary, as much as 37 miles in some areas, and indicated that they had taken most of their objectives in Ladakh.

Earlier in the day the Chinese were reported to be advancing into the North-East Frontier Agency at four points. Near the Burma border an Indian post fell, and the Chinese were driving down the Lohit River valley.

In Ladakh, at the north-western end of the frontier, they attacked for the first time in the Chang Chenmo river valley and captured a post.

In the capital the Defence Minister, Mr Krishna Menon, Mr Nehru’s closest associate, came under mounting fire. Senior members of the Congress Party and leading newspapers attacked him, and some demanded his resignation. Mr Nehru was reported to be defending him.

One Congress Party critic said Mr Menon had “kept us all in the dark by painting a rosy picture of our eastern defenses”.

NEW DELHI, Wednesday.—India today rejected a Chinese proposal for a cease-fire and fresh talks, and said Peking’s forces must first go back at least to the positions they held before 8 September.

The proposal came in a Chinese Government statement broadcast by Peking radio and the New China News Agency. It asks both sides to respect the line of actual control and each to withdraw its forces 20 kilometres (about 12 miles) from it. China would withdraw its frontier guards in the eastern sector to the north of that line, and the two Prime Ministers would meet again, in Peking or in Delhi.

“China does not want a single inch of India’s territory,” the statement says.

A Government spokesman in New Delhi called the proposal “vague, confusing and deceptive”, and high officials dismissed it as “pure hypocrisy”. India will talk at any mutually agreed level once the Chinese go back north of the Thagla ridge. India insists that the Chinese withdraw in Ladakh as well.

Some officials believe Peking spoke under pressure from Mr Khrushchev, who wrote to Mr Nehru at the weekend hoping for a peaceful settlement. Mr Nehru was reported to have replied that “no negotiation is possible or feasible so long as an aggressor occupies our sacred soil”.

UNITED NATIONS, New York, Wednesday.—The Acting Secretary-General, U Thant, today asked President Kennedy and Mr Khrushchev to suspend all arms shipments to Cuba and the quarantine for two to three weeks, so that the parties can meet.

“What is at stake is not just the interests of the parties directly involved, nor just the interests of all Member States, but the very fate of mankind,” he told the Security Council.

He sent identical messages to the two leaders at the request of a large number of member governments, and put himself at the disposal of all parties. He also appealed to Dr Castro and President Dorticos, the Cuban ambassador said.

In the debate, Mr Mahmoud Riad of the United Arab Republic said: “Naturally, the quarantine does not help to create the required understanding. On the contrary, it will further complicate the matter and may lead to a state of armed combat.”

Britain’s Sir Patrick Dean accused the Soviet Union of “calculated double dealing”, and Venezuela’s ambassador called the Soviet weapons in Cuba a threat to the whole hemisphere.

In Washington, officials said President Kennedy objected to the plan because it gave no guarantee against further work on the missile bases in Cuba, or for dismantling those already there. He was also said to insist on on-the-spot United Nations inspection of any standstill.

MOSCOW, Wednesday.—Mr Khrushchev said today that the Soviet Union would take no reckless decisions and would not be provoked by unwarranted actions of the United States, and he proposed a meeting at the highest level.

The Soviet Premier was replying to a plea from the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, in a message broadcast by Moscow radio. “We will do everything in our power to prevent war from breaking out,” he said.

“We fully realize that if war should break out that it would be a nuclear war from the very first hours. This is very clear to us. But evidently it is not clear to the government of the United States of America.”

He warned that the situation could go out of control and again called on Washington to back off its quarantine.

The Foreign Ministry returned to the American Embassy the copy of President Kennedy’s proclamation that the embassy had delivered this morning, Tass reported. Mr Khrushchev himself had what was described as a “friendly” conversation with Mr Edward Knox, president of Westinghouse Electric International.

In Washington, President Kennedy was reported to be holding the door open for a conference with Mr Khrushchev if the right conditions develop.

VATICAN CITY, Wednesday.—Pope John XXIII today pleaded for discussions to avoid war. Speaking with grave concern of the international situation at his weekly audience, he said God’s help was needed to preserve the peace of mankind.

In Tokyo, the Prime Minister, Mr Ikeda, told journalists he felt “extreme concern” at the course of events.

Bishops gathered in Rome for the Vatican Council joined the Pope’s call. Thomas Cardinal Tien of Formosa said he hoped “the heads of nations will do all in their power to prevent the outbreak of a new, global war.”

Bishop Alexander Nzundo of Leopoldville said “men of all color and nations must strive for a true and sincere peace.” Many prelates from Asia and Africa kept out of cold-war politics.

Bishops from North and South America spoke strongly for the quarantine. Richard Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, called on Americans to back President Kennedy, and said “at long last the administration is doing something”.