WaybackWire

WASHINGTON, Monday.—President Kennedy has named a three-man committee under Mr John J. McCloy to handle the negotiations to end the Cuban crisis, the White House press secretary, Mr Pierre Salinger, announced.

Mr McCloy, already special assistant to Mr Stevenson for the emergency, is chairman, with Under Secretary of State George W. Ball and Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell L. Gilpatric.

Mr Salinger called it “a coordinating committee to give full time and attention to the matters involved in the conclusion of the Cuban crisis”. Its work, he said, is “implementing the letters of President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev”.

The committee reports directly to the President but acts under the supervision of Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and Mr Stevenson. It will work from New York, where Mr McCloy already is. Mr Salinger had no information on whether the three would go to Havana with Mr Thant.

There were no deals or secret understandings, informed sources said. The only price Mr Khrushchev asked was a guarantee, which the President gave, that the United States would not invade Cuba.

LONDON, Monday.—Western Europe greeted the Soviet decision to withdraw the missiles from Cuba with profound relief today and hailed it as a victory for the United States.

The turn of events is seen here as opening the way to renewed East-West negotiations on disarmament as a whole.

The British Government officially welcomed the Soviet announcement that Moscow is ready to dismantle its missile sites in Cuba. A few hours earlier Mr Macmillan had sent Mr Khrushchev a message saying such a move would open the way to wider negotiations on a nuclear test ban and on disarmament generally.

Belgium’s Foreign Minister, M. Paul-Henri Spaak, said Mr Khrushchev must be thanked and congratulated. Denmark’s Foreign Minister, Mr Per Haekkerup, hoped the new contact between Moscow and Washington might lead to “a final settlement in peace.”

In Moscow, Pravda printed the messages exchanged between Mr Kennedy and Mr Khrushchev on its front page.

NEW DELHI, Monday.—India has turned to the United States for weapons to fight the Chinese, and an American Embassy spokesman said they will be sent soon.

The American Ambassador, Mr John Kenneth Galbraith, delivered to Mr Nehru a letter from President Kennedy expressing sympathy for India in its emergency, the spokesman said. Mr Nehru in reply made India’s first direct request for American arms.

President Kennedy and Mr Macmillan have both offered help to India’s defence effort, the Indian Express reports. Two planeloads of British arms and ammunition arrived today, and informants said the first American supplies might come from Thailand.

An Indian spokesman put Indian soldiers dead or missing since the Chinese offensive began on 20 October at between 2,000 and 2,500. The Chinese are believed to have suffered much heavier casualties, he said.

In the west, India announced the loss of Demchok, a 14,000-foot outpost about 300 miles south-east of Srinagar and the Chinese army’s farthest thrust southward at the western end of the front.

In the east, reinforcements are being rushed to Se La pass to head off a Chinese division moving down from Towang. Informants in Assam claim the Indians have recaptured Jang, four miles east of Towang.

The Army Chief of Staff, Gen. P. N. Thapar, told the troops in a special message that “the enemy is being held”.

NEW DELHI, Monday.—India has refused offers of mediation in its undeclared war with China, despite its setbacks in the field.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said that “no self respecting country and certainly not India with her love of freedom, can submit to Chinese aggression, whatever may be the consequences”.

India cannot allow China’s occupation of Indian territory to be used as a bargaining counter for dictating a boundary settlement on China’s terms, he said. New Delhi has already rejected Peking’s own proposal for talks.

President Nasser has suggested that the Chinese go back north of Thagla, and Afro-Asian countries want them back at their positions of 8 September, the Indian Express reports. In Madras, the State Assembly has pledged its support.