TOKYO, Aug. 6, 1964 (UPI) - Communist North Viet-Nam, smarting from the blows inflicted on its territory by the U.S. Navy, charged today that the United States is preparing an invasion of North Viet-Namese soil. Communist China offered its neighbor moral support, but it made no specific threats of retaliation.
In Moscow, the Soviet Union today condemned the American air strikes against North Viet-Nam as "aggression" and warned the U.S. not to "go too far." At the same time the government newspaper Izvestia urged peace in Southeast Asia.
This and a similar statement issued last night are viewed by diplomatic sources as tough talk to cover up Kremlin embarrassment over the crisis.
Both the Chinese and North Viet-Namese governments issued formal statements today on the American air attack against North Viet-Namese torpedo boat bases on the Gulf of Tonkin.
"As everybody knows the U.S. imperialists are being defeated and bogged down in their aggressive war in South Viet-Nam," the North Viet-Namese statement said. It continued:
"To cover up its sinister designs the U.S. has fabricated the story of two American destroyers being attacked for the second time off the Gulf of North Viet-Nam. But this insidious trick can deceive nobody.
"The air attack against (North Viet-Namese) territory on Aug. 5, 1964, clearly exposes the design to invade North Viet-Nam and extend the war there, as declared many times by the U.S. government."
North Viet-Namese foreign minister Xuan Thuy sent protest notes to the International Control Commission for Indochina and to the 14 signatory nations of the 1954 Geneva Agreement.
But the notes were so vaguely worded that they may simply have concerned last week's claims of U.S.-instigated bombings by Laotian and South Viet-Namese forces.
Yesterday the Communist Chinese government issued a formal statement charging that the United States had "gone over the brink of war."
Western sources in Moscow said the Soviets feel they have nothing to gain in a clash in southeast Asia, where Communist China controls the local Communist parties, and a great deal to lose in their efforts to ease cold war tensions with the United States.
The warnings of general war, they said, went hand in hand with hopes that there is no further action in the U.S.-Viet-Namese crisis.
Soviet calmness over the crisis was underlined by the fact that Premier Nikita Khrushchev was out of Moscow on a trip and that many of his chief aides were vacationing - yet none appeared to be making plans to come back to the capital.
