Secret British efforts to end Vietnam war now revealed

Details of a diplomatic initiative by Britain in l967 to end the Vietnam war are revealed in British government documents released today The previously secret papers document the strenuous efforts made by the former British prime minister, Harold Wilson, to secure the co-operation of the then Soviet prime minister, Alexei Kosygin, in gaining an undertaking from North Vietnam to end incursions into the South.

In return he wanted an end to American bombing of Hanoi.

The initiative did not succeed -- partly because of what British ministers privately called a disconcerting lack of frankness by the Americans.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service