Cooperation with the outgoing Administration is the watchword of the President-elect’s entourage. Mr Nixon’s meeting with President Johnson today, they hope, will be only the first of a series of meetings, and they will seek a smooth transfer of power at all levels.

It is even rumoured that in one key point of his Administration, Mr Nixon may seek continuity rather than transfer; that he may ask Mr Harriman to remain in Paris at the head of the US negotiating team, at least for the early period of the new Presidency.

Whether Mr Harriman, a Democrat, would agree to serve under a Republican President is not known. Mr Henry Cabot Lodge, another old Vietnam hand who also happens to be a Republican, would presumably be available to