It all happened on Monday -- and it really wasn't much to talk about. Seven waves of U.S. jets pounded a fuel storage depot near Hanoi, and Ambassador to the U.N. Arthur Goldberg promised U.N. Secretary-General U Thant that America would cooperate with United Nations efforts to arrange a cease-fire in Vietnam. Blabber incoherently and swing a big stick -- that's the futile game.

What remains to be explained -- as it has never been -- is what Washington means when it says that it will "cooperate." U Thant's notion of a cease-fire is based on a three-point proposal that includes the cessation of the bombing of the North. And the United States, for all of Goldberg's conciliatory talk, hasn't given any indication that it will halt the fruitless bombing for any length of time. In fact, only last week Air Force jets apparently bombed residential areas of Hanoi -- hardly a "military target."

It is, however, encouraging that after several years of being snubbed or ignored, U Thant finally is able to evoke some sort of sensible -- albeit hypocritical -- response from the U.S.

Everybody, particularly the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese, realize that Goldberg's words are more significant for what they omit than for what they concede. And again, the U.S. has attempted to hide its intransigence over the bombing with meaningless words of encouragement for a cease-fire. The peace efforts, in turn, are inevitably doomed to failure as long as the bombing -- ineffectual and inflammatory at the same time -- continues.