In June 1966, Janusz Lewandowski, the Polish delegate to the International Control Commission, which was supposed to police the Geneva Accords of 1954, contacted Giovanni D'Orlandi, the Italian ambassador to South Vietnam with a peace offer. Lewandowski stated he just spoken with Ho Chi Minh, whom he claimed wanted a "political compromise" to end the war and would go "quite a long way" for such a settlement. Lewandowski reported that Ho was willing to drop his demand that the government of South Vietnam be overthrown, though he preferred that somebody else other than Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky serve as premier; asked only the National Liberation Front (better known as the Viet Cong) "take part" in negotiations, instead of serving in the government; and were willing to accept a "reasonable calendar" for the withdrawal of American forces instead demanding their immediate pull-out. The Ambassador-at-Large Harriman and his deputy, the former CIA agent Chester Cooper, were intrigued by the Polish offer, which was backed by the Soviet Union. Ever since 1960, Mao Zedong had been accusing the Soviet Union of capitulating to capitalism and abandoning its princioples, and a Sino-Soviet competition had broken out about which of the two states was most willing to support North Vietnam. Lewandowski stated that the Soviets were tired of this economically exhausting competition because every time China increased its support for North Vietnam, the Soviets had to increase their support on an even greater scale just to rebut the Chinese claim that they were "selling out".