WASHINGTON REPORT: 'May Day . . . May Day':

...They will not curb the appetite to know what really went on...

...Even one of the senators supporting the bill voiced an apprehension that the book may not yet be closed, as the 1973 Paris Accords stipulated, on our direct military involvement in Vietnam-a faulty involve-ment, one dissenting senator pointed out, that led to the death of 55,000 American servicemen and an expendi-ture of $150 billion...

...which spawned Joe McCarthy...

...Adjoining South Vietnam is uncongenial to our presence there...

...A full history of this sorry chapter remains to be written...

...They bargained, in a fashion, with the administra-tion in hopes of accelerating the withdrawal of Ameri-cans...

...The President's Secretary of State is busy denying that there exist any "secret agreements" beyond the Paris Accords of 1973, under which American troops were withdrawn, to sustain the South Vietnamese gov-ernment beyond whatever military assistance programs publicly funded by Congress...

...In view of the Ford-Kissinger disclaimers, such a letter, should it exist, would be an interesting document-one to add to the perfidiousness of six Democratic and Republican presidential administrations in respect to our involve-ment in Southeast Asia...

...In the country, the predominant view appears to be a plague-on-all...

...Ultimately, most will descend when a prevailing opinion, as to the saints and the sinners, is discerned...

...For two days it then discussed a more restrictive bill that would allow the reentry of unspecified numbers of American troops into South Vietnam in order to evacuate Americans...

...However, the left, such as it exists, occupies itself with schemes of economic reform at home and, abroad, with reappraisals of its hitherto constant support of Israel...

...The excuse was that their removal would cause "panic" among the South Vietnamese and the Thieu government there...

...Then, there's a maneuver to avoid a gory parallel to the domestic quarrel about "who lost China...

...Certainly, the nation's reign-ing diplomat at this moment has a vested interest in his policies and actively resists changes long ago desirable- pulling telephone cords from their moorings in his office may assuage his frustration but will not alter the condi-tion of the nation...

...The Committee, scarred by its uncritical acceptance of the Gulf-of-Tonkin resolu-tion foisted on it by President Johnson 10 years ago, turned aside the administration's bill...

...The supercilious Graham, mem-ber of a profession known for its practitioners "going native" in their overseas posts, is notoriously known for going the most-native...

...But there was growing evidence that the Americans were being kept there as "hostages" in some desperate gamble to keep President Thieu, or a successor, afloat...

...A bipartisan coalition on the Committee was apprehen-sive, if not suspicious, that something sinister was afoot...

...One calmer statesman, Talleyrand, has observed: "The art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence...

...Apprehension characterizes the governments of Thailand, Singapore, purportedly neutralist Laos, South Korea and, even, the Philippines, one of the first of our imperial acquisitions...

...The attentistes comprise a majority in the capital town of magn'ficent obsessions and lost causes...

...But the bill also authorized the evacuation of a category described as "endangered foreign nationals," said by the President's men to be South Vietnamese-as many as 175,000 of them-whose lives were described as in peril because of service to the United States...

...Crusts of history are now being offered...

...It would permit, existing prohibitory statutes to the contrary, American troops to reenter Vietnam under the guise of "humanitarian evacuation...

...Whether the initiative was his or Washington's, Mr...

...All of these we've lost and, in so doing, we have increased the heavy hand of inquisitorial government upon its citizens...

...SISYPHUStizens...

...Fueling its suspicions was a bill submitted to it by the President...

...The wide center is more attentive to its own daily prob-lems of high prices for food and shelter and shrinking employment prospects for its sons and daughters...

...The diplomatic world knows that les jeux sont faits, but in late April no effective attempt had been made to evacuate several thou-sand Americans in South Vietnam-military, diplomatic and contractors and their dependents...

...SISYPHUS...

...We should convince ourselves to move on as a nation to positive endeavors in inter-national affairs-food supply and reserves and disarmament, among other sectors...

...This suggests a more produc-tive way of holding ascendancy in an unruly world than engaging in firefights-tests of competing ballistics-in East Asia with Communist forces...

...Nor did the Committee choose to reaffirm the authority of a President under the Constitution to evacuate Americans without any imprimatur by the Con-gress-just as preceding Presidents long ago had rescued endangered Americans from China, Japan and Nicaragua...

...Martin Graham is our Ambassador there...

...The administration was offering at the time conflict-ing numbers-ranging from a few dozen to a few hun-dred, but nowhere at the rate necessary to avoid putting remaining Americans under the fire of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese troops...

...The Committee had knuckled under-and without any discernible pressure from their constituents as a rationale...

...The behavior of the Ford administration during the fall of our 30-year policy in Southeast Asia has been inept, at best, and conceivably scandalous...

...There was still no assur-ance that the rate of evacuation would be increased, but senators on the Committee were now contradicting their position of the two previous days and giving the Presi-dent full faith and credit that somehow an evacuation, without casualties, would be undertaken...

...During the week of April 14, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee met in executive session to discuss the deteriorating military situation in South Vietnam, paricularly in reference to the Americans remaining there...

...Papering over the potential hazards, another senator said, "Well, I guess you have to trust someone...

...We could bomb Hanoi and then send troops there to help the populace under this bill, said one senator...

...Opponents of this bill described the $200-million authorized to finance the evacuation as "ransom" and the Americans as being "hos-tages...

...One exception is the political right, where the Reagan-ites are blaming incumbent leaders of both par-ties...

...On the third day of the Committee's discussion, the bipartisan coalition fell apart...

...The President replied that the United States must hang in there and protect its South Vietnamese supporters- or else there will come about lost faith in American promises...

...It defeated a resolution to that effect, although earlier in the week it had reminded an unheeding President during a meeting at the White House that he holds such authority...

...And there are those among President Ford's advisors who would throw Kissinger to the wolves, beginning to gather around the policy corpse...

...Kissinger's Nobel peace prize is irre-parably tarnished...

...The administration was also conceding to the Committee that the time was passing, may even have passed, when all Americans in South Vietnam, mostly in Saigon, could be evacuated without peril...

...The Commit-tee, therefore, approved 14 votes to 3 an omnibus aid bill-to evacuate South Vietnamese (numbers unspeci-fied) and Americans...

...Asian leaders there and elsewhere are be-coming less receptive to permitting their countries to be military and economic foraging grounds for the United States...

...However, late last month curious senators were on the trail of a report that President Ford himself, within a few days of becoming President in August, 1974, wrote a letter to President Thieu himself stipulating that adequate military assist-ance would continue to flow into South Vietnam...

...Policy-makers, past and present, and the politically ambitious jostle each other as they straddle the political fence...

...Someone needs to reassure those who still insist on a global role that Britain lost its Atlantic seaboard colonies and France "lost" Quebec and sold Louisiana without either entering into decline in international affairs...

...The impact upon the Ford administration is not yet clear...

...Its capital, Saigon, is under siege and its govern-ment, a no-account aggregation propped up by Ameri-can funds, is in disarray, 30 years after Ho Chi Minh undertook to drive Westerners from authority in Vietnam...

...Only the Senate Majority Leader, Senator Mansfield, and Senators Biden and Clark voted "nay...

...Asia for the Asians...

...This appeared to be the predominating view of the 17 members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, although they differed over whether this policy was initiated in Wash-ington or by our embassy in Saigon...

...It can be argued that statesmen may not be the full answer to an effective foreign policy...