Prof. Kissinger's "Clever" Policy
H., I.
ON THE WHOLE DISSENT BOARD there is not one general. Not even a colonel. The most we can show are a few ex-sergeants, World War II vintage, who never achieved fame as nijlitary strategists....
...suppose it turns out that the Saigon regime cannot be expected to survive without a portion of military support from the U.S...
...There is little reason to think the Thieu government has gained any greater popular support than it had, say, two years ago...
...That there Let us return to fundamentals: • The schemes and policies by which the war is perpetuated require political deceit at home, or a "cleverness" (we pull out, they get killed) that is morally repugnant...
...No matter: the whole Indochina war is a disaster comprising a series of "victories...
...The result can only be a serious decay of democratic convictions, a growth of cynicism and despair...
...Kissinger's policy—so clever on paper— offers expectation of coping with this problem...
...strategy now seems clear...
...In their vocabulary, what short of universal holocaust would "extend the war...
...No one of democratic or socialist persuasion need delude himself that the results are likely to be attractive...
...R. W. Apple, hard-headed journalist, thinks COMMENTS AND OPINIONS that Mr...
...And now campaigns bringing U.S...
...And while the overall military position of the pro-Saigon forces has apparently improved, there isn't much reason to suppose that, once the U.S...
...He writes: possibility...
...larger than is now planned...
...large numbers of ordinary citizens are beginning to ask what business the United Stateshas killing and maiming all those Vietnameseand Laotians and Cambodians...
...ON THE WHOLE DISSENT BOARD there is not one general...
...Remember Cambodia...
...Except for two or three professors up at Brandeis University, you just can't find anyone ready to defend the war publicly...
...Remember land reform...
...Everyone, for whatever reason, wants out...
...It is a policy designed to reduce the number of U.S...
...Apple is right, but it's hard to know...
...Will the Nixon administration be ready to see its clever scheme foiled by something so inconsequential as the Vietnamese political reality or will it discover that ground troops are necessary there after all...
...For a short time, the reduction of troops in Vietnam may appease public opinion even if the war itself drags on...
...Given the relative strengths and popular support of the two sides, this can be achieved only through some sort of coalition regime in South Vietnam...
...ITSELF the Nixon policy may "work" for a while, if only because war weariness is all but universal...
...Vietnamization, as the President has openly admitted, is a policy to end U.S...
...Nixon's scheme will meet with increas-have been only a few demonstrations in the ing opposition at home, whether or not it last few months by no means removes such a "works...
...military directign and participation...
...One hopes Mr...
...ground involvement in the war but not U.S...
...At the moment it looks like a fiasco...
...And to be honest, we don't much care...
...IN THE U.S...
...The most we can show are a few ex-sergeants, World War II vintage, who never achieved fame as nijlitary strategists...
...And lies...
...So we just don't know whether the invasion of Laos made any sense on strictly military grounds...
...The war itself can be brought to an end only by a political settlement...
...Information reaching us from Saigon indicates that NLF cadres have been instructed to "infiltrate" or dig into positions within the South Vietnamese government, so as to prepare for a sharpened political struggle once the U.S...
...by the time you read this, it may look worse...
...military presence has been reduced...
...withdraws its ground .troops, the South Vietnamese will be able to hold their own in combat...
...April 27, 1971 Whether, or for how long, this scheme will "work" in Vietnam itself remains a question...
...Mr, Nixon thinks, in the words of R. W. Apple, Washington correspondent of the New Statesman, that "all the country cares about is American casualties, and that he can therefore bomb away all over Indo-China, so long as the casualty lists are short enough, and still be in a good position for his re-election campaign...
...Nothing in Prof...
...But there is a catch: suppose the Vietnamization policy "works" at home but not in Vietnam...
...For what should now concern us especially is the systematic deceit, from one administration in Washington to another, by means of which the war is kept going...
...troops in Vietnam—but, again as the President said, it offers little chance to end the war...
...I. H...
...Remember pacification...
...When that question gets abroad in the land, as it seems to be doing, the President will be confronted with a new problem, because the killing is rendered no more palatable to us, the onlookers (even if it is less distasteful to the combatants), by being conducted through theme chanism of a bombsight at 5,000 feet...
...everyone recognizes the futility of fighting a war that can neither be won nor lost...
...Remember strategic ham> lets...
...It makes one sick...
...We need only recognize that the alternative is worse...
...troops, on land and in the air, into two additional countries, Cambodia and Laos, are described by Nixon spokesmen as "not extending the war...
...Still, if you consider the gradual increase of opposition to the war over the past few years, it may well be that the sheer persistence of Washington in dragging out a hopeless policy leads to a moral and political deepening of the sentiment against it...
...The main line of U.S...
Vol. 18 • June 1971 • No. 3
