What We Can Do About Vietnam
GOODWIN, RICHARD
THINKING ALOUD What We Can Do About Vietnam By Richard Goodwin All the hopes of a year ago that domestic America may be entering a new phase of progress and enlightment, have been swallowed up by...
...Despite the bombing, or because of it, there has been a vastly increased supply of aid to North Vietnam by Russia and China and a deepening world Communist commitment to this war...
...But that is not the question...
...It is to oppose any expansion of the bombing...
...It is not masked in obscurity or buried in secret archives...
...In other places I have set forth my views on the conduct of the war in South Vietnam: The belief that we have an important stake in Southeast Asia, and that we must continue the battle in the South-although differently than we are now doing-until a political settlement is reached...
...It must represent in speech and act the ideals of its society and civilization...
...The official statements justifying the Hanoi-Haiphong raids bore partial witness to the futility of bombing...
...In those confrontations the danger was clear and sensibly appraised...
...The Vietnamese war is, I believe, the most dangerous conflict since the end of World War II: more dangerous than Berlin or even Korea...
...and the most recent proposals may indicate the government is turning its attention in that direction-if these are being supplemented by meaningful private discussions concerning the terms of political settlement...
...Thus, step by step, China may become involved in a war it did not fully contemplate, much as we have...
...I believe there are other things to do...
...the present course...
...This is such a time...
...All prophecy is an exercise in probability...
...and above all, if it carries tremendous political and military risks, then it should not be increased, either out of frustration with the war or with the polls...
...Its purpose would be to help the President and others in government by providing a counter pressure against those who urge a more militant course...
...Nor can China stand by and see its ally destroyed...
...The fight is no longer a war for the South but a struggle for survival calling their still largely uncommitted armies and people into battle...
...It is easy to be tough when toughness means coercing the weak or rewarding the strong...
...We have predicted victory and called for compromise, and the war has grown larger...
...Much of it is important and sincere and well-meaning...
...Perhaps Chinese pilots will begin to fly air defense over Hanoi...
...And there are many signs that this process has already begun...
...There is, therefore, little escape from the conclusion that it will grow larger still...
...Its sole aim would be to mobilize and inform the American people in order to increase the invisible weight of what I believe to be the American majority in the deliberations and inner councils of government...
...We are buried in statements and speeches about negotiation and peace, the defense of freedom and the dangers of Communism, the desire to protect the helpless and compassion for the dying...
...And so we move inexorably up the ladder of failure toward widening devastation...
...To be most effective this position will require more than speeches and resolutions...
...They have simply been rejected in favor of another course...
...a pressure for which those in government should be grateful since it would help them pursue the course of wise restraint...
...Objectives were carefully limited...
...and if past is prologue we will continue that enlargement...
...Yet with full allowance for necessary uncertainties I believe there has never been such intense and widespread deception and confusion as that which surrounds this war...
...Of course, in times of armed conflict facts are often elusive and much information, of necessity, cannot be revealed...
...It is in this same spirit of concern for our country that we should conduct our dissent as, on that day, did Lyndon B. Johnson then leader of the minority party...
...The picture of our country needlessly weakened in the world today is so painful that we should turn our eyes from abroad and look homewards...
...THINKING ALOUD What We Can Do About Vietnam By Richard Goodwin All the hopes of a year ago that domestic America may be entering a new phase of progress and enlightment, have been swallowed up by the corrosive struggle in Vietnam...
...And what is happening is not confusing or unclear or contradictory at all...
...By its nature war is hostile to truth...
...If we take for example, the number of enemy we are supposed to be killing, add to that the defectors, along with a number of wounded much less than our own own ratio of wounded to killed, we find we are wiping out virtually the entire North Vietnamese force every year...
...With that caution let us try to strip the argument of its necessary passion and discuss the probabilities which are compelled by the awesome logic of the course of events in Vietnam...
...We have heard little about it since...
...And if China does enter we must bomb them, for certainly we will not permit them sanctuaries or, if it comes to that, engage their armies solely in the jungles of Southeast Asia...
...But it can crystallize the inarticulate objections of many...
...But the important thing is not what we are saying, but what we are doing...
...I believe there is such a position...
...Nor is China's entrance likely to be signalled by a huge and dramatic sweep of armies across the frontier...
...Our friends and allies are frightened and wondering, as we do, where we are headed...
...It is the idealistic, visionary and impractical faith that action and policy and politics must rest on the ancient and rooted values of the American people...
...Of course the enemy is glad to see our divisions...
...The air is charged with rhetoric...
...and that whole society-factories, dams, power plants, cities themselves-must be brought tumbling down...
...What else can we do...
...And in so doing we will fulfill the most solemn duty of free men in a free country: to fight to the limit of legal sanction and the most spacious possibilities of our constitutional freedom for the safety and greatness of their country as they believe it to be...
...not what is being discussed, but what is happening...
...At the time of the Hanoi-Haiphong bombings last June, we were told that in the first six months of 1966 enemy truck movement had doubled, the infiltration of supplies was up 150 per cent, and infiltrated personnel increased 120 per cent...
...There are fierce debates over the history of the war, the nature of its participants, the goals of our enemies...
...It is an argument which monstrously misconceives the nature and process and the greatest strength of American democracy...
...There are those who wish us to withdraw...
...It has not destroyed his capacity to make war, or seriously slowed down either infiltration or the flow of supplies...
...We have offered funds for development and talked of social reform, and the war has grown larger...
...It will need structure and purpose...
...It is: No wider war...
...Nor is this steady pattern the consequence of inexorable historical forces...
...Most importantly, it strikes at the most ominous menace to the lives of millions and the peace of the world...
...At each step it was claimed the bombing would make a decisive difference...
...All of this is possible despite the fact that each future escalation will probably have the effect of previous escalations...
...Without sacrificing individual views we must also shape a unified stand, a focal point of belief and action which can unite all who apprehend coming dangers...
...And recent information indicates that the opposite was the case-the enemy's will was strengthened...
...It denies the germinal assumption of our freedom: that each individual not only can but must judge the wisdom of his leaders...
...At one time we are told there is no military solution, and then that victory can be ours...
...We are given endless statistics with a numerical precision which only masks the fact that they are based on inadequate information, or guesses, or even wishful thinking...
...Next, we would persuade the North Vietnamese to come to the council table...
...Within a few days a high official said fresh intelligence showed that Hanoi was now plunged in gloom, weary of war, and suffused with a sense of hopelessness, presumably at least in part as a result of the raids...
...It is in part a product of Communist hope and drive for victory...
...although individuals who oppose escalation may also hold those views...
...Nor is this, as we are sometimes told, because there is no alternative...
...The statements which followed the Hanoi-Haiphong bombings are an illuminating example of this process in action...
...Nor do I lack personal feeling...
...There are dozens of alternatives...
...The fact is the air is full of alternatives...
...It is far harder to hold to principle, speaking, if necessary, alone against the multitude, allowing others to make their own mistakes, enduring the frustration of long and inconclusive struggles, and standing firm for ideals even when they bring danger...
...First it was said we wanted to stop infiltration...
...Yet the increase in Soviet and Chinese aid, since the bombing, is far greater, in economic terms, than the loss through bombing...
...For it ignores the realities of human faith and passion and desire-forces ultimately more powerful than all the calculations of economists and generals...
...We were told the raids were necessary because infiltration had increased enormously: an officiai admission of the failure of one of the most intensive bombing campaigns in world history...
...The search for a settlement can be given greater direction and brilliance...
...It would neither be against the Administration nor for it, neither with any political party nor opposed to it, neither liberal nor conservative...
...But it is the true path of courage...
...Except in human life, the North Vietnamese are showing a profit...
...We can prepare ourselves, if necessary, to accept a long ground war of attrition leading ultimately to a political settlement...
...It is far more likely that increasing destruction in the North will stimulate or compel the Chinese to accelerate the nature and kind of their assistance...
...Such a stand will not end the war in South Vietnam...
...Even then enough will survive for the race to evolve and perhaps create something finer...
...Richard Goodwin, a former special assistant to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, now at Wesleyan's Center for Advanced Studies, is author of Triumph or Tragedy: Reflections on Vietnam...
...Only in this way can we create a voice strong enough to be heard across the country, bringing together men of diverse beliefs, adding strength to the views of those in government who share this apprehension...
...and power ultimately became the handmaiden of reason and final accommodation...
...This is not a belief born of personal fear...
...There are enclave programs, and programs to hold the centers of population...
...for in that war are the swiftly germinating seeds of the most grave danger...
...Despite thousands upon thousands of raids, more men and supplies are flowing South and the routes of infiltration have been widened and improved...
...Then we would punish them and force them to surrender...
...Although I believe deeply in this proposal, I do not wish to give the argument a certainty I do not have...
...If the bombing cannot win the war, if it does not work...
...I do not believe China wants to fight the United States, at least not yet...
...but that is the basic necessity of those who seek not self indulgence but to shape the course of this nation...
...And we must suppose those same decisions will continue to be made...
...It is to speak and work against all who would enlarge the war in the North...
...However, the fact is we do not know, except in the most vague and general way, how much supplies are being brought in or how many men...
...It would then be truly a paper dragon, stoking the fires of revolution only when Chinese blood and land was not at stake...
...Thus it would be open to all groups who oppose escalation in the North regardless of their position on other issues, and would be open to the millions of Americans who belong to no group but who share this basic belief and apprehension...
...it lies at the root of war and of hatred of war...
...Yet the fantastic fact, the truth that challenges belief, is that this is being done although virtually no one remains beside some of the engaged military and a few men in the State Department-virtually no one in the Administration or out-who believes that increased bombing will have a decisive effect on the war in South Vietnam...
...What is American policy in Indochina...
...There are suggestions that we rely on pacification of the countryside rather than the destruction of the Vietcong...
...It has paralyzed the New Frontier and the Great Society, and is eroding our position throughout the world...
...Moreover, from other cold war confrontations there evolved a set of tacit understandings designed to limit conflict even while it was being waged...
...Now men are talking of the need to destroy their capacity to make war...
...It will increase the dangers of wider war, lessen the chances of a negotiated settlement, drain away effort which should be concentrated in the South, further alienate our allies, and have little damaging effect on the enemy's ability or will to fight...
...Still, I believe this is the way we are going...
...The surest guarantee of misfortune is resignation...
...It is rather a belief born of a fallible reason and analysis, always better able to describe our situation than guide our action, which seeks in the acts of our past and the attitude of our present a guide for our future...
...And we must also suppose they will continue to be rejected...
...It must also be a clear and direct stand...
...There was no substantial intelligence of this kind...
...Our strength is in our spirit and our faith...
...We have been caught bluffing by our enemies...
...but it cannot stand by while we destroy North Vietnam...
...Only A dozen years ago, in 1954, another American leader assaulted our policy in Vietnam, saying "The United States is in clear danger of being left naked and alone in a hostile world...
...We have gone to the United Nations, and the war has grown larger...
...Among the greatest names in our history were men who did not hesitate to assault the acts and policies of government when they felt the good of the nation was at stake: Jefferson at a time when the integrity of the new nation was still in doubt, Lincoln during the Mexican war, Roosevelt in the midst of national depression, John F Kennedy among cold war defeats and danger...
...How marvelously that principle has strengthened this country- never more dramatically than in the post-war period when others have buried contending views under the ordained wisdom of the state, thus allowing received error to breed weakness and even defeat...
...There are times when dissenters give aid and comfort to the enemy and times when they are acting in the greatest of our traditions...
...We have been reassured about efforts to reach a peaceful settlement when there has been no plan or program for settlement in existence...
...The war can be fought more effectively in the South...
...In this, as in so many aspects of the war, much of the information which feeds judgment is deeply obscured...
...An entirely different course is possible...
...just as each previous time the bombing has failed we have been told that more bombing is necessary and new goals are articulated...
...There are those who believe we have no interest in Vietnam or even in all of Asia...
...The number of Chinese troops in North Vietnam may be greatly increased...
...Yet these raids had been anticipated, alternative techniques of providing fuel had been developed, and the raids were destined to have little if any effect on the North Vietnamese capacity to make war...
...The examples are legion...
...but it is partly our decision too...
...It will not fully answer the deep objections, feelings and fears of many across the country...
...The swiftness with which we change our estimates only shows that seeming exactness conceals large uncertainties...
...Yet despite confusion and misstatement, despite the enormous difficulty of grasping the realities on which policy must be based, I believe we can know that further escalation of the war in the North will only bring us farther from settlement and closer to serious danger of a huge and devastating conflict...
...Such a rallying cry requires compromise, the willingness to seek less than is desired...
...All of us have listened to the dismal themes of reversal and confusions and alarms and excursions which have emerged from Washington...
...The most important fact of all, the unknown which transcends all debate, are the thoughts and intentions of our adversaries and their allies...
...Passion is important...
...That, for example, is the real meaning of the no-sanctuary policy carefully observed, we should remember, by both sides...
...It is the only path of wisdom...
...This would not be aimed at withdrawal or even a lessening of the war in the South...
...I do not wish, however, to come with a counsel of despair...
...Some part of the conflict in Vietnam may have been unavoidable, some is the result of well-intentioned error, but some must surely flow from the fact we have bent belief to the demands of those who call themselves realists or tough minded...
...Despite the bombing, or because of it, North Vietnam has become increasingly dependent upon Russia and China...
...Rarely has there been greater need for such unity among men of good will...
...The truth is that this major and spectacular escalation in the war had had little measurable effect on the enemy's capacity or morale, and most of those who looked at the matter seriously in advance of the bombing knew it would probably be ineffective...
...It stands in clear, vivid and towering relief against the landscape of conflict...
...The stakes were fairly obvious to both sides...
...The fact is that aid was stepped up as we anticipated it would be...
...We are told the bombing is terribly costly to North Vietnam...
...And lastly is the Soviet Union, forced to choose between China and America...
...There are months when we talk about negotiations and months when we forget them...
...For we must fight against fulfillment of Yeat's prophecy which foresaw destruction if the time should come when "the best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity...
...Yet we once again hear voices calling for further escalation...
...This truly makes their continued resistance one of the marvels of the world...
...Yet we can perhaps now meet more productively on the common ground of reason...
...The virgin lands settlement and the Great Leap Forward failed because experiment was made into unchallengeable law...
...Unless the figures are wrong, which of course they are...
...American liberalism has many faces...
...As predicted by almost every disengaged expert, from General Ridgeway to George Kennan, and as taught by the whole history of aerial warfare, bombing has neither brought the enemy to his knees or to the council table...
...for only the strongest of feelings could impel me to discuss a subject with which I was so recently connected in so intimate a way...
...But the danger of such a chain of events grows by immeasurable strides each time we enlarge the war in the North...
...For such capacity rests on the entire society...
...There are proposals for negotiations, complete with all the specifics of possible agreement...
...Part of it, however, is simply and naively a belief in belief...
...a course which defies reason and experience alike...
...To do so would forfeit all its claim to moral and political leadership of militant Communism...
...We were told, in an inside story in the New York Times, that the bombings would prove to Hanoi it could not count on its allies...
...None of this is certain...
...Yet it has made hardly any difference at all...
...Such a committee could provide a constant flow of objective information about Vietnam...
...Here, however, I would like to discuss the lengthening shadow of the war in the North...
...Some is intended to deceive...
...They move at night, sometimes on trails we have not yet discovered, and the best intelligence gives only the most vague picture...
...It cannot be captured in an epigram or summarized in a simple statement of belief...
...and when men of power and influence stand ready to applaud...
...It was said the raids would destroy a large proportion of North Vietnam's fuel capacity and this would help paralyze-or at least slow down-the process of infiltration...
...Some have called upon us to mute or stifle dissent in the name of patriotism and the national interest...
...For the greatest danger of this course-the course of escalation-is not only in the extent of devastation and death, or the damage it does to the hope of peaceful solution, but the fact that each step of the way increases in vast proportion the danger of a huge and bloody conflict...
...It may even prolong it...
...And it is the sure path of effective service to the United States of America...
...one that fires response in those millions of our fellow citizens who glimpse through complexity, discord and obscurity the vision of something dark and dangerous...
...The continual downpour of contradictions, misstatements, and kaleidoscopically shifting attitudes has been so torrential that it has almost numbed the capacity to separate truth from conjecture or falsehood...
...It is the steady inexorable course of this conflict since its beginning...
...It may well increase the weight and impact of the forces of restraint...
...In Vietnam, on the other hand, the dangers are confused and unclear...
...Today those understandings are in grave danger of being swept away, and with them our most important protections against enlarging conflict...
...It could keep vigil over official statements and ask the hard questions which might help separate wishful thinking from facts...
...But our concern is with America not Hanoi...
...that only beneficent and uncertain fortune can bar the way...
...It still believes that for a nation to be great, to serve its own people and to command the respect and trust of others, it must not only do something but stand for something...
...Therefore, we must all make what effort we can...
...It is apparent only that American foreign policy has never in all its history suffered such a stunning reversal...
...We could not only be wrong, but enormously wrong...
...It is simply the victorious slogan of the Democratic party in 1964...
...Every month there are more men in combat, more bombs failing, greater expenditures, deeper commitments...
...And this was clear at the time we bombed...
...while we began to catch up in space, modernized and increased our defenses, and started the Alliance for Progress because what began as dissent became national purpose...
...Objectives are expressed in vague generalities which open to endless vistas...
...It is not realistic or hardheaded to solve problems and invest money and use power unguided by ultimate aims and values...
...This article, adapted from a recent speech to the executive board of ADA, is a further development of his views on the subject...
...The war is getting larger...
...Some is deliberate lie and distortion...
...There are enormous differences among the critics of the war...
...We began the campaign of bombing in the North as a result of the enormous and unresolved difficulties of winning the real war, the war in the South...
...It is thoughtless folly...
...And the latest goal, the destruction of enemy capacity, if ever adopted, will be the most vaguely ambitious of all...
...In fact, the tempo of conflict has increased...
...It flows from the decisions of particular men in particular places-in Washington and Hanoi, in Saigon and in the jungle headquarters of the Vietcong...
...But there is more than that in the liberal faith...
...for example, the organization of a national committee against widening of the war...
...Yet skepticism born of imperfect knowledge cannot be permitted to dull the passion with which we pursue convictions or the fervor of our dissent...
...And I have, like many others, discussed alternative routes to these objectives...
...Our concern is with those millions of our own people, and with future generations, who will themselves be glad to see that there were men who struggled to prevent needless devastation and thus added to the strength and the glory of the United States...
...In short, the bombing has been a failure and may turn out to be a disaster...
...There are proposals to limit the bombing or to end it...
...Despite the bombing, or perhaps because of it, all signs indicate the North Vietnamese will to fight has stiffened and the possibilities of negotiation have dimmed...
...Chinese anti-aircraft crews may be placed throughout the country...
...But our danger is so grave that those who fear the future even more than they distrust the past-a group which encompasses, I believe, the majority of the American people-must seek some common ground rather than dissipating energies in exploring the varieties of dissent...
...We are taking likely and mounting risks in pursuit of an elusive, obscure, marginal and chimerical hope...
...These arguments have been practical ones founded, to the limits of my capacity and knowledge, upon the concrete and specific realities and dangers of our present situation...
...If we neglect this we may empty our treasuries, assemble our armies and pour forth the wonders of our science, but we will act in vain and we will build for others...
...It is not our privilege, but our duty as patriots, to write, to speak, to organize, to oppose any President and any party and any policy at any time which we believe threatens the grandeur of this nation and the well-being of its people...
...This is the most likely and grave route to enlarging conflict...
...If North Vietnam is devastated then all reason for restraint or compromise is gone...
...It pursues divergent paths to varied and sometimes conflicting goals...
...There are those, like myself, who believe we should carry on the war in the South while intensifying, modifying and sharpening the search for peaceful compromise tied to some measures of de-escalation in the North...
...After all, we, or most of us, will continue to work and prosper, unless all of our civilization is swallowed up...
Vol. 49 • November 1966 • No. 22
