On Fighting a Limited War-n Exchange In Reply
ROCHE, JOHN P.
In Reply By John P. Roche WRITERScC^WRITING THE PURPOSE of my article was to stimulate some discussion on what seems to me to be the neglected dimension of the war in Vietnam. Since I am...
...Since I am still thinking my way along, I am hardly in the mood to argue strongly with Robert Lieber, who has taken about 1500 words to say "Be prudent...
...Fond as I am of cultural exchanges, I want to assure Mr...
...I am a strong believer in prudence myself, and I am sure that limited war would work brilliantly if the theater of operations were, say, the island of New Caledonia...
...Recently, Israeli Deputy Premier Yigal Allon said: "The word of President Johnson in the Six-Day War played a historic role by warning the Soviet Union that its military intervention would cause a global confrontation...
...Lieber and others that Lyndon Johnson did not restrain the Soviets by threatening to send the Peace Corps to the Middle East...
...I hope that the next time we undertake a limited war, we will be able to find a more generous opponent...
...And to say that one who opposes military intervention but favors the Peace Corps is not an isolationist, somehow seems to beg the point...
...The problem is that we need the cooperation of the enemy to move the war, and to date Ho Chi Minh has proved most uncooperative...
...Let me be specific...
...and has stated flatly that "if China should try to extend its military power beyond the limits the Chinese empire had reached about a century ago, it ought to be stopped . . . by the re{Time, April 22, 1966...
...With most of what Lieber says on the need for wisdom, I have no dispute whatsoever...
...I was, however, surprised to find Lieber citing Professor Hans Morgenthau as a proponent of more restrained limited war...
...Moreover, I don't know anyone in the Johnson Administration who would disagree with him...
...Historians will record that since the Second World War the President took one of the boldest and most just decisions made by any American President...
...Morgenthau has opposed the war in Vietnam as an example of futile "peripheral containment...
...I would argue (and will someday) that the alleged "globalism" of Johnson and Rusk is largely a creation of their critics...
Vol. 51 • December 1968 • No. 24
