A TIME T O TALK
PROGRESSIVE "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free' A Time "W7"orld public opinion and Amer-*' ican policy in Vietnam were locked on a collision course this month. From...
...His silence may well reflect his need for freedom and flexibility of maneuver in seeking the best possible position for bargaining...
...McGeorge Bundy, the President's special adviser on foreign affairs, returned from Saigon aglow with hope for orderly government stirred by the American show of force...
...He inherited a staggering mess in Vietnam...
...The late President Kennedy's judgment, on September 2, 1963, that "the war cannot be won unless the Vietnamese people support the effort" is as true today as it was then...
...If we are not happy with proposals of the many putative peacemakers around the world, what prevents the United States from presenting its own meaningful proposals for negotiations...
...It has been argued in some Administration quarters that the North Vietnamese have made no move for peace...
...Item—U Thant, Secretary-General of the United Nations, called for immediate negotiations and revealed he had presented "concrete ideas and proposals" to "some of the principal parties directly involved," including the United States...
...Recent dispatches from South Vietnam reveal that fully thirty per cent of the conscripted Vietnamese troops desert within six weeks—not for lack of bravery but because they feel no stake in a war they regard as a struggle of the great powers for strategic position in Southeast Asia...
...The painful fact—confirmed by just about every correspondent on the scene —is that South Vietnam is crumbling...
...And the situation regarding China is far from clear...
...What government, for example...
...Item—Prime Minister Lai Bahadur Shastri of India called on President to Talk Johnson and Soviet Premier Kosygin to confer as soon as possible on a peaceful solution...
...He has seemed to turn for counsel much more to those who are identified with the tough line of the warhawks than he has to those, many in his own party, who plead for a negotiated agreement...
...Item—The Soviet Union announced officially that it was identifying itself with France in an effort "to bring about peace by means of an international conference...
...We have much sympathy for the President...
...Item — Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson urged establishment of an international peace-keeping force to seal South Vietnam's borders to infiltrators and stop the fighting...
...George E. Reedy, the President's press secretary, said the other day: "There are no meaningful proposals for negotiations that are before our government...
...Johnson said our objective "is to join in the defense and protection of freedom of a brave people who are under attack...
...Perhaps the most ridiculous example of the latter weakness occurred recently...
...The French insist the contrary is true, but even if the French are wrong, why should Hanoi's silence deter us from taking the initiative...
...Item—French President Charles de Gaulle renewed his plea for a peaceful settlement that would neutralize Southeast Asia...
...And everything that has happened in the intervening year and a half confirms the hard fact that popular support has declined markedly rather than increased...
...As for the people of this country, they, too, have indicated their commitment to a policy of negotiation...
...There is precious little freedom to defend and protect in South Vietnam...
...Item—A number of the principal spokesmen for Buddhism in South Vietnam launched a peace movement whose aim is to force all foreign military forces out of both South and North Vietnam as the preliminary step toward establishment of a "reconciliation committee" that would seek to reunite the two halves of Vietnam...
...The people of this country were assured that U.S...
...As long ago as last sumJ mer, Walter Lippmann observed: "The truth, which is being obscured from the American people, is that the Saigon government has the allegiance of probably no more than thirty per cent of the people and controls (even in daylight) not much more than a quarter of the territory...
...His burden is great...
...Consider the facts, however...
...Some appreciation of the scope of worldwide pressure for negotiations can be gained from these developments: Item—The Vatican disclosed that Pope Paul has confidentially approached world leaders in an effort to bring about "an honorable and peaceful settlement" in Vietnam...
...Then, suddenly, and again to the surprise of our officials, the newly "invigorated" government collapsed in the face of still another military coup...
...Our own government, moreover, is constantly expressing "surprise" as one coup follows another—and this despite the fact that Saigon is swarming with agents of the Central Intelligence Agency who might be presumed to have some idea of what is going on...
...The apathy, indifference, and, in many cases, the downright hostility to us on the part of the people of South Vietnam, have been so great that the military situation has deteriorated to the lowest level since hostilities began...
...It is difficult to assess his reasoning, so complete is the censorship enforced by the White House on any discussion of Presidential thinking and planning on the subject of Vietnam...
...But when it does speak up on rare occasions, the Johnson Administration is far from convincing in explaining or defending the role it is playing in Vietnam...
...Given this worldwide pressure for a negotiated settlement, why does President Johnson not only back but order a widening of the war...
...His is a painfully difficult assignment, but we believe his task is measurably lightened by the revelation of polls demonstrating that the vast majority of Americans prefer the course of sanity, which is to take the prolonged conflict to the conference table...
...Despite these reverses and despite mounting pressure at home and abroad for a negotiated settlement even from some Senators who are usually his most stalwart supporters, President Johnson has been pursuing an ever more belligerent course...
...bombing of North Vietnam was infusing new spirit and morale in the South Vietnamese government and military establishment...
...In view of all these developments, and others we do not have the space to chronicle, it seems clear that the only principal powers resisting negotiation are the United States and Communist China...
...There have been at least eight different regimes in the past sixteen months...
...And conditions have worsened significantly since this estimate was published by one 'of the most knowledgeable of American commentators...
...The evidence is overwhelming that the Vietcong rebels, Communist-directed and partially supplied by North Vietnam, could not have achieved their spectacular successes without significant support from the South Vietnamese peasantry—for whom we say we are fighting...
...On other occasions he and his aides have insisted we have a right to be in Vietnam because its government asked us to help...
...The Administration's argument that our role in Vietnam is justified because our aid was sought by the government of South Vietnam is equally unpersuasive...
...The people have had no more voice in the succession of governments than the people of totalitarian China have in their government...
...The people suffer under the iron control of a ruthless military dictatorship they had no voice in choosing...
...Well, why not...
...Item—The New York Times reported from Paris that North Vietnam recently urged the French government to intensify its efforts for a negotiated settlement...
...As for the "brave people" to whom the President referred we have no doubt the South Vietnamese are as brave as any people...
...French officials disclosed that as early as last December, President Ho Chi Minh had told the French he wanted to discuss the basis for an accommodation with the United States either directly and privately or through a third party...
...From virtually every major country on earth, and from such ideologically divergent centers as the Vatican and the Kremlin, came urgent pleas for a negotiated settlement of the conflict...
...By an overwhelming vote last November they rejected Republican candidate Barry Goldwater's demand for escalation of the war in Vietnam...
...The French, who have their own listening post in China, are convinced, The New York Times reported from Paris, that "despite Chinese demands that the United States withdraw from Southeast Asia as a condition for a peace meeting, Peking would accept a conference with U.S...
...Thus, in one of his few recent utterances on the crisis in Southeast Asia, Mr...
...And more recently, despite their approval of specific acts of military reprisal after they have been ordered by the President, the great majority of Americans—an extraordinary eighty-one per cent, according to the latest Gallup Poll— support an international conference that would include Communist China "to see if a peace agreement can be worked out...
...Even earlier, at the first meeting between President Johnson and U Thant after President Kennedy's death, The Times noted, Thant gave the President a message from Ho suggesting early talks on a settlement...
...The United States has been unable to fashion a government that could command, or was even faintly interested, in enlisting the support of the people...
...Item—In Geneva, the World Council of Churches, representing 214 autonomous Protestant, Anglican, and Orthodox churches, urged a negotiated settlement, and called for an end of United States and other foreign intervention...
...Item—British Prime Minister Harold Wilson's government, although unwilling to embarrass the United States publicly, embarked on informal exploration of the possibility of early peace talks...
...troops still in South Vietnam...
...But they are sick of the war and disgusted with their government...
...We do not know...
...It would be no sign of weakness, but, on the contrary, a sign of great moral strength and creative political leadership if President Johnson repudiated the warhawks and called for an immediate cease fire, to be followed by an international conference, perhaps of the same nations which participated in the Geneva conference of 1954, to seek an honorable and enduring settlement of what has long since become a stupid, aimless, and costly conflict...
...The American response was to escalate the war and drop the last pretense that our military forces in Vietnam were serving only as advisers and assistants to the Saigon government...
Vol. 29 • April 1965 • No. 4
