The Politics of Vietnam

...The "bills payable" from the war in Vietnam will be coming due for a long time—a fact that will make it difficult indeed, if not impossible, for President Nixon to defuse Vietnam as an election issue as readily as he contends...

...Second, there is strong doubt whether this or any other bomber would be able to penetrate sophisti- cated defensive screens...

...In addition to braking pos- sible plans for Indochina by U.S...

...The De- fense budget calls for $370 million to begin work on three prototypes...

...Because of President Nixon's planned visit to Peking, all bets are subject to change...

...And how closely will U.S...

...in all its complex- ities it could once again contribute to the unmaking of another President...

...For, it must be stressed again, Mr...

...HERBERT MITGANG, journalist and his- torian, has visited wartime Vietnam...

...Army and the intelligence agencies will be required to stay in Vietnam, Thai- land, and elsewhere...

...military costs—the war alone, even on a reduced scale, has planned expendi- tures of $14 billion next year—with unemployment, housing, health care, food programs, educational support, transit, and hundreds of other domes- tic needs short-changed because of lack of Federal support, Senator McGov- ern and other outspoken Democratic Senatorial candidates for the Pres- idential nomination are trying to ex- pose the Administration's programmed peace rhetoric, such as Secretary of the Treasury John Connally's comments that "the boys will be home" by Elec- tion Day and any Presidential as- pirants campaigning against the Viet- nam War in 1972 will be "chasing rabbits...

...But while resisting a spe- cific timetable of withdrawal and a ceasefire arrangement, the Adminis- tration has failed to explain how its Oriental rug can be turned into an American magic carpet...

...Vietnamization and more bomb- ing work against the release of Amer- ican prisoners...

...Stories of massacres like Mylai emerge with returning vet- erans...

...It was the undoing of Lyndon Johnson...

...Peace is our profession," says the Air Force slogan...

...In this respect, Vietnamization will in- volve complex moral choices for the next American President...

...The assumption is that the public will not be concerned about the war if only casualties go down to an accept- able level...

...Thus the various Democratic ri- vals seeking the Johnson imprimatur at the convention will have to tread light- ly around the war documents and the war itself...

...Although President Nixon and the Administration palace guard have been vague about the risky presence in a political civil war of anywhere from 50,000 to 175,000 American troops spaced out from the Mekong Delta to the Demilitarized Zone after the 1971 withdrawals—and have avoided telling us whether next year fighter-bombers will still react protectively and B-52s still blast away at the mountain trails and villages of three nations to bolster Vietnamization—there has been no hesitation about describing the political significance of the war in 1972...

...Not only did O'Brien blithe- ly ignore the Administration's policy on the war, he spoke as if ignorant of the fact that his words could be used to help defeat the McGovern-Hatfield amendment to end the war, a proposal then due for a vote in the Senate...

...Not only will missiles systems be an issue in the Presidential campaign but so will the many other defense weap- ons pushed by each of the armed serv- ices at the cost of neglecting many crit- ical needs at home...

...Before then, and all during the Presidential primaries in this country, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will keep Vietnam in the forefront by hearings on the Pentagon Papers, past and present, Asian policy-making, and Presidential war powers...

...These are funda- mental matters that give aging stu- dents of the Vietnam involvement a feeling of deja vu as well as an un- predictable glimpse into the future...

...advice be fol- lowed when the artillery, aircraft, and the thousand-and-one pieces of Amer- ican military equipment are in the hands of the South Vietnamese...

...I think President Nixon wants peace as badly as anybody else," Senator Humphrey said...

...These are based on the premise of future Vietnams as well as Strangelovian intercontinental conflicts...

...Don't count on American casualties pulling silent levers in polling-places...

...Vietnamization is a cruel way out of this war because it subsidizes the continued killing of the people of In- dochina by technology and merce- naries," McGovern said in our inter- view...

...Nix- on and Johnson (and their Vietnam eminences, Henry Kissinger and Walt Rostow) are allies...

...Both will be fight- ing the influence or candidacy of Dem- ocrats long opposed to the Vietnam war and the charade of Vietnamiza- tion...

...Meanwhile, several of the Dem- ocratic rivals are continuing to stress Vietnam as history and morality—as a beast that must be identified and slain when America goes to the polls again...

...A member of the editorial board of The New York Times and an occasional con- tributor to The Progressive, he is editor of a new three-volume study, "Lincoln's Long Shadow," published by Quadrangle Books...

...It is also based on the no- tion that as long as it's quiet here at home Americans want to continue to prop up the Thieu-Ky regime...

...And the financial drain for Vietnam and overextended defense budgets will remain the major cause of unfulfilled domestic programs in the United States in future years...

...He goes beyond the ground and air combat into the matter of Vietnamiza- tion itself, which he regards as another form of immorality underwritten with American dollars committed well into 1972 and thereafter...

...The division within the Democratic ranks about how to handle the Viet- nam issue—regardless of how low the war profile has become by next sum- mer—can already be detected in the statements of Senator Hubert Hum- phrey...

...To raise these questions in the U.S...

...he indicated in his un- subtle way that President Nixon could profit by the revelations in 1972...

...Aware of the "odd couple" re- lationship between Johnson and Nix- on, the self-described Democratic titular leader is dancing on both sides of the Vietnam issue at the same time...

...Nixon was timing his Vietnamization program to Election Day...

...How many "advisers" from the U.S...

...Johnson's main in- terest in the 1972 Democratic nomina- tion...

...On the Democratic side, the doc- uments will remain as evidence that President Johnson and his aides played games with the electorate...

...I don't believe the President is playing politics with Viet- nam...

...The Air Force B-l is a case in point...

...John- son's approval...

...The additional billions would be needed for a tanker system to refuel the aircraft and for the armaments it would deliver...

...Nixon and his cam- paigners to pursue a high and low road at the same time on the Vietnam documents—blaming the Democrats for their involvement in the war and the press for lack of patriotic fervor by disclosing embarrassing informa- tion...

...Yet they will have to be debated if for no other reason than that American carriers will still be steaming along the coastlines of South- east Asia and American bomber groups will still be based within striking dis- tance of Vietnam...

...Nixon's sincerity, Senator Humphrey at the same time was reaching for Mr...

...This is the bomber that the Nixon Administration is sup- porting to replace the B-52...

...The discussions con- cerning Formosa and Vietnam will en- counter Chinese intransigence and pa- tience—and continue well past the next Inauguration in Washington...

...While some American ground forces are withdrawn from combat, this year and next, indiscriminate bombing goes on...

...But which candidate will be able to rip away the screen of Administration propaganda for new multibillion dol- lar weapons and show the voters the true picture of America's housing gap, its health care gap, its urban blight, and the neglect of millions of the poor even as unemployment widens...

...Thus it will be possible for Mr...

...The Vietnam war will be settled by dealing with Hanoi, not by high-level talks between Washington and Peking...

...I'm puzzled by Nixon's assurance that Vietnam won't be a factor before the Presidential election," Senator McGovern told me in his office recent- ly...

...By linking Vietnam and other U.S...

...The Air Force estimates that a fleet of 240 of the new bombers will cost $11.1 bil- lion—and will be ready, at the earliest, by 1978...

...Presidential campaign will under- score basic differences of opinion about the long-range commitment of the United States in Vietnam after a dec- ade of war...

...For good reason: the prosecution of the war and the avoidance of Congress and the public by the Kennedy and John- son Administrations have been con- tinued by the Nixon Administration...

...The political strategy hints that Nixon himself will be billed as the "peace candidate...

...Forget it, the White House spokes- men and spear carriers say...

...By praising Mr...

...How much "veto power" will they have over ambitious Vietnamese area commanders...

...To condemn the past is to condemn the present...

...First, it would not cost $11.1 billion but more like $47 billion, according to a study made by the bipartisan Mem- bers of Congress for Peace Through Law...

...The Taj Mahal that Mr...

...On the Republican side, the Nixon- Mitchell counterattack against the press in the courts revealed that they would prefer to put out the war news —even of previous administrations— on their own manipulative terms...

...Linked to both Vietnam and Viet- namization in 1972 will be the defense commitments that are now being made by the Nixon Administration affecting the rest of this decade...

...Sen- ator Gordon Allott of Colorado, the chairman of the Republican policy committee, revealed another line of attack by calling the publication of the classified papers irresponsible and dam- aging to the country...

...Democratic National Chairman Larry O'Brien followed the Humphrey statement with his own form of com- miseration for Mr...

...civilian and military officials—because of the knowledge that an unmuzzled press can monitor future mistakes by disclosing accountability instead of burying it in classified documents—the Vietnam history has caused the politics of 1972 to emerge more clearly through the smoke of evasion by candidates in both parties...

...The publication of the Pentagon Papers by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other papers again raised the unburied corpse of Vietnam...

...Pres- ident Nixon declares that anyone mak- ing an issue of the war will have "the rug pulled out from under him...

...Protecting his own Presidential rep- utation will be Mr...

...The Pres- ident, O'Brien contended, was wind- ing down the war as best as could be expected...

...Representative Paul McCloskey, the California gadfly who is President Nixon's open rival for the GOP nom- ination on the single issue of Viet- nam, has used the documents as added ammunition against further involve- ment in the war...

...That rug—the war issue—which he expects to pull out from under the candidates who expose it, may turn out to be nailed to the floor...

...Cutting of losses and diplo- matic trading with the People's Re- public could lead to concessions or to increased use of Vietnam as a pressure point—a sort of acupuncture by B-52...

...THE POLITICS OF VIETNAM by HERBERT MITGANG Washington, D.C...

...Then, too, the election in South Viet- nam could result in greater, not less, American political involvement because of the billions in economic aid that will be given to Saigon for rehabilitation...

...yet the mis- sile and bomber programs that the Administration wants to put into the defense pipeline for the years beyond 1972 say anything but that...

...Cost overruns, as usual, and inflation would add further bil- lions...

...The immediate reaction to the doc- uments by Senator Robert Dole of Kansas, the hawkish Republican Na- tional Chairman, was that they proved the Democrats were responsible for the Vietnam war...

...In this respect, Messrs...

...Even if the color of the corpses changes, as Eugene McCarthy has put it, and Vietnam becomes less of a thorn in 1972, Vietnamization and all it signifies will remain a crucial issue...

...He made this incredible state- ment in criticism of Senator Edward Kennedy's remark that Mr...

...The resolve of the North Vietnamese and Vietcong following the announced China visit has, if anything, been stronger...

...But the case against the B-l is manifold...

...The contrast between the failure to fund human needs and the bloated military funding in the name of "defense" will surely be a pertinent issue for the elec- tion campaign of 1972...

...Johnson has erected to himself on the banks of the Per- denales to house his documents—in- cluding a copy of the Pentagon Pa- pers which he can consult for his own commercial profit in the television and book fields but which are denied to reputable historians—serves as a reminder not only of his reign but of his war...

...Even if the Chinese wanted to sell their friends down the Mekong, they could not...

...With a nominal American presence, will op- position political parties be tolerated by a Saigon government dominated by generals...

...Johnson will oppose strong antiwar candidates—obviously George McGovern, and even Edmund Muskie if he shows too much spine—who lend credence to the Vietnam documents and tarnish his record by making an issue of the war...