A Reply to the Critics

Faced at home and abroad by attacks on his toughening policy toward Viet Nam, President Johnson last week set out to mollify his critics. In a major television speech, he announced that the U.S. is ready for "unconditional discussions" leading toward a Viet Nam settlement, offered to commit the U.S. to a billion-dollar investment toward a vague program for "development" in Southeast Asia. At the same time, but off the screen, he continued to step up the pace of the Vietnamese war.

The Peaceniks. Much of the protest to which Johnson responded was of the "please sign this petition" variety. At Columbia University, students collected 300 signatures for a cable to North Viet Nam's Communist Boss Ho Chi Minh:

"We are Americans who are deeply opposed to the U.S. bombing raids against the people of the D.R.V. We are doing what we can to stop these barbarous attacks. You have our respect and sympathy." Twenty-five hundred clergymen took a full-page advertisement in the New York Times to demand of the President, "In the Name of God, STOP IT!" A group called Women Strike for Peace mounted a widespread get-out-of-Viet Nam campaign. A student at the University of Michigan collected money to buy medical supplies for the Viet Cong.

But not all the criticism of U.S. policy was juvenile or emotional. France's feelings have long been known. Britain's Labor government was finding it increasingly difficult to defend the U.S. in Commons. The U.N.'s U Thant had long since criticized the Johnson Administration for failing to keep the U.S. informed of the "true facts" about Viet Nam. Canada's Prime Minister Lester Pearson made a speech in Philadelphia urging the U.S. to call a temporary halt in bombing North Viet Nam. And from a 17-nation conference in Belgrade, with countries ranging from Afghanistan to Zambia, came still another appeal for peace negotiations.

About the only foreign official willing to defend the U.S. in public was Australia's Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies. He not only praised U.S. determination in Southeast Asia but announced himself firmly opposed to negotiation under present circumstances. "If I am the only Prime Minister left to denounce it," cried Menzies, "I denounce it!"

The Crux. Despite such isolated backers as Menzies, President Johnson decided that he could not ignore all the criticism. Accepting a longstanding invitation to speak at Johns Hopkins University, the President appeared before students and faculty in Baltimore. He described the Vietnamese war as one of "unparalleled brutality," where "simple farmers are the targets of assassination and kidnaping. Women and children are strangled in the night because their men are loyal to the government. And helpless villages are ravaged by sneak attacks . . . terror strikes in the heart of cities."

What the U.S. seeks is "an independent South Viet Nam -- securely guaranteed . . . free from outside interference, tied to no alliance." Until that aim is achieved, said the President, "we will not be defeated; we will not grow tired; we will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement."

Then the President came to the crux of his message. The U.S., he declared, will "never be second" in working toward peace in Viet Nam. "There may be many ways to this kind of peace: in discussion or negotiation with the governments concerned; in large groups or in small ones; in the reaffirmation of old agreements or their strengthening with new ones. We have stated this position over and over again, 50 times --and more -- to friend and foe alike. And we remain ready, with this purpose, for unconditional discussions."

The President called for a "massive effort to improve the life of man" throughout Southeast Asia. The first step, he said, is "for the countries of Southeast Asia to associate themselves in a greatly expanded cooperative effort for development. We would hope that North Viet Nam would take its place in the common effort just as soon as peaceful cooperation is possible . . . For our part, I will ask Congress to join in a billion-dollar American investment in this effort as soon as it is under way." Such a program would mesh with an existing United Nations scheme, already in progress, to build a complex of dams, power plants and agricultural facilities in the Mekong Delta region of Southeast Asia.

The Promise. Finally, the President promised "to expand and speed up a program to make available our farm surplus to assist in feeding and clothing the needy in Asia. We should not allow people to go hungry and wear rags while our own warehouses overflow with an abundance of wheat and corn and rice and cotton. So I will very shortly name a special team of outstanding patriotic, distinguished Americans to inaugurate our participation in these programs. This team will be headed by Mr. Eugene Black, the very able former president of the World Bank."

The reactions to Johnson's speech came in like clockwork--and were just as predictable. Hanoi called it "deceitful propaganda," while Ho Chi Minh himself reiterated that the U.S. must withdraw from South Viet Nam before negotiations could begin. Red China's word for the day was "hoax." Elsewhere, the response was enthusiastically positive. Harold Wilson's government in London called the speech "statesmanlike," and the French welcomed it, especially since it reflected a long-held view of De Gaulle's. The United Nations' U Thant thought it was "positive, forward-looking and generous." Pundit Joseph Alsop called it a "great speech," and the New York Times, one of the most insistent of newspaper critics, announced itself pleased that Lyndon had finally come round.

Serving the Purpose. Still, the President's speech raised more questions than it answered. His hope for South Viet Nam to become an "independent" nation "tied to no alliance" seemed to some to be a contradiction in terms; after all, a basic ingredient of sovereignty is the right to make alliances. His visions of a great, cooperative development effort by the squabbling nations of Southeast Asia, in which the U.S., the U.S.S.R., Red China and Communist North Viet Nam would also participate, seemed totally illusory. His plan to give away surplus foods, bought by the U.S. Government under the farm-subsidy program, had been suggested often before--and been knocked down almost as fast, mostly by U.S. allies fearing that such action would wreck the world grain market.

As for the President's offer to enter into "unconditional discussions," it was a step back from the position, often stated both by Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, that the U.S. would not even consider negotiations until North Viet Nam gave strong evidence that it was stopping its aggression against South Viet Nam.

But the declaration obviously served the President's purpose of quieting his tormentors, both foreign and domestic --and thus giving him once again a free hand to act as the military situation dictated. And lest either Hanoi or Peking take the offer as a sign of a weakening of U.S. intentions, the President not only ordered that the bomb strikes against North Viet Nam be continued, but sent to South Viet Nam an additional 3,000 marines, bringing the total there to 7,800, along with a squadron of Marine Corps Phantom II jet fighters.

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