"TACTICAL" NUCLEAR WEAPONS NEXT?
The Pentagon blueprint for "escalating" the civil war in South Vietnam becomes clearer each day. On March 22 the State Department casually admitted that supplies of poison gas had been delivered to the puppet South Vietnam government and that gas was being used against "Communist guerrillas." The State Department attempted to pass this off as being quite routine. The poison gas now being em-= ployed, sas the official spokesman, is not deadly; it is only "nauseous,"
Nevertheless a shudder went through the world, Johnson's decision to begin employing gas was only too reminiscent of Hitler's gas chambers. This time, however, there is an air of American efficiency about it -- the idea of turning an entire country, if not our entire planet, into a gas oven.
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The impression was reinforced by further frightening admissions. South Vietnamese bombers, according to boasts of the air force's operations chief March 21, used “white phosphorus bombs against the Vu Con camp's 40 military barracks housing more than a battalion of North Vietnamese Army troops." United Press International explained nonchalantly that "White phosphorus burns immediately upon, contact with air and cannot be extinguished except by submersion in oil."
These horrors are not all. Washington officials admitted March 19 to the U.S. using napalm bombs “in aerial strikes against North Vietnam." As Jack Raymond, special correspondent of the New . York Times coolly described it: "Such bombs contain a jelly sub-_ stance that slows down the rate of burning and increases the area of intense damage, They were used with devastating effect in World War II and the Korean conflict."
Napalm, white phosphorous, poison gas -- how far will this escalation of horrors proceed before the qualitative point is breached and the Pentagon begins using "tactical nuclear weapons" as an= other "modern conventional arm"?
It is obvious that Johnson is using Vietnam as a testing ground for the weapons designed for World War III.
The escalation is proceeding in other ways, too. The first — bombings of North Vietnam were described as "reprisals" for specific attacks on U.S. troops fighting in South Vietnam. This official excuse was dropped almost as soon as it was used. Once begun, the bombings became “measured” strikes against the continual support of North Vietnam for the guerrilla fighters. The measured strikes have now been steadily increased in rate until at the moment they are occurring on virtually a daily basis,
The movement northward has likewise gone in jumps towards Hanoi. American officials have listed their targets. They include industrial areas, populated sectors, the capital itself,
In still another way, the escalation is proceeding. At first, named targets only were bombed. Now the bombings have become indiscriminate. Pilots are sent out with loads of napalm, white phosphorus, high explosives, and these are dumped wherever they please. On March 18 Reuters reported that South Vietnamese planes killed 45 school children. The school, according to the mercenaries, was guilty of flying a "Viet Cong flag."
The enumeration of ways in which Johnson is escalating the war is not yet ended. One of his aims is to soften up world opinion, above all American opinion. The step-by-step procedure is designed by the Pentagon to accustom people to a gradation of horrors. Each step that is accepted prepares the ground for another more sickening step. In this way, the madmen in Washington count on leading the
American people over the brink.
Max Clos, special Sai on correspondent of the Paris daily Le Figaro reported [March 23) on the elation of a "high functionary" at the American embassy.
"Our humiliation is over," Clos reported the unnamed functionary as telling him. "We are no longer suffering defeat; we are now dealing it out."
According to Clos, the functionary then added: "We have shown that we are strong enough to do what we want to without having to take international opinion into account."
Only last October, says Clos, this same functionary was bitter, discouraged and furious: "We can't go on like this," he told Clos then, "It's crazy to let the Vietcong impose a war on us in the field where they want it and where they are expert -- guerrilla .war, If we want to avoid defeat, it's necessary to completely change our tactics.
That is what Johnson has done. Adopting the program of Goldwater, he is now risking a nuclear holocaust,
The danger has become enormously increased by the slowness of both Moscuw's and Peking's defensive reactions. This has encouraged Johnson and led him to move visibly closer to the point of no return.
Can this psychotic president be brought to reason? On March 9 the Central Committee of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation stated that its revolutionary struggie would be continued no matter what American imperialism did. On March 10 the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam demanded that the U.S. stop its war, withdraw all troops and war equipment from South Vietnam and let the South Vietnamese people settle their own internal affairs themselves, On March 12, the government of the People's Republic of China issued a statement backing this stand.
"We have prepared ourselves," said the statement. "The Chinese people will firmly and unswervingly take all possible measures to support the peoples of Vietnam and the whole of Indo-China in carrying the struggle against the U.S. aggressors through to the very end.!
Even in Moscow, Khrushchev'ts lethargic heirs appeared to be growing uneasy over the deteriorating situation. "The USSR is already taking measures to increase the defensive potential of North Vietnam," said Brezhnev March 23. "I can assure you that we will carry out our international obligations toward our brother North Vietnamese people. Our central organisms are receiving many requests from Soviet citizens wanting to participate in the. struggle of the Vietnamese people,"
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