WORLD OPINION CONTINUES TO MOUNT AGAINST JOHNSON
By Joseph Hansen
The daring bombing of the U.S. embassy in Saigon March 30 and the aerial encounter in North Vietnam April 4 are substantial indications of stiffening resistance to Johnson's "measured escalation" of the war in Vietnam. The sudden squeeze play in Berlin
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that began April 5 can also be interpreted as a warning that the period of paralysis in face of Johnson's monstrous decision to launch war on North Vietnam and to rattle H-bombs over China and the Soviet Union is coming to a close.
The attack on the U.S. embassy was reportedly carried out by two lone Vietnamese freedom fighters, one of whom gave his life in the action. The other is most likely being submitted to torture preparatory to execution in accordance with the barbarous custom of the South Vietnamese puppet government and their American "advisers." But the sacrifice made by the two is being hailed throughout the _ colonial world, and the effort of the war propagandists in the U.S. to utilize their heroic action to counter the repercussions to American use of noxious gas in the conflict is not getting very far.
To the Pentagon the defeat suffered in the air combat April 4 was even more stunning. A few obsolete MIGs, piloted by North Vietnamese, moved against a convoy of American bombers invading their country on a mission of death and destruction. The government of North Vietnam reported that 37 American planes were downed without the loss of a single North Vietnamese plane. The American planes were ultramodern, some of them with twice the speed of the Vietnamese planes and equipped with heat-seeking air-to-air missiles.
In Saigon the loss of two F-105s and two Skyraiders was admitted, but as for the other 33 planes, officials tried to get around this by saying some planes were missing; the number, however, could not be revealed "for security reasons." Since then the Pentagon has been busy explaining how the defeat could occur. The reasons are not without interest. The American pilots, it seems, were “caught by surprise." They hadn't expected any defense against their murderous mission. In addition, their planes were so heavily loaded with bombs that they lacked maneuverability. Besides which, some of the planes are so fast, have such fire-power and range that they are really effective only in fighting on an intercontinental scale, not on a local level.
The last argument has a familiar ring. When Johnson launched the war on North Vietnam in February, one of the reasons was the incapacity of the U.S. to fight the South Vietnamese by the rules of guerrilla warfare. As the Washington propagandists explained it, the U.S. was freeing itself from these limitations and widening the war to a scale better suited to American capacities.
Part of the explanation -for the American air defeat thus constitutes the beginning of an argument for widening the war still further so that American methods of fighting will be better served.
Johnson plunged into this war without any real backing from his allies, without the services of the United Nations, with the American people opposed, and with sectors of the American capitalist class itself highly dubious about the advisability of the
adventure. This is unprecedented in American history.
Johnson's War can rapidly prove to be the most unpopular ever engaged in by American imperialism; and Johnson himself can become the most hated and despised president.
In foreign capitals, if we leave aside the puppets more or less directly on the American payroll, Johnson is vigorously supported only by Harold Wilson, . and even this _regime is finding that Thus Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart, who happened to be in Washington at the height of the world-wide ‘storm over the American use of gas in Vietnam, felt compelled to declare [March 24] that he had told Secretary of State Rusk there was "very grave concern" in Britain and elsewhere, and that in the "choice of measures" the Pentagon should keep in mind "the effect on people around the world.' “What I am, .in fact, asking the United States to display is. what. your Declaration of Independence called 'a decent respect Par: the opinion of mankind.'"
Johnson was reported to have been furious over this remark, and Stewart did his best to make up for it while Wilson heroically sought to apologize even in Johnson's "choice of measures."
Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, who talked with Johnson at Camp David April 3, proposed in a public speech the . previous night in Philadelphia that the U.S. suspend bombings in North Vietnam, at least temporarily.
Johnson reacted with characteristic fury to the suggestion, and the Canadian government backed down fast, explaining that Pearson had meant no harm, mr,
A petition signed by 17 nations [Afghanistan,. Algeria, Ceylon, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, India, Iraq, Kenya, Nepal, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Republic, Yugoslavia, Zambia and Uganda], asking that "negotiations for peace" be opened "as soon as possible without posing any preconditions, " was given to Rusk April 1.
The petition, drawn up “in Belgrade in mid-March, deplored the "recourse to force" in Vietnam, and stated that the continued use of force in Vietnam "can only lead to the aggravation of the conflict in that area and to its transformation into a more generalized war with catastrophic consequences,"
The pressure of world opinion is mounting heavily against Washington, but it remains to be seen whether Johnson is as yet prepared to make more than verbal concessions':to the denunelations of his war policy and the horror over ‘his course. an
The truth is that the Pentagon and the White House, feeling that they were “gotting away with it, " that the aggression against
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North Vietnam was "paying off," have been considering moving in stitl deeper, 7 The sinister General Maxwell D. Taylor, one of the architects of U.S. policy in Southeast Asia, flew into Washington for a week of "conversations" with the rest of the White House camarilla. The main topic was reportedly the failure to bring the North Vietnam government. to its knees after two months of bombings. Every indication was that the warmongering crew around Johnson were unanimous on the advisability of stepping up the "escalation" still more. James — Reston, one of the New York Times editorial writers ‘said [ifarch 29] that "new decisions have to be made in the next few days, and they may be among the most important political and military decisions since the last World War."
An editorial in the same paper on the same day, deploring the isolation of the United States and the need for a more. flexible diplomatic policy, declared that support from world opinion "willbe needed, especially if the war in Vietnam is about to enter a new’ and more virulent phase."
The venerable Walter Lippmann declared March 31 that Johnson is “wrestling with momentous and fateful decisions."
An editorial in the Paris daily Le Monde of April 3 suggested that Washington is faced with a "great | temptation" -~- the temptation of extending. the war: to China. :
The influence of China is now widening throughout the colonial world, said Ie Monde. “At the :same time, the Chinese-Soviet differences, the present weakness of Peking in modern military means which Moscow is no longer furnishing her, constitute an occasion which, in the eyes of many specialists in both the State Department and the Pentagon, will perhaps never be repeated.”
All the more ominous in the light of these indications, ‘was - Gen. Taylor's declaration.just before he left Washington April 5. Asked about possible negotiations to.end the war, he responded: "There is nothing and nobody to negotiate with, mn?
This should be coupled with the disclosure March 26 by Arthur Krock, New York Times columnist who has long been an intimate of the State Department, that. "world opinion" is now disregarded in State Department calculations. Krock is pleased with this. In his opinion it is a "sterile policy" to pay attention to what the world thinks.
The danger that American policy in Vietnam can touch off a nuclear conflict is clearly very high. The most vigorous efforts are required to convince the Johnson administration of the suicidal nature of its schemes. Only harsh experience will teach these "nuclear age" strategists that world. opinion does count and that there is no realistic choice but to stop the war and get out of Vietnam,
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