20,000 DEMONSTRATE IN WASHINGTON AGAINST VIETNAM WAR
Since delivering his "Great Carrot" speech of April 7, in which he waved a counterfeit billion-dollar bill at the freedom fighters in Southeast Asia and offered "unconditional discussions" -- under condition that the National Liberation Front, the legiti-+
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mate representative of the South Vietnamese people, be exeluded ~~ President Johnson has further indicated his real aims in the imperialist war he launched against North Vietnam,
On April 14 "Washington officials" told the press that the air attacks on North Vietnam would be stepped.up.. Some of the most massive terror raids yet seen followed. On Easter Sunday, April 18, Johnson delivered another "historic" declaration. Stepping out on the porch at his Texas ranch, he read a twelve-minute statement to reporters. The gist was in the following remarkable sentence: "There is no human power capable of forcing us from Vietnam." No questions were permitted. The greatest power on earth then stepped back inside the LBJ ranch house.
On April 16 George Reedy, press secretary of the great head of the "Great Society," announced that the planned visits of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri of India and President Mohammad Ayub Khan of Pakistan had been cancelled. Pakistan has friendly rela= tions with the People's Republic of China and Shastri has had the temerity to urge a halt to the U.S. bombings of North Vietnam.
It was reported that official circles in India were seething over the "insult" and "U.S. discourtesy."” It remains to be seen whether the Indian government commands sufficient divine power to get the American president to change his mind.
Johnson's strange moods, particularly his sudden rages, were reported to be of increasing concern among Washington diplomats, They point to his spectacular displeasure with UN Secretary-General U Thant and Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson for expressing mild criticisms of U.S. policy in Vietnam. According to the April 20 European edition of the New York Herald Tribune, Johnson was even impatient with British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt, although it would be difficult to find more enthusiastic boot-lickers than this pair. As Douglas Kiker, the author of the report, puts it, "All this has served to sharpen the image of presidential contentiousness, and given new life to the old charge that the man who once yelled ‘yahoo! in the Taj Mahal to hear the echo really is not equipped to guide United States foreign policy."
And yet Johnson's personal truculence is understandable. A vast tide of world-wide opposition is rising against his war in North Vietnam. Moreover the United States is no "privileged sanctuary" from this sentiment. In fact, never before in American history has an imperialist president begun a war in the face of such opposition.
On the campuses a new tactic has spread with remarkable speed. It is called the "teach~in." It involves continuous meetings, with relays of speakers who patiently explain hour after hour to a chang-=ing audience why the Johnson administration is completely wrong in
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its attack on North Vietnam. On some campuses, thousands of Students and professors have participated in the "téach-ins.™ —
On April 18, a demonstration against the war in North Vietnam was organized in Washington itself by the Students for a Democratic Society. The demonstration was supported by other organizations, including the Women Strike for Peace, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Young Socialists. It was expected that . some 10,000 would come from all over the country. The actual: turnout was 20,000, [Even the police put the figure at 15,000.]
The students massed in front of the White House with their picket signs demanding an end to the war in Vietnam, then marched to the Washington monument. where they heard speakers, and finally to the Capitol to present a petition to Congress. Among the speakers, Senator Ernest Gruening admitted that the U.S. stands "on the brink of a world war of cataclysmic proportions."
Meanwhile the sentiments of hundreds of millions in Asia and Africa were voiced by President Sukarno of Indonesia and. Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia. Sukarno drew heavy applause from representatives of thirty-seven nations at. ceremonies April 18. marking the tenth anniversary of the first African-Asian conference when he said that the only way to settle the Vietnam problem is for the United States to get out. -In an evident allusion to Johnson's "Great Carrot" speech, Sukarno said, "I am sure no one among us. will be bribed to work and struggle to fill the coffers of imperialists." Prince Sihanouk urged the representatives to support demands for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Vietnamese soil and the liquidation of United States bases,
Similar views were voiced around the world. -.In West Germany, for instance, ban=-the-bomb rallies over the Haster week end, which involved some 25,000 participants, turned into demonstrations against the U.S. * attack on North Vietnam.
Johnson, however, seems set in his view that the hour of des= tiny has struck for American imperialism. In face of the world=wide protest, the man who believes he is above all human power sponsored a sinister meeting in Hawaii of some of his top advisers. They included Robert S. McNamara, head of the war department, Maxwell D. Taylor, military ambassador running the puppet government in Saigon, Gen, Hunter Harris, commander of the Pacific air forces, Gen. Earle G. Wheeler, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff; Gen. William C. Westmoreland, U.S. commander in Vietnam, and Adm, Ulysses S.G.Sharp, Navy commander in chief in the Pacific.
It was officially announced that. these military vultures would “review in detail plans for U.S. support of the expansion of the South Vietnamese military and paramilitary forces."' The press said, however, that the topics would include escalation of the war and the "possible intervention of Communist China."
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