JOHNSON'S BRINKMANSHIP
By Joseph Hansen
When American planes, on an order given by President Johnson, swept in from the Gulf of Tonkin February 7-8 to bomb targets in North Vietnam, a wave of fear swept the world, Was this the action that could escalate into atomic war?
The answer is still not known although the earth's inhabitants breathed easier when neither the immediate victim, North Vietnam, nor the People's Republic of China nor the Soviet Union’ reaper ded to the violent provocation.
Why did Johnson take this maniacal "calculated" risk?
The State Department has been busily explaining in the corridors of the United Nations and in the embassies throughout the world
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that the military attack on North Vietnam was not intended as a challenge to the Soviet Union -- which has an effective atomic power equal to that of the United States -- but only as a "reprisal" on the tiny little country of North Vietnam, which the White House has decided to hold responsible for the actions of the freedom fighters in South Vietnam, particularly if they dare to attack any of the 21,000 acknowledged American military "advisers" of the puppet government and its mercenary forces. Such an attack occurred at Pleiku February 7, leaving 116 American casualties. Johnson offered this as an "excuse" for bombing North Vietnam,
Despite the State Department explanations, the bombing was clearly intended not only as "punishment" of North Vietnam but as pressure on Moscow. Soviet Premier Alexei N. Kosygin happened to be in Hanoi when Johnson ordered the assault on North Vietnam. - Johnson could hardly have dealt him a more stinging slap unless he had ordered Hanoi itself bombed,
The timing of the assault would thus tend to show that Johnson did not intend to start a course of action that would escalate into atomic war although he took the risk that this might happen.
But why did Kosygin choose to visit Hanoi at this particular moment? The Soviet diplomats, the press has reported, have gone to extraordinary lengths to explain to the White House thatthe visit in no wise contradicts their policy of “peaceful coexistence" or their hope for a "summit" meeting with Johnson later in the year. In fact Alain Clement, the well-informed Washington correspondent of the Paris daily Le Monde reported February 1 that a "Soviet representative" at a "private meeting, and in his personal name" was reported to have said that "he believed that his government was seeking in the North Vietnam capital to help the Americans retire honorably from South Vietnam."
This. ties in with.a spate of recent rumors that Washington has decided to seek a "disengagement" in South Vietnam from the military conflict through some kind of negotiated settlement that would provide a "face-saving" formula for the American colossus.
Khrushchev's heirs may well have envisaged this as a shrewd move through which they could deliver something substantial to Johnson, while at the same time demonstrating the realistic nature of the policy of "peaceful coexistence," thus gaining better leverage in their dispute with Peking.
But Johnson, or one of the wings of the policy-makers to whom he lends ear, saw another possibility. The reality in South Vietnam is that American imperialism faces a major defeat. Its position is becoming more and more untenable. If the U.S. withdraws, what is to prevent Moscow from moving in? Kosygin's trip can thus be interpreted as a reassertion of the Soviet stake in Southeast Asia; and
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while it is preferable from Washington's view to have Moscow there instead of Peking, it is a defeat for world capitalism in either case.
The bombing ef North Vietnam can thus be interpreted as serving a double purpose in Washington's diplomatic game. It serves to strengthen Kosygin's hand in dealing with Hanoi and Peking by flagrantly displaying what madmen the Americans are ~- willing to risk atomic war over any kind of "undisciplined" action undertaken by the South Vietnam freedom fighters. And it serves to remind Khrushchev!s heirs, too, that they are dealing with the same power that precipitated the crisis in the Caribbean in 1962. With his bombs, Johnson told Kosygin not to try any genuinely independent moves in Southeast Asia,
The ‘pombing of North Vietnam could serve still another pur~ pose, Under cover of this "advance," Johnson ordered the withdrawal of American women and children from South Vietnam, While this fits in with a move to escalate the conflict, it also fits in with the first step in a staged withdrawal. It makes perfect logic to the military mind of the Pentagon to use an attack as a screen for a retreat.
However, some unexpected consequences may arise from Johnson's brinkmanship, . First of all, Kosygin may now find it more difficult to push a. policy of "peaceful coexistence" with. American imperialism, One of the deadliest criticisms levelled against Khrushchev was his failure to provide North Vietnam with adequate military aid and to defend the beleaguered country against American aggression, Johnson's move now places Khrushchev!s heirs in the spotlight on this very question, It will not be easy for them to wriggle out of it with mere platitudes. Something much more substantial is now required, Thus Johnson, perhaps inadvertently, strengthened Peking's hand and along with it, most likely, the military defenses of North Vietnam.
On another level, too, Johnson may have miscalculated. What is the effect on world opinion? So soon after his inauguration, Johnson shows that he feels completely free to bomb another country whenever diplomacy requires it -=- without a declaration of war, without consulting Congress, simply on his own personal whim, Isn't it high time to call for a strait jacket?
As for the freedom fighters in South Vietnam, they will feel more than ever that their cause is not only a just one. It represents the cause of all humanity against.a power that does not hesitate to risk turning our entire planet into a gas chamber,
In the United States itself Johnson's "popularity" can suffer a precipitous decline, The huge vote which he reaped in the election was cast primarily against Goldwater and it was cast in hope of blocking the’ kind of atomic brinkmanship which Johnson is now engaging in.