Vol. 4, No. 14 May 6, 1966
"THE COUNTRY WANTS OUT"
"America is showing some signs of that fatal presumption, that overextension of power and mission, which brought ruin to ancient Athens, to Napoleonic France and to Nazi Germany. The process has hardly begun, but the war which we are now fighting can only accelerate it."
These were not the words of some somber historian interested in the doom of empires. They were spoken by J.W.Fulbright, head of
New York, N. Y. 10010. SP
the U.S.Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, in a speech in New York April 28. Fulbright's warning to the ruling class came in reaction to Johnson's latest escalation of the war -- the use of B-52 bombers in north Vietnam -- and the beginning of aerial skirmishes between U.S. jet fighters and Soviet-built MIG planes.
With the first aerial combats, a spokesman of the State Department, Robert J. McCloskey, reiterating official policy as laid down by Secretary of State Rusk last July 11, said April 26: "There is no sanctuary. "
This clearly implied that the Pentagon had been given a green light to either pursue the MIG's into China, if they went there, or to bomb their bases in China, if it was decided that they came from bases in China. Such an action could mean the beginning of World War III.
In his overall estimate of the current situation, Fulbright indicated the bellicose nature of Johnson's foreign policy: "The principal reason why things. are not a lot worse than they are is © the restraint shown by the Russians with respect to the war. They are providing the North Vietnamese with a steady flow of supplies, including the ground-to-air missiles that are used against American aircraft, but they show no inclination to participate directly in the war and even their anti-American propaganda is comparatively mild.
"If positions were reversed, if the Russians were conducting daily bombing raids against an American ally, it is just about inconceivable that we would confine ourselves to providing equipment to the country under attack. If we did, one can well imagine the field day the superpatriots would have charging our Government with cowardice and treason.
Why do the heads of the Soviet Union act with such "restraint"? Can they be counted on to act that way indefinitely? Here are Fulbright's answers:
"My feeling about the matter is that the Russians are frightened of us, not only because of our enormous power but also because of our erratic behavior™in such places as Vietnam and the Dominican Republic, which may make our policiésS seem, from their viewpoint, dangerously unpredictable.
"What is wrong with that? it may be asked. What. is wrong with it is that it puts Soviet-American relations.on.an exceedingly unstable basis. Though not as: powerful as the United States, Russia is a very great pover and it is unlikely to be restrained indefinitely by fear of the United States.
"As long as the Vietnamese war is fought on its present scale, the Russians may remain essentially outside of the conflict -althcugh that is by no means certain. But if the war is significantly
expanded, the Russians will be brought under mounting Chinese goading for standing aside while the Americans devastate a Soviet ally. With their prestige thus impaired, fear could give way to anger, and the Russians might ‘then take the enormous risk of direct intervention in the war.
Fulbright considers the present foreign policy of the White: House to be both unproductive and exceedingly dangerous. "One detects in Europe," he declared, "a growing uneasiness about American policy, a feeling that the United States is becoming unreliable andthat it may be better -- safer, that is -- to keep the Americans at a distance." He cited France's withdrawal from NATO as indicative of "a general loss of European confidence in American policy and judg-. ment."
On the home front, Fulbright said he detected "the beginning of a war fever in the minds of the American people and their lead-ers." Aside from the witch-hunt atmosphere this tends to engender, it also has an effect on foreign policy. As "the war goes on and the casualty lists grow longer and affect more and more American homes, the fever will rise and.the patience of the American people will give way to mounting demands for an: expanded war, for a lightning blow that will get it over with at. a stroke.
"The first demand, " the senator continued, nmient be a block-
ade of Haiphong; then,. if that doesn't work, a strike against China;. and then we will have a global war." Pod oO
In his opinion, "East-West relations now hinge on the war in Vietnam. If it goes on indefinitely, or:if it is greatly escalated, it will destroy prospects for accommodation on issues ranging from trade to arms control and the future of Germany, and eventually it may bring the Russians -- to say nothing of the Chinese -- into direct conflict with the United States. If these things happen, then the fallout from Vietnam will indeed be far more destructive than the war itself."
Fulbright was not the only prominent figure to express alarm over Johnson's latest escalation of the war. Senator Richard B. Russell said in an article in the current issue of U.S.News & World Report, that a survey of public opinion should be made in the cities of south Vietnam. "If that survey shows that a majority of them are anti-American, I think we should withdraw now."
Russell's statement is important since it comes from one of the most prominent spokesmen of the more reactionary wing of the Democratic party. He has ‘also been advocating extension of the bomb-ings in order to achieve a :lightning victory. His latest stand — is considered to be a warning to Johnson.
In the April 27 New York Times, Washington columnist James Reston succinctly expressed the basis for the fresh doubts that. have been. provoked in certain sectors of the American capitalist: class about the advisability of continuing to escalate the war.
Ge
"In this situation," he asked, "does the doctrine of 'no:.- > sanctuary' work both ways? If we are free to attack their. bases, are they.then free to attack ours? The answer to that here is: ‘Let | them'try.' For this Government is confident that it can: wipe out all the planes in North Vietnam and in China too if the Chinese really © commit their air force to the battle, leaving China and North Vietnam with nothing but the. most massive armies in Asia." - The: risks are increasing, Reston noted. “They are ‘increasing "because the new MIG-21 fighters promised by:Moscow to North Vietnam are now entering the battle. " The danger that-.escalating the fighting could bring in China "used to deter officials here. " But this is now no longer the case.
"In fact," Reston declared, "our air power has run into so little opposition in the past that the men running the war from here have gradually come to believe that China and the Soviet Union will tolerate military defeats: ‘the United States ofearly would not: tolerate itself.
"In short, we are assuming. we can attack their sanctuaries | and that they will not or cannot attack our sanctuaries in Saigon, . or on the U.S. aircraft carriers. in the China Sea; that the Russians will give North Vietnam MIG's and let them be destroyed, but that they will:not give them submarines to carry the battle under the sea; that we are free to hit. their bases anywhere in any country and that they will leave our air bases:alone in Thailand. .-
"Maybe these assumptions are right. The Chinese and the Soviets have been very cautious and have given us the freedom of both the skies and the seas so far, but if there are now to be! Mo sanctuaries,’ this could be a very dicey business. " “
if. the conservative wing of: the Democratic party, as repre-— sented by Senator Russell has become increasingly dubious about the advisability of continuing to escalate the war, the liberal wing is no less uneasy. "There even has developed among liberal Democrats a sort of 'government-in-exile' led by Senator Robert Kennedy of New York, ‘reports the: May 1 New York Times. Do
Citing the criticisms voiced by: James’ Reston, Senator Kennedy issued a public statement April 27 on the State Department's. "no sanctuary" declaration. "What will be the Chinese response, if her. territory is bombed or her airspace invaded? Will the Chinese seek to strike at our bases -- in Vietnam, or Thailand, or aboard our aircraft carriers? And if they do, what then will our response be? -- further bombing?:And if the scale of bombing increases, will . China confine herself to air fighting -- or will it send. its troops. to engage ours on the ground in South Vietnam?".
The'.assumption that China and the Soviet Union will tolerate military’ defeats that would not be tolerated by the. United States, is not.a "sound basis. for policy," declared Kennedy. !."Similar nk assumptions about the Vietcong and North Vietnam have been proven. :.
wrong time and again in this war."
Kennedy stressed the political instability in south Vietnam. "Premier Ky and the Buddhist Tri Quang do not talk with one another." Escalation of the war in the north, the senator added, “will not bring these two gentlemen to the conference table with one another."
'. The problem is to achieve greater political stability in south Vietnam, he continued. "There is some disagreement with our over-all course in Vietnam. But even accepting our basic policy, it appears to me neither prudent nor wise to undertake risks of a still wider war until some progress has been made toward achieving -the stability that is essential for the successful prosecution of our efforts.in Vietnam."
The evidence that Soviet military aid was finally beginning to reach north Vietnam in sufficient amounts to significantly strengthen the Vietnamese defense came on top of the worsening political situation in south Vietnam; i.e., popular pressure to. get. rid of the puppet Ky government and to compel the withdrawal of U.S. troops. In addition there was another source of pressure on Washington -- the. increasing unpopularity of the Vietnamese war among the American people. .
Up until recently when critics confronted Johnson with evidence of the growing antiwar sentiments of the American people as shown in mounting demonstrations, teach-ins,