North Vietnamese — cities from the vicious American air attacks.
Does not the man who requested both Kennedy and Khrushchev to draw back from the brink over Cuba, know what this could mean? It could spell out the first actions which would be the start of World War III? Does he want that?
Premier Kosygin replied [August 2] to Bertrand Russell in the most moderate of terms, pointing out that :the Soviet Union has done everything to avoid a dangerous escalation of the war, but condemning the American action in‘no uncertain terms.
But why should Russell want something to occur in Vietnam which he rejected so vociferously in Cuba? It is surely a piece of muddled thinking. Or why did he not write to the Prime Minister of China and ask his reasons for not using the Chinese Air Force to defend the North Vietnamese cities? Indeed the Chinese Government itself has blamed the Russians for not sending more aid to North Vietnam, while at the same time making it difficult for the Russians to send such aid through to Hanoi.
“> What is even sadder about the whole business of Bertrand. Russell's letter was-.that it was he who so clearly spelled out the dangers which nuclear strategy brought to the world. A small war could. easily become. the start of a large nuclear conflict. The very thing that Russell and his supporters have been so vigorously combating.
Dk ok Ok
Bertrand Russell Replies
Francis Flavius (Tribune, August 26) is critical of my cable to Premier Kosygin, which he apparently has not read. I asked the Premier to turn part of the Soviet air force over to the Vietnamese for the purpose of defending the territory of Vietnam against the unrelenting air bombardment of the United States.
-The issue which Francis Flavius: chooses ‘to raise is that. of . -inereasing the dangers of World War III and he compares my appeal to Kosygin. with my request to Khrushchev and Kennedy to draw. back. from confrontation over Cuba. 4
. The fundamental problem in both crises has been how is. this world war to be averted without sacrificing the rights of the ~ oppressed people whose social revolution was under such vicious attack by the United States. I am in no doubt that had the Soviet Union made clear at: the time of the Bay of Tonkin that the Soviet air force would defend Vietnam against air attack, that air attack - would: not have. occurred.’ The vast bombardment. of a small people without an air force is the supreme atrocity and it is too. terrible for supposed allies to allow such destruction: to be rained on,.an heroic people, pitting their revolutionary spirit against the evil and gigantic power of the largest military arsenal possessed by any nation in the history of warfare. Thus, on grounds of elementary morality, there is an absolute obligation incumbent upon the Soviet Union, which has the means to accomplish adequately the defence of Vietnam against air attack.
I should point out to Francis Flavius that every piece of evidence we have about the war in Vietnam shows that the United States tests the water before plunging in. The Bay of Tonkin incident was faked, preparatory to full-scale bombardment of the North. World reaction was observed in between time. An incident involving poison gas took place before the massive and indiscriminate use of the gas was undertaken. Air strikes on the periphery of Hanoi and Haiphong were performed before direct strikes on these cities were risked. In all these instances, the pattern is that of Hitler's in the Rhineland and in Czechoslovakia.
Those who are anxious to prevent world war without betraying the Vietnamese revolution must consider how this is really to be done. It is too easy to say any defence of the Vietnamese is a provocation to the bully and the aggressor. On the contrary, unless the Soviet Union intervenes now with its air force to protect Viet-
nam, American imperialism will extend the scale of the war outside Vietnam precisely as it has within Vietnam. The Soviet Union will then be obliged to intervene on a massive scale or to permit the United States to carry on in its aggression. The lesson of appeasement is that nothing is gained by delay. In fact, delay makes more likely the larger conflict later.
The Soviet air force over Vietnam is clearly a defensive action restricting the conflict to the borders of Vietnam, but when Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and China are attacked the problem of the Soviet Union will be vastly more serious. It is precisely because the confrontation over Cuba occurred at the penultimate moment that nuclear war was so imminent. It is precisely because that penulti-— mate moment will be more likely. to occur that the Soviet Union is asked to act now, the better to avoid having the penultimate moment the only ean when it is possible to intervene.
Francis Flavius advances the official Soviet view regarding China's unwillingness to let Soviet military equipment and personnel pass through its territory. The Russians have been asked to say that an attack on China would be an attack on the Soviet Union. They decline to do this. The implications of such a refusal when conbined with the request that Serrated territory should be so used, 18 clear.
Francis Flavius is late in supporting the Vietnamese, for he has been occupied, in the pages of Tribune, with pressing on them ~ formulae for negotiations which would ratify the American aggression and the presence of American troops in Vietnam. If a world war is to be avoided, universal defence of the Vietnamese is the first’ prerequisite. Sitting on one's hands while the Americans do their worst is the surest way to bring the world to the point of no return, the point at which Cuba was in 1962.