ALARM IN JAPAN OVER ESCALATING DANGER OF WORLD WAR
The bombing of Hanoi and the advance of U.S. troops into the Demilitarized Zone set up between the two halves of Vietnam touched off fear in Japan that the world may be standing close to the brink of catastrophe.
A typical reaction was the one voiced by Tensei Jingo, a columnist in the Asahi Shimbun, whose article appeared in an English translation in the May 23 Asahi Evening News.
- Now that the Demilitarized Zone has become an arena for ground fighting, he declared, "the U.S. and Saigon forces probably will reach the Ben Hai River -the ultimate boundary. Then only the 100meter-wide river will separate the opposing forces."
These. forces may start firing at each other. What happens if the ground fighting next crosses the narrow river into the northern part of Vietnam?
"An advance into North Vietnan," continues the Tokyo columnist, "is the short fuse which would light the dynamite of an all-out clash -- in a flash, the world would be hit by a terrible situation.
JOHNSON