PARALYSIS OF CHINA'S DEFENSE
"Certainly on the subject of China an entirely new confidence is now evident. The risk of Chinese troops swarming across the frontier into Vietnam is now dismissed almost out of hand.
"Only one contingency appears to be envisaged in which that could happen -what is called ‘the end-game situation,' in which Hanoi at the point of collapse, Peking (perhaps even in accordance with an already given understanding) rushes to North Vietnam's aid in efforts to prevent her obliteration as a Communist state."
Johnson is operating on the assumption, then, that the Chinese have already written off the freedom fighters in South Vietnam and that he is free to try to destroy them without fear of Chinese intervention. Mao has certainly failed to demonstrate unequivocally that Johnson's estimate is wrong.
The Soviet Union, of course, with its superior technology and nuclear capacity, is in an even better position than the Chinese to serve notice on Johnson that further American escalation in Vietnam will be met with an effective counterthrust. Brezhnev and Kosygin, however, are not about to depart from their policy of conciliating imperialisn.
The world is thus still confronted with the ever-growing danger that Johnson, betting on the continued paralysis of the Chinese and the "peaceful coexistence" of the Soviet Union, will push his luck too far and precipitate a nuclear holocaust.
THE CARGO CULT