threatened the country with “tyranny or disaster." The committee, headed by Senator J. William Fulbright, had unanimously passed a resolution the previous week calling on the president not to commit American forces abroad in the future without “affirmative action" by Congress.
After their show of independence from the White House the senators decided not to bring the resolution before the Senate for a vote. They are well aware of the White House's usurpation of the warmaking powers of Congress but they are not inclined to take the political risk of openly challenging the usurper.
The sore point for the senators in this “process of constitutional erosion" came when Congress hurriedly passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution at Johnson's request in August, 1964. This approved Johnson's taking “all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression."
The senators profess that they
failed to realize that they were signing
a blank check. If that were true, of
course, the obvious next move would be
to rescind the resolution.
However, Fulbright and those who
agree with him are not exactly the type
to engage in crusades. The November 22
New York Times detailed their battle plan:
"As a step toward restoration of
Congressional authority over the armed
forces, the committee recommended that
in the future Congress be much more cau-
tious and precise in approving joint Con-
gressional resolutions granting the Pres-
ident authority to undertake foreign
military actions."
Johnson treated the committee with
the contempt it deserves. Without waiting
to even read their report, he told the
press at his November 17 conference that
he has his own views “about really what"
the resolution would achieve.
It was one of those rare instances
in which Johnson was dead right.
THE POLITICAL DEVALUATION OF LYNDON B. JOHNSON
By George Novack
The heads of state of both England and the United States are in serious trouble. Prime Minister Wilson must face the economic and political repercussions of the pound's devaluation. Across the Atlantic, President Johnson must cope with the precipitous and continuing drop in his popularity.
After the sweeping victory in November 1964 which returned him to the White House, Johnson stood at the pinnacle of his prestige and power. Now, three years later, he and his policies are in deep disfavor with the great majority of the American people.
Signs of his unpopularity multiply from day to day. Here are some of the more recent indications.
The latest Harris poll revealed that public confidence in Johnson's conduct of the war had sunk to an all-time low of 23 percent. It was 46 percent in June. Another poll showed that one-third of the people want to quit Vietnam "any way we can."
While the military presses for reinforcements beyond the 525,000 troops scheduled to be sent by July 1, seven out of ten questioned objected to shipping more troops to Vietnam. Four out of five oppose the administration's proposed ten percent tax increase to cut down the huge war-spending federal deficit.
In the first big city referendum on the issue, 37 percent of those who voted on the issue in San Francisco approved the proposal for immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam.* So much support for so radical a solution is significant. Robert Coate, Northern California chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, voiced the belief that if the word "systematic" had been substituted for "immediate" in the proposition, the "yes" vote would have been overwhelming.
For the first time since 1957, according to a Gallup poll, a majority of voters would prefer to see Republicans rather than Democrats handle the na-
*The total vote cast in the election was 255,596. Of these, 209,038 voted pro (76,632) or con (132,406), while 46,558 abstained. Thus out of the total vote, 52% were opposed, 30% in favor and 18% abstained. See World Outlook November 17, page 924, for a more detailed analysis. tae)? most serious problem (the Vietnam war.
Johnson keeps appealing for unity and repeating that critics of the war are damaging "the nation's cause" and encouraging "the enemy" to prolong the war. In fact, most Americans don't want the war prolonged and that has divided the country and shattered national unity beyond repair.
Dissent against administration policy on Vietnam stretches all the way from the small towns to Washington. The former ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, observes that Johnson's base of support has narrowed down until "the defenders of the war are increasingly either conservative Republicans, conservative Democrats or the military. (Within the Administration, an increasing number make clear their private dissent.)"
These doubters are in the president's own cabinet. The Senate majority leader, Mike Mansfield of Montana, wants direct negotiations between Saigon and the National Liberation Front. Eleven of the nineteen members of the prestigious Senate Foreign Relations Committee controlled by the Democrats are "doves" while five more are uncertain about the administration's handling of the war. Its chairman, Senator Fulbright of Arkansas, the most prominent official critic, is at sword's points with Secretary of State Rusk because of his refusal to defend Johnson's course in open session.
It is notorious that Senator Kennedy of New York is far more opposed to White House policy than he considers it expedient to express out loud. His fellow senator, McCarthy of Minnesota, whom Johnson considered as one of three possible running mates before he chose Humphrey in 1964, is touring the country with the thought of entering the presidential primaries to try to block Johnson's renomination or at least mobilize enough pressure to make him change his course.
Under pressure of his constituents back home, one of the leading Republicans in Washington, Senator Morton of Kentucky, has switched from support to oppposition and his stand is being backed by more and more colleagues.
In defiance of the party hierarchy, the convention of the College Young Democrats, meeting in Boston November 11-12, adopted a resolution accusing the White House of bad faith through "broken promises at home and false assurances abroad."
In addition to the array of opponents in his own party and Congress, the most articulate part of the press, the academic and scientific communities, the intellectuals, students and religious leaders are speaking out more and more vehemently against the administration. The New York Times, most network commen-— tators and numerous columnists have become severely critical. Some 1,300 menbers and fellows of the American Sociological Association urged Johnson on November 12 to halt the bombing of North Vietnam, launch "an immediate, vigorous and genuine attempt to negotiate peace and begin orderly withdrawal of American troops."
Psychologically, the national capital has become "the most depressed area" in the United States, according to "the detailed findings of twenty reporters of the Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau who have spent recent days lending sympathetic ears to scores of public servants from clerks to cabinet members." Here is their Listing of the dominant moods around Johnson: "“Disenchantment. Exhaustion. Resentment. Listlessness. Terror. Disorientation. Suspicion. Joylessness. Hate. A sense of being misunderstood by the populace, persecuted by Congress, debauched by the White House and betrayed by colleagues. Worst of all, a loss of self-confidence."
This malaise at the top is a pale reflection of the loss of confidence in Johnson. He is being besieged by hostile public opinion. The October 21 demonstrators at the Lincoln Monument and the Pentagon were only the spearhead of the forces that are up in arms against Johnson on different levels. The president cannot even go to church on Sunday without being reminded by the rector that his actions are in question (see World Outlook, November 24).
Johnson can appear safely only before military audiences and on government premises. Otherwise he and his principal assistants are likely to be challenged. The president had to sneak into New York City under cover of darkness to attend a testimonial dinner to AFL-CIO head George Meany, one of the few fervent friends he has left. The decision was announced at the last moment to forestall any hostile demonstrators; a few antiwar pickets managed to show up just the same.
Johnson canceled his scheduled talk to the National Grange, the country's oldest farm organization, in Syracuse, New York, November 12. He was counseled against attending because the demonstration planned by as many as 3,000 students from eight colleges in the vicinity threatened his security. The pickets who came chanted derisively: "Hey, Hey, L.B.J., where the hell were you today?"
Dean Rusk did not escape so easily. He also canceled two appearances this month in Boston, where he hoped to make a major foreign policy speech, for fear of setting off a new round of demonstrations in that center of antiwar agitation. But he was given a boisterous reception by 10,000 picketers when he came to New York a week later (see World Outlook, November 24). "If it's this bad for Rusk, Johnson can't come here," said a business-— man who stopped to watch after work. "He can't even come here to campaign. He'd need an airborne division."
According to New York Times Washington correspondent Tom Wicker, "Johnson is reported to be angered by -- not afraid of -- the pickets and the ordeal to which they would subject him. But the results are that he is becoming isolated from the population at large and is being thrown more and more into the protective circle of his close friends and advisers."
In a TV interview November 19 Walter Lippmann, the dean of American bourgeois political commentators, gave some insight into the thinking of these advisers in Johnson's entourage. He said that Rusk is the chief war hawk in the cabinet while McNamara doesn't believe in Johnson's policy but prefers to remain Secretary of Defense. This view is confirmed by a Wall Street Journal report that "a top civilian aide to Defense Secretary McNamara privately confesses that he feels ‘let down.' Initially attracted by McNamara's intellectual integrity, he is convinced his boss has violated his own logic and for mere political reasons goes along with the President on continued bombing of North Vietnam and on constructing an anti-missile systen. He thinks McNamara should have resigned rather than retreat.”
According to Lippmann, Johnson fears to go counter to his Chiefs of Staff. Some of his advisers want him to widen the war and incite more war fever in order to cinch the coming election. Although the administration claims that the war is going well and is not stalemated, it is reliably reported that General Westmoreland, who has been conferring at the White House and calling for more troops, will soon be relieved of his command and replaced by his deputy in Vietnam, General Abrams.
While the Chief of Staff optimistically reports progress, “other senior military officials are not so sanguine,” writes the November 19 New York Times, "They note that the pacification program is still going badly and they believe that 525,000 American troops will not be enough to create the kind of military pressure needed to severely punish the Communists over the next year or two. They feel that 750,000 to a million would be needed. At the present rate, therefore,
many senior military officials in Washington feel another five years of fighting lies ahead, barring a settlement."
This chilling prospect of being bogged down indefinitely in Southeast Asia is hardening resistance to the war. The people are alarmed by the steep rise in U.S. casualties and the costs of fighting the war. The federal deficit for this year may reach $35 billion.
The backbone of the antiwar activists at this stage are the students who have been engaging in more and more angry and militant protests on campuses from one end of the country to the other. Almost every day they come into violent conflict with college and city authorities and the police over actions against CIA and marine recruiting, the Dow Chemical Company, makers of napalm, and above all against the draft.
In a survey of the national student scene, the November 20 New York Times noted: "October 21, 1967, has become a sacred date on the campuses. Students revere those who joined the peace march then to the Pentagon. Everywhere, they point out students who were teargassed, or smashed over the head by Federal marshals, or jabbed by soldiers with bayonets. ‘It's like German dueli scars,' said Prof. Joseph F. Wall Tof Grinnell College in Iowa]."
The student antiwar forces are presently preparing for a nationwide series of "Stop-the-War -- Stop-the-Draft" actions the week of December 4-8.
Until recently, organized labor has been the most silent and passive sector of public opinion. Now, two and a half years after Johnson ordered the first bombings of North Vietnam, a small but significant segment of the tradeunion movement has raised its voice against administration war policy.
The National Leadership Assembly for Peace which met in Chicago November 11-12 was attended by 523 union officials from 50 international unions and from 38 states. More than 50 of the participants were vice-presidents, secretarytreasurers, or executive board members of international unions.
The keynote speaker at the opening session, Galbraith, now chairman of Americans for Democratic Action, told the gathering that the war can't be won and any military solution is impossible. This opinion is shared by many others in high positions who are afraid to state it so openly.
The assembly sought to put the administration on notice that it could not count on unqualified support from the union officialdom hitherto orchestrated by AFL-CIO President George Meany and his sinister adviser on foreign affairs Jay Lovestone. The statement of purpose it adopted called for U.S. negotiations with the National Liberation Front. Despite this moderate position, the conference represented the labor movement's first breakaway from total subservience to the White House and an effort to get in step with the antiwar sentiments of the rest of the population. This rebuke to Meany, which is intertwined with the deepening rift between ‘him and United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther, is unprecedented in recent years.
The role of the rebel youth in spurring this move was pointed out by Moe Foner of Local 1199 of the Drug and Hospital Workers in New York, the key figure in the trade-union division of SANE [National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy] which originally sponsored the conference. "I was amazed by the nunber of men who first hesitated about attending and then finally told me that they just couldn't face their kids who kept asking whether they were ducking it," he said.
The powerful surge of antiwar sentiment in the country can be gauged in quite another way by the incapacity of the ultraright to whip up jingoistic spirit into any substantial countercanpaign in favor of the war. The Wall Street Journal has just noted the decline of the McCarthyite John Birch Society which has been losing members and income and recently called off its central campaign to impeach U.S. Chief Justice Warren. According to the November 20 New York Times, the chief campus grouping of conservative youth, “the super-patriotic Young Americans for Freedom of 1962 have nearly shrivelled away." The atmosphere is very unpropitious for professional warmongers.
The national