a nba press or vice
Vol.5, No.42
December 22, 1967
Index for 1967
Vietnam -- Key Issue of the Year
During 1967 two significant anniversaries were commemorated: the fiftieth anniversary of the Russian revolution and the one hundredth anniversary of the publication of Karl Marx's Capital.
Both celebrations were the occasion for self-congratulation among the exponents and defenders of the capitalist system. In the Soviet Union, the current heads of government, committed to continuing Stalin's policy of "peaceful coexistence" with imperialism, were preoccupied with trying to make appeasement work in face of the broadening U.S. military thrust on the mainland of Asia. Their observance of the 1917 events was featured by embarrassment over Lenin's program of world revolution and obstinate silence over the fate of the general staff which the founder of the Soviet Union had assembled in the successful struggle to overthrow Czarism. In place of the revolutionary lions of 1917, the Soviet Union in 1967 could offer only a few hyenas, rather bedraggled and toothless ones at that.
As for the one hundredth anniversary of Capital, the main point made by the capitalist ideologues was that against all of Marx's expectations their economic system still remained in existence. That this was a cause for good cheer among the majority of mankind was dubious, however, in view of the proliferation of reactionary regimes on all continents, a nuclear arms race in which the capacities of the two sides are measured in fantastic multiples of possible "overkill" of the human race, and a situation in Vietnam that is growing more and more ominous.
The continued escalation of U.S. imperialist aggression in Vietnam, already the dominant current issue in world politics in 1965 and 1966, became even more overriding in 1967. In January, U.S. troops in Vietnam numbered around 380,000.
The American military staff in Saigon,
headed by Gen. William C. Westmoreland,
insisted on further escalation. In July
the White House conceded to the pressure
and new levies of conscripts were shipped
across the Pacific. It was reported that
Johnson had set the “ceiling" at an army
of 480,000 men under the American flag
in the tiny, savagely devastated country.
But in December still more contingents
were dispatched in what was described as
“the largest and longest airlift ever
undertaken." According to a press wire
from Saigon, "A ceiling of 525,000 has
been set by President Johnson."
It remained unclear whether the
variation in the height of the ceiling
reflected the elasticity observable in
the terminology commonly used at State
Department briefings or whether it rep-
resented part of the widening of John-
son's "credibility gap" during 1967.
The mounting fear over the logic
inherent in Johnson's escalation of the
war in Vietnam was not confined to those
bearing the brunt of the costs and the
suffering; that is, ordinary people.
Fear was evident in higher circles, too.
On May 11, U Thant, general secretary of
the United Nations, stated that "if the
present trend continues, a direct con-
frontation between Washington and Peking
is inevitable and I am afraid that we are
witnessing today the initial phase of
World War III."
By September, Amtrican planes
were bombing targets within seven miles
of the Chinese frontier. On October 12,
at a press conference, Secretary of S.vate
Dean Rusk outlined U.S. objectives ir
Vietnam in terms of fighting the "yellow
peril," talking about one billion Chinese
armed with nuclear weapons within a de-
cade This became a prowar campaign theme
of the Johnson administration, being
voiced by such prominent spokesmen as
Vice-President Hubert Humphrey.
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On November 28, in a televised interview, former President Eisenhower advocated an invasion of North Vietnan, saying, "This respecting of boundary lines on a map, I think you can overdo it." The statement caused some lifting of eyebrows, since the official pretext for U.S. involvement in the civil war in Vietnam was the allegation that the North Vietnamese failed to respect boundary lines on a map.
Coincident with Eisenhower's bellicose statements, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara was dropped from Johnson's cabinet as expendable, presumably because he was the final one left in top government circles affected by twinges of doubt about the wisdom of escalating the war any closer to the brink.
As the year came to a close, unnamed administration "sources" admitted that Johnson was "considering giving field commanders in South Vietnam authority for 'hot pursuit'" into Cambodia. At a background seminar conducted by the State Department December 13, U.S. government officials, according to the press, "were apparently discounting the likelihood of intervention in the war by the Soviet Union and Communist China as a result of actions along the Cambodian frontier."
A substantial sector of the American ruling class remained deeply dubious of the tactical advisability of Johnson's course in Vietnam. The columns of the powerful New York Times gave free vent during 1967, as in the previous two years, to the doubts of this sector, providing a forum for debate among the petty-bourgeois intellectuals, whose views ranged from out-and-out "hawks" to "doves" willing to engage in "civil disobedience," provided that it is properly civil to the powers that be.
Important as this opposition has been in providing a shield for more determined and consistent opponents of the war, it has offered no real alternatives. So far as the capitalist system and the interests of American imperialism are concerned, Johnson could justifiably consider the spokesmen of this sector to be nothing but carping critics and "nervous Nellies."
Senator J. William Fulbright continued in 1967 to be the leading congres-— sional doubter of Johnson's course in Vietnam. After voting for the Tonkin Bay resolution, passed by the U.S. Congress in August, 1964, which Johnson has utilized as a virtual declaration of war giving him the authority needed to plunge the United States into a foreign conflict, Fulbright had a change of heart. But his proposals have offered little to undo the evil. On November 21 he deplored the "near
absolute power" of the White House, to
commit the U.S. to war, which threatens
the country with "tyranny or disaster."
In the future, he said, Congress should
be "much more cautious" before voting
for blank checks like the Tonkin Bay
resolution.
Of greater interest was his ex-
planation December 13 of a shift within
ruling circles in the United States. A
nilitary-industrial complex, dependent
on an annual war budget of $75 billion,
has become a force "for the perpetuation
of our global military commitments."
This force is corrupting American soci-
ety from top to bottom. "More and more
our economy, our Government and our
universities are adapting themselves to
the requirements of continuing war --
total war, limited war and cold war."
The material incentives derive from "a
huge, permanent military establishment"
that provides workers with a living and
business with a profit.
Fulbright's observations on the
rising influence and power of the mili-
tary caste in the United States and the
sector of the capitalist class most
directly benefited by war contracts
echoed the gloomy comments in the speech
read by Eisenhower upon leaving office.
There is truth in these admissions. A
huge, permanent military establishment
has become entrenched in the U.S.
Fulbright's remarks could also be
taken, in part, as ironic comment on the
obscene spectacle the previous evening
at the AFL-CIO convention in Bal Harbour,
Florida, when a warmongering speech by
Johnson was cheered far more lustily by
labor's top bureaucrats than even the
most reactionary business circles would
have thought proper. George Meany, the
president of the highly ossified orga-
nization, led the pack, pawing the presi-
dent like one of the White House beagles,
only too eager to commit labor to voting
for the master again and again and again.
The enthusiasm in these well-kept
circles for Johnson and his war in Viet-
nam scarcely reflected the feelings of
the rank and file. It was because of the
pressure from below that Walter Reuther
of the United Auto Workers discreetly
absented himself from the Florida orgy.
With his eyes on the mounting antiwar
movement in the United States, Reuther
in fact resigned February 3 from the ex-
ecutive committee of the AFL-CIO; and on
April 22 the UAW convention voted to em-
power Reuther to withdraw the union from
the organization. Evidently Reuther did
not care to risk the squeeze on his
career involved in being caught in a
bear hug between Johnson and Meany.
One of the most significant devel-
opments internationally in 1967 was the
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massive broadening of the antiwar movement among the American people.
Opposition to involvement in the civil war in Vietnam was indirectly indicated in 1964 by the huge majority cast for Johnson in the elections as the "peace" candidate running against Goldwater. The opposition took a more active form immediately upon Johnson's escalation of the conflict in February, 1965, teach-ins and rallies being staged on nearly all the campuses in the country. From the campuses, the movement began to impinge upon wider layers and this became clearly evident in 1967.
On April 21 between 400,000 and 500,000 people rallied for a march in New York protesting the war. On the same day in San Francisco more than 75,000 staged a similar march. These were the largest marches ever held in either city and, taken in conjunction, marked a historic departure for America. Of the wars conducted by the United States after reaching the imperialist stage, this one was shown by the April 21 demonstrations to be the most unpopular by far.
Another national demonstration was organized in Washington on October 21. This turned out to be another record breaker; it was the largest that city has yet seen, the turnout being 150,000.
On top of this, demonstrations on a local scale became so frequent in the latter part of the year as to be difficult to keep track of.
The draft system was under heavy fire from all quarters and there were increasing indications that among the ranks of the armed forces themselves the desire to voice bitterness over the war in Vietnam was on the rise.
Johnson faced increasing political problems in relation with the 1968 presidential campaign. His "popularity" as measured by polls had dropped to such a low level as to invite comparison with Herbert Hoover's status in 1932. Johnson's immediate circle put on a cheerful front and talked about the status of Truman's fortunes in 1947 and how that was overcome; but it was rather noticeable that none of them suggested utilizing Truman's famous tactic of a "whistlestop" campaign. Nor did they care to draw any comparisons with what happened to the Democratic party in 1952 after two years of Truman's adventure in Korea.
Johnson's rivals in the Democratic party saw little hope of retrieving the situation. They nevertheless began a "dump Johnson" move and Senator Eugene J. McCarthy was chosen as the groundbreaker in this operation.
One of the main political objec-— tives of Johnson's rivals is to divert the antiwar movement from further pursuit of the street demonstrations, which proved so effective in 1967, and to corral it safely within the two-party system. Most of the so-called "peace" candidates made this painfully clear as they sought to attract attention.
The problem of stemming and gaining political control of the antiwar movement is one faced by the ruling class as a whole. They may deem it necessary to grant a concession in order to accomplish this. An indicated move would be to try an "Eisenhower"; that is, advance a "responsible" figure in the Republican party who would promise to do in Vietnam what Eisenhower did in Korea.
But another giant problem for the American ruling class registered its presence in terms unusually violent even for the United States in 1967. This was the explosive accumulation of grievances in the ghettos.
Beginning with outbreaks in April in Nashville, Louisville, and Cleveland, nearly all of America's big cities saw protest actions of an elemental kind that in some instances amounted to virtual uprisings. The black liberation struggle during the summer permitted the colonial peoples to see that they have a natural ally inside the imperialist fortress itself which has taken inspiration from their own battles for freedom.
The explosions were chaotic, unformed, and lacking in centralized leadership. They thus tended to be spasmodic and local rather than coherent and interconnected nationally. They constituted storm signals pointing to the rise of a movement endowed with clear political goals and sustained power.
The Republican and Democratic machines responded to the colossal challenge by deciding to make at least some room for Negro representation in the offices under their command. Thus in various areas, Negro candidates were able to win office in 1967 under auspices of the two-party system. The ouster of Adam Clayton Powell from the House of Representatives in January was, however, a warning from the white political bosses that these representatives must know how to keep their place and not assume that a stamp of approval entitles them to act like an equal.
In all likelihood the generosity of the Democratic and Republican machines in providing political plums for the deserving will prove to be too little and too late. The mood of rebellion in America's ghettos gave strong impetus in 1967
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to the slogan of Black Power. Protagonists of Black Power linked up with the antiwar movement particularly in the huge April 15 demonstrations. The movement has also shown an inherent tendency to evolve in the direction of revolutionary socialism, as was demonstrated in the case of Malcolm X.
On August 31, the Socialist Workers party announced its plans to run a presidential slate against both the Democrats and Republicans. The SWP convention in November approved Fred Halstead, a well-known figure in the antiwar movement, as candidate for president, and Paul Boutelle, an Afro-American leader, for vicepresident. The first responses to the campaign, being conducted in vigorous style by Campaign Manager Jack Barnes, indicated that 1968 will prove to be a fruitful year for the cause of revolutionary socialism in the United States.
One of the most extraordinary developments in 1967 was the coordination of antiwar demonstrations on an international scale. The appeal for coordinated action came from the American movement. The response was apparent in rallies and demonstrations in such widely separated regions as Europe, Australia, India and Japan. Tens of thousands of people were involved in some of these demonstrations.
They represented a great moral force epitomized in the findings of the International War Crimes Tribunal initiated by Bertrand Russell. The verdict of the tribunal at its hearings in Stockholm May 2-10 was that the U.S. government was guilty of aggression. Its second session, held in Copenhagen November 20 to Decenber 1, brought in a verdict of guilty on a number of other counts, including genocide.
The Vietnamese people expressed their gratitude repeatedly in 1967 for the moral and material support they were receiving from many sources.
It fell to the Cubans, however, to express in the most vigorous way the gratitude felt by all the oppressed sectors of humanity for the heroic struggle being waged by the Vietnamese. They explained how the Vietnamese freedom fighters have been left manning the front-line trenches against the imperialist aggres-— sor virtually alone; and they appealed again, as they had appealed since the escalation began in 1965, for more effective aid for them, and in particular a closing of ranks against the common foe.
They went even further. Ernesto "Che" Guevara, convinced that the best way to help the Vietnamese was to open up new revolutionary fronts, took to the field again, his idea being to set a personal example. His slogan, calling for
"one, two...many Vietnams" was made the
central slogan at the first conference of
the Organization of Latin-American Soli-
darity held in Havana July 21-August 10.
Guevara perished in the attempt;
but his example lost none of its force
because of that. The sector of Latin Amer-
ica in which he fell, the country named
after Simén Bolivar, who also thought of
liberation in continental terms, is rot-
ten ripe for socialist revolution. In the
not distant future one may well imagine
the youth who take up Guevara's banner,
and win victory under it, renaming their
country after the twentieth-century Boli-
var who correctly saw that the most ef-
fective help that could be given the be-
leaguered Vietnamese is to widen the
international revolutionary struggle.
Revolutionists the world over keen-
ly felt the death of Che Guevara. Some
circles, however, took Che's death as a
propitious occasion for opening a counter-
attack against the Cuban leadership for
its condemnation last March and again in
July of the Venezuelan CP leaders who be-
trayed the guerrillas in their country
and turned toward pressure politics in
the bourgeois electoral arena. In Moscow
itself the attack was spurred through
publication of several articles question-
ing the concept of armed struggle even
in countries suffering under dictatorial
regimes and the oppressive might of
foreign imperialist forces.
The issue of the Vietnam war was
so predominant in 1967 that not even the
blitzkrieg conducted by Israel in June
against the Arab revolution displaced
Vietnam long from the headlines. The
Israeli forces caught the United Arab
Republic and its allies off guard. How-
ever the Israeli victory, in reality an
imperialist victory over the Arab peoples,
settled nothing. The Middle East remains
a powder keg, like many other sectors of
the capitalist world today.
The colonial world continued to
rumble despite ferocious repression in
many countries. Violence flared on a mass
scale repeatedly in India during 1967
and that subcontinent, next only to China
in population, appeared to be moving to-
ward a major paroxysn.
In November a weakness suddenly ap-
peared in one of the main girders of
world imperialism. The pound required
emergency devaluation and some $3 billion
in loans to save the British government
from bankruptcy. The British workers re-
ceived another lesson in the futility of
sacrificing to save capitalism. The out-
come of that could be a rise in the class
struggle in Britain that would make very
welcome news in Vietnam as well as other
areas that have staked their fate on
defeating imperialisn.
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ATTACKS ON "EVERYTHING THAT MOVES"
Testimony at the Hearings on U.S. War Crimes
(The International War Crimes Tribunal, which held its second session at Copenhagen from November 20 to December 1, found the United States government guilty of a series of war crimes, including genocide, the use of weapons banned by international agreement, maltreatment and killing of prisoners, and violence against and forced movement of prisoners.
[The verdict was based in part on evidence submitted at the first session of the tribunal, held in Stockholm May 2 to May 10, 1967. Further evidence was then obtained by teams that went to Vietnam for on-the-scene investigation.
{In our last issue, as an example of the material considered by the tribunal in reaching its verdict, World Qutlook published the text of Gérard Chaliand's testimony on the massacre at Dai- Lai.
[Below we publish another example -- the text of the introduction to the report of the Seventh Enquiry Commission of the tribunal. This body traveled in the zone under control of the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam. It was composed of Professor Francis Kahn, Dr. Jean-Michel Krivine and Roger Pic, who wrote the introduction. ]
* * *
This enquiry commission has completed investigations from September 15 to October 7, 1967.
We had two main purposes:
(1) To judge if the U.S. army goal was to systematically destroy the civilian population and its means of existence, forcing thereby the Vietnamese to concentrate in special camps.
(2) To investigate the utilization of forbidden arms such as fragmentation bombs and toxic products.
Our work was done in three periods: Professor Francis Kahn spent eight days; Doctor Jean-Michel Krivine, two weeks, and myself three weeks in South Vietnan.
The investigations were carried out in the east Nambo zone, in Tay Ninh province (northwest of Saigon) by the whole commission, after whith I finished alone in a hamlet of central Nambo in the Plain of Reeds.
Under the protection and care of a guerrilla detachment of the National Liberation Front, accompanied by interpre-
ters, cadres of the Front, province and
region chiefs, and General Secretary of
the National Liberation Front committee
for the denunciation of war crimes, Mr.
Ung Ngoc Ky, the commission traveled
approximately 600 kilometers, both by
walking and by sampans, visiting many
ruined villages and peasants hiding in
she deepness of forests, to collect tes-
timonies, interrogate and listen to the
greatest possible number of civilian
victims of U.S. army operations.
The province of Tay Ninh, which
we traversed most often is precisely the
operational zone where in February and
March of this year, U.S. headquarters
launched "Operation Junction City," the
biggest operation involving the wide-
spread and systematic razing of the coun-
tryside.
Cited from American records,
45,000 men, 800 tanks, 1,200 bombers and
helicopters were used in the operation
after gigantic preparation of the ground
and massive bombings by B-52's and spread-
ing of defoliants.
The testimony which we brought
back to add to the files of the Tribunal
mostly concern the consequences of those
military actions launched in a province
exclusively composed of fields and for-
ests, the only purpose of which was ad-
mitted to be for creating the notorious
"cleared zones."
We visited in Tay Ninh province:
Chau Thanh district, Hao Duoc village,
Thanh Dien village, Hoa Hoi village, Hoa
Hiep village, Ta Bang village.
We have been able to collect 473
testimonies written in Vietnamese, re-
corded and signed. All these pieces with
their translations and pictures of the
witnesses are added to the file which is
deposited with the Tribunal. We have
filed and recorded certain depositions.
Before we read our reports, we will pro-
ject three extracts of those testimonies
to show how we have been working.
Professor Francis Kahn will after-
wards present his report concerning the
testimonies of the people from Hao Duoc
and Hoa Hoi.
Doctor Jean-Michel Krivine will
more particularly talk about other testi-
monies collected.
I will then testify on the materi-
al collected in central Nambo, third part
of the investigations conducted on the
spot.
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To underline certain aspects of the life of the peasants who remain in devastated zones, who try to survive in spite of the rakings and constant military operations, I made as a free lance, independently of my work of enquiry, a filmed reportage which has been shown, since the beginning of this month, on many television programs.
The film makes no pretensions toward being an exhibit in evidence but I think that it can help to understand how the South Vietnamese live nowadays -those who escaped destruction or concentration camp life.
I would like to try now to briefly express my main impressions after this visit to the so-called “scorched earth" zone. During those three weeks, we have not seen a single hamlet, a single house which was spared by bombings or rakings. If the forests and jungle of east Nambo have resisted chemical products and bombings, if half of the civilians survive in the zones controlled by the National Liberation Front, guerrilla forces and National Liberation Army, all of the villages have been destroyed. All the peasants we met, all of those we interrogated, told us frightening stories, each one of which is a true and full indictment of the war conducted by the Americans.
Every family has been touched either by the bombings, deportations or torture and imprisonment. All the testimonies recorded in our files are moving stories of useless suffering, pain and mourning undergone by them. We will of course report only some of those testimonies.
During the two months "Operation Junction City" lasted, the whole Tay Ninh province was particularly well combed by "search and destroy" teams. All the hamlets were razed, all the rice plantations poisoned by chemical products, samples of which we have ourselves brought back. The grain reserves were annihilated and the civilians discovered were deported to concentration camp zones called by the Americans "pacification zones," "new life hamlets," to change the name of the "strategic hamlets" already notorious.
Many peasants we saw escaped from concentration camps, many others had fled from the advancing U.S. troops or simply hid in the forests and escaped the tank columns.
Civilians are now forced to lie in hiding in the forests. They built miserable huts, well hidden in the wilderness. Each family has dug an underground shelter; they live like primitive men to avoid being located.
In fact, this so-called "white zone" or "free fire" zone is now declared by the Americans as totally "Vietcong" where all signs of life must be extinguished systematically.
By night and by day, during our stay, the constant fire of artillery was heard. From the military bases, particularly in our region of Traug Long and Tour Hai, the American artillery shoots at random to maintain a constant state of anxiety and insecurity.
The reconnaissance planes fly methodically over the whole zone in large concentric circles. As soon as some movement appears as a sign of human presence, as soon as a field appears to be cultivated, orders are given for a concentrated artillery attack.
The least sign of life located by the reconnaissance planes is immediately followed by an attack of fighter-bombers which fire rockets, drop fragmentation bombs, napalm and phosphorous bombs. We have often seen in the undergrowth 200 meters round a huge amount of aluminum fragments from rockets, bomb casings, pineapple bombs.
If we believe the reports of the leading cadres and officials, since the beginning of "Junction City" and the policy of attacks on “everything that moves," the average expended ordnance is two tons of projectiles per inhabitant and one killed or wounded in every eight persons.
Half of the population escaped the rakings or fled from regrouping centers.
About 10,000 persons live in the wilderness with the help of the N.L.F. army, guerrilla units and community services of the N.L.F.
In spite of the "cleared zones," the Front keeps the education and health service operating even in the most miserable hamlets, that is to say, four or five huts grouped in the jungle.
To assure their maintenance and provisioning, peasants are obliged to cultivate by night all the rice paddies and tiny kitchen gardens on the fringe of the forests. Otherwise, any field or rice patch slightly showing cultivation would be automatically destroyed by defoliants dropped from planes or helicopters. We saw different metallic drums dropped on rice paddies and then shot full of holes by the same planes in order to permit the chemical products to dissolve into the water of the rice field and to pollute and contaminate the produce.
It is therefore only by hiding and avoiding the reconnaissance planes and living practically underground that
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the people are able to survive what I won't hesitate to call Genocide.
We will try for each of our particular depositions to prove these facts.
Personally, after I saw on-thespot consequences of this war, after this visit to South Vietnam, after my prior deposition in Stockholm on my investigation mission to North Vietnam, I cannot do otherwise than to denounce with all means, the atrocious crimes committed against the Vietnamese people as a whole. I want to cry out my indignation, to do everything I can to spread the truth.
To remain silent, to be an accessory, to not denounce the crime which we have seen would be to become its accom— plice.
THE CP GAME OF