WIDER WAR IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
The New Year began with a series of warnings that Lyndon Johnson is on the verge of carrying the Vietnam war into Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam, or even China. The warnings came from critical senators, former generals and government officials, who are in a good position to know what Johnson is up to.
Lieut. General James M. Gavin, retired, referring to Eisenhower's proposals for a virtual invasion of Laos and Cambodia, said December 29:
"T can't conceive of them being said without briefings from someone in the Pentagon. So this...is what we're going to do." .
Earlier in December Roger Hilsman, former Under Secretary of State for Southeast Asian Affairs, told a New York audience that the "present situation will
lead inexorably, unless our present objec-
tives are changed, to a land war in North
Vietnan."
Senator Wayne Morse said in a Janu-
ary 1 television interview that the U.S.
was headed for a war with China. The New
York Post reported that Morse said such a
war "cannot be won either with convention-
al or nuclear weapons" and that "if war
with China did come, that America would
have 3,000,000 troops in China within
three years."
Morse further declared: "I am
shocked at how we can walk out on all our
moral ideals in connection with the way
we're prosecuting the war. We'd better
win it, because, don't forget that only
defeated nations are tried, and if we
should lose it the verdict of the world
would make the Nuremburg trials insignif-
icant. .