WILL
JOHNSON USE NUCLEAR BOMBS IN VIETNAM?
By George Novack
Last September the CBS television network in the U.S. refused to allow Pete Seeger to sing his ballad "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" on the popular "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour." Its censors wouldn't pass the controversial sixth stanza of the song which is ostensibly about the experiences of an infantry platoon with a reckless bullheaded commander during World War II.
It goes like this:
“Now every time I read the papers
That old feelin's coming on
We're waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on."
CBS has since lifted the ban and Seeger will be allowed to sing the full lyric on February 25.
This turnaround is a slight sign of the shift in public opinion about President Johnson's handling of the Vietnanese situation, since the shaft of the censored stanza is clearly aimed at the U.S. Commander-in-Chief in the White House. In fact, according to the latest Gallup poll, public approval of Johnson's policy dropped from 39 percent to 35 percent following the recent offensive of the National Liberation Front.
Nevertheless, "the big fool says to push on." In reaction to the unexpected successes of the NLF forces in the cities all over South Vietnam, Saigon included, and their anxiety over the key point of Khesanh, the president and the Pentagon ordered 10,500 more troops to the embattled area February 13. This new deployment raises the total of U.S. forces in South Vietnam to 510,000.
The additions are required, it is said, to reinforce the stretched lines of defense and cope with the threat of another move into provincial capitals and large cities which is expected to coincide with the assault on Khesanh near the demilitarized zone.
New York Times correspondent Max Frankel wrote from Washington February 13: "Senior Administration officials are speaking in the most respectful tones of the strategy of the enemy commander, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, North Vietnam Defense Minister. They expect him to take South Vietnam's cities by surprise again to demoralize the urban population further, to cripple the best units of South Vietnamn's army and thus to unseat the Saigon Government."
This opinion is quite different
from the soothing assurances handed out
by the administration and its generals
shortly before the recent developments
that the situation in Vietnam was com-
pletely under control, the NLF was on
the run, and the United States and its
allies were slowly but surely treading
the road to victory.
The decision to provide Westmore-
land with more troops will seriously de-
plete the already frayed forces of
active Strategic Reserve divisions now
at the Pentagon's disposal.
The New York Times reported from
Washington February 14 that "in the
event of another emergency outside Viet-
nam, the Army would not have even one
complete infantry division ready for
immediate deployment overseas. The de-
pletion of the active Strategic Reserve,
military sources believe, has now reached
the point where Mr. Johnson may soon have
to order a limited mobilization, bring
back troops from Europe or institute
drastic military personnel actions such
as an involuntary extension of enlist-
ments.
"In order to make available the
10,500 men for Vietnam, the Army and
Marine Corps had to violate the rule
that Vietnam veterans will not be sent
back to the war zone without an inter-
vening two years in the United States
or in a nonhardship area such as Europe."
As these additional combat troops
were being speeded across the Pacific,
the Pentagon stealthily started to probe
public reaction to the use of tactical
nuclear weapons in Vietnam. It planted
a rumor to this effect in Washington in
connection with the dispatch of three
tactical nuclear weapons experts to
South Vietnan.
Early in February, Senator Ful-
bright, chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, had been prompted
by similar reports to ask Secretary of
State Rusk whether "the Administration
believes we have the men and the equip-
ment to handle another ground war on the
mainland of Asia without the use of
nuclear weapons." Rusk gave an equivocal
reply which did not satisfy the suspi-
cions of the members of the Senate com-
mittee.
Fulbright wrote a second letter
to Rusk February 14 stating that in be-
half of the committee he wanted to "as-
certain whether tactical nuclear weapons
havej been or would be deployed in South
Vietnam."
The following day, Rusk dictated an angry two-paragraph reply, which he then made public February 15 without consulting Fulbright in advance. Rusk evaded Fulbright's direct query, stating by way of answer: "As George Christian said yesterday in response to a question about whether the President had received a request to use tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam under certain circumstances: 'I think all of you know that decisions of this nature rest with the President. I might add that irresponsible discussion and speculation are a disservice to the country, and I don't intend to say anything more about the subject.'"
Fulbright thereupon issued a public statement rejecting "the implication that the discussion of the subject of use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam is a disservice to the nation."
"I believe," he said further, “it would be a grave disservice to our country, in truth a disaster, if our leadership should so expose our troops in Vietnam as to require nuclear weapons to prevent their destruction."
Stating that he was "profoundly opposed to having the United States destroy the worldwide psychological barrier against the use of nuclear weapons which has thus far existed since Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Fulbright added:
"Since we are the only nation which has used nuclear weapons in anger to destroy the lives of Asian people, we have a very special responsibility not again to use these weapons, not in effect to take the first step toward a general nuclear conflict in which incalculable destruction would result."
Despite his forebodings over Johnson's intentions, Fulbright, it is clear from his statement, is opposed to the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam mainly on tactical grounds. Under certain conditions he would not oppose -- although he might decry -- the dumping of nuclear bombs on the Vietnamese freedom fighters.
The exchange served to indicate how frayed tempers are becoming in Washington unier the pressure of mounting opposition among the American people to the war in Vietnan.
Senator George Aiken, the ranking Republican in the Foreign Relations Conmmittee, said that Rusk's letter was "about as irresponsible as General Wheeler's statement that he wouldn't use nuclear weapons unless we begin to get the worst of it in the battle of Khesanh." And he suggested, "Maybe we need some fresh new faces downtown."
Meanwhile, Senator McCarthy of
-147-
Minnesota, who is challenging Johnson
for the Democratic presidential nomina-
tion, flatly declared that there have
already been demands for permission to
use "tactical" nuclear weapons and that
these will become more insistent if there
is a repetition of recent military set-
backs in Vietnan.
Another member of the Senate For-
eign Relations Committee, Senator Clark
of Pennsylvania, stated on a television
program that he was worried lest the
administration be tempted to use nuclear
weapons if North Vietnamese forces gained
the upper hand in the impending battle
for Khesanh.
When questioned by reporters two
days later, General Wheeler, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed
confidence that Khesanh could be held
without nuclear weapons. But he refused
to exclude their use in the event that
the outpost was in danger of being over-
run.
High-ranking officials say, accord-
ing to the February 15 New York Times,
"that the Administration will not make
any categorical statements about the use
of nuclear weapons since to do so would
be to throw away the deterrent threat."
This deterrent is not solely an
arm of imperialist psychological warfare.
Many in Washington and other capitals are
aware that Truman said he was considering
use of nuclear weapons in November 1950
during the Korean war and British Prime
Minister Attlee had to make a hurried
trip to Washington in protest.
It is likewise recalled that
Admiral Radford, then head of the Joint
Chiefs, urged the use of nuclear weapons
in Vietnam in 1954 and that Kennedy was
resolved to drop them, as a last resort,
in the Caribbean confrontation with the
Soviet Union in October 1962.
The danger appears real enough
this time to stir even Prime Minister
Harold Wilson, who, it is well known,
enjoys a special relationship with John-
son and therefore has access to special
information. On February 9, after visit-
ing the president, Wilson granted a taped
television interview which was shown on
CBS two days later. For the U.S. to use
nuclear weapons in Vietnam would be
"sheer lunacy," Wilson told the American
public. "It would run a very, very great
risk of escalation for the world." In
addition, he said, it would "have a di-
sastrous effect" on the reputation of
the United States.
The Labour leader seemed to have
been somewhat shaken by his conversa-
tion with Johnson, and the coincidence
of his bringing up the lunacy of using
nuclear weapons in Vietnam did not pass unobserved in the press.
An article in the February 13 issue of the Paris daily Le Monde discusses plans projected by the U.S. strategists to drop atomic bombs if the NLF and the North Vietnamese commit "the tactical error" of massing their forces in considerable numbers at some distance from the American lines. Up to now the dispersion of the Vietnamese and their close proximity to the U.S. troops have made their use tactically inadvisable. The U.S. army possesses a full panoply of nuclear weapons ranging from international ballistic warheads to "miniaturized" bombs.
The fact that General Wheeler did not exclude the employment of atomic arms in the present situation shows that the fears voiced by the informed Foreign Re-~ lations Committee members are well founded.
In any case, it would be foolhardy to take any statements on this matter from the administration at face value. Four years ago, in Akron, Ohio, a few weeks before the 1964 election, Johnson said: "We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves." Today there are 510,000 American boys in Vietnam -- and more to go.
Any promise that might come from the president now that the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam is out of the question would be equally untrustworthy.
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