WORDS OF ADMINISTRATION STUDIED

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31115, 19 July 1966, Page 17

WORDS OF ADMINISTRATION STUDIED

(Hl. Press Assn—Copyright) WASHINGTON, July 18. After three months of pessimism and two weeks of optimism about the war in Vietnam, the Johnson Administration now insists that it never indulges in anything except realism, writes Max Frankel, of the “New York Times” in a news analysis. Frankel wrote: That, of course, means nothing unless it is known who is looking at which reality. Realism does not preclude considerable and genuine fluctuations of hope. But the White House and State Department contend that all reports of significant

■changes of mood in Washington to have been false, the concoctions of an ignorant or sensational press that habitually "over-reacts.” The record does not readily support the complaints, for it shows a good number of authoritative statements of optimism after the bombings at Hanoi and Haiphong on June 29 until senior officials realised last week that they had stimulated dangerous and possibly false expectations among the American people. But the complaints have raised even deeper questions than the accuracy of the press. There are questions in Washington about the haste with which the President’s subordinates rush to support what they take to be his deliberate propaganda line. There are questions about the Administration’s loose use of words to influence opinion at home and abroad. And there are questions about how, after all, it really assesses the course of the war. i To take the pulse of this I Administration, it is never

enough to rely upon its words. Since the bombing at Hanoi, for instance, President Johnson has said that we have “begun to turn the tide” of war, to which the Secretary of State, Mr Dean Rusk, added: “We are not over the hump yet.” The President’s special assistant, Mr Walt W. Rostow, said two weeks ago that' the Viet Cong had been “tactically defeated.” Ten days later Mr Rusk said that “we haven’t begun to see the end of this thing.” The Under-Secretary of State, Mr George Ball, was “encouraged” but not “overly optimistic” two days before the Defence Secretary, Mr Robert McNamara, was “cautiously optimistic.”

President Johnson’s consistent warning that only North Vietnam can determine when the war will end and what it will cost has always had to be read in a context, now grim, now hopeful. When it comes with hints of secret reports that Hanoi knows it is losing, the meaning is clearly different than i

when it comes in statements deploring political strife in Saigon as a costly diversion from the war. To those who have watched the Administration closely over the last six months, there has been little doubt about its real moods. In February and March, after the resumption of bombings of North Vietnam, there was real encouragement about the ground war in South Vietnam. The Viet Cong were felt to be taking a severe beating, suffering losses of men and supplies and morale that they were held incapable of sustaining alone for much more than a year, especially in the face of increasing American pressure.

Spirits in Washington soared. In the first week of July, Administration officials took their cue from a tough but buoyant President, talking of “steady gains” and the beginnings of a “win,” and of faint Signs that the North Vietnamese were wearing down, weakening and, in Vice-President Humphrey’s

phrase, “looking for a way out.” These appeared to be genuine expectations. They were eagerly exposed to dispel the springtime gloom, to bolster the sagging morale of the American people and to enhance the intimidating effect of the more intense bombing. Good tactics and good politics seemed to coincide, because support from the governors’ meeting in California and from the opinion polls was expected to help dash hopes in Hanoi that domestic opposition would stay the President’s hand. But a week ago, after the arrival of the polls and the return of Mr Rusk, who had been touring in Asia, the White House suddenly began to blame the press for misinterpreting determination as optimism. The polls showed a remarkable jump in general support for the President, from 42 to 52 per cent, and a five to one support of the new bombings. But they also showed 86 per cent of the people believ-

ing that the bombings would hasten the end of the war. And Mr Rusk, who has always foreseen a long war of attrition, not subject to quick solutions by either diplomacy or militancy, undoubtedly added a warning against rousing insatiable hopes. “One can be encouraged without believing the war is over,” was the gracious way in which he chided his colleagues while scolding the press for misleading the public. “It may last a long time,” the President said the same day. The indications are that the Administration is indeed encouraged—-very encouraged militarily, vaguely hopeful politically. It thinks Hanoi has little reason to fight on without much outside help against ever more American power, but it honestly does not know how long it will fight on. And though the war may keep going better, it cannot end until Hanoi chooses to end it. That, at any rate, is the realism of the moment.