Americans See Chance Of Defeat

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31628, 14 March 1968, Page 13

Americans See Chance Of Defeat

(From FRANK OLIVER, N Z.P.A. special correspondent) WASHINGTON, March 13. The opening of this year was far from auspicious, and there have been many gloomy days since then. But Washington has never been sadder in 1968 than it is now.

The trouble is the same one: the Vietnam war. On the last visit of General Westmoreland and Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, a ripple of hope ran through the city. The tide apparently had turned. Things were looking up. The worst seemed to be over.

Then came the Tet offensives, which demonstrated who really held the initiative. And now the suggestion of a possible defeat for American arms has leaked into the press. It is said that it is becoming more and more difficult for the President to keep the war limited; that American strategists find themselves forced into something closely resembling the “enclaves” which they scorned; that no city or town in Vietnam seems immune from attack and the optimism of another day has given way to stark recognition that the forces of

Ho Chi Minh now hold the initiative; that American public opinion seems to be moving to the conclusion that the war in Vietnam is a creeping disaster which cannot be salvaged by military means; and even that the United States is headed towards foreign policy bankruptcy. No wonder that the press is saying of Mr Johnson: “With good cause, he is wearier, more melancholy than he used to be.” The President is described by those who know him as less ebullient, less spry, less tolerant of press and criticism. The harshness of his epithets grow sharper with the war; the phrase “nervous Nellies” applied to dissenters has, in the words of one newspaper, “escalated to Quislings, in other words, traitors.”

Now comes the request from Westmoreland for another 200,000 troops and this, it is agreed in the press, on radio and television, has touched off a divisive internal debate within high levels of the Johnson Administration.

The press is saying the nation must steel Itself for a vastly larger war, including Laos, Cambodia and even the invasion of North Vietnam. The Knight chain of newspapers goes as far as to say, in an article by the publisher: “The nation, therefore, must prepare itself for a vastly larger conflict, possibly involving the great powers of Red China and Russia.”

Correspondents in Vietnam who, a little while ago, shared the optimism of General Westmoreland, are now pessimistic. One who thought, two years ago, that the war was being won, now predicts that the fighting will get “bigger, broader and bloodier” before the year’s end. He adds that the generals, who want more troops and do not rule out the use of small-scale nuclear weapons, contend that victory will go to the side that can hold out the longest These views are more than enough to invoke national sadness, but an added reason is that the destruction of cities and villages to “save” them has left many people embittered and disillusioned in America as well as among the population of South Vietnam —where, the press reports, anti-Americanism is running high. Recent events on the battlefield and the Westmoreland request for a large increase in forces, about 40 per cent, has forced on the Administration one of the broadest reviews of war strategy since this conflict began. One newspaper says this review is reaching way beyond tactics to the basic strategy of the war. It adds: “All the alternatives are on the table because President Johnson is on the defensive. In an election year he is under pressure to make dramatic moves. He needs to regain the initiative if he is to recoup his own

political fortunes and rescue the policies he believes vital to the nation’s survival.” The newspaper adds that it is becoming more and more difficult to keep the war limited. A really large-scale escalation is not ruled out un-

less the Communists begin to crack fairly soon. Escalation later in the year could, in the words of one commentator, mean sending a vast United States Army to overwhelm the Communists by sheer numbers; could mean closing North Vietnam’s ports; could mean invading the North by limited thrusts; while at home it J would mean large-scale

mobilisation and economic controls. <

This is a theme touched on by several newspapers, one of which says: “The days of complete wartime economy, with wage and price controls, sharply higher war taxes and full mobilisation of men and resources, may not be too distant.”

A “New York Times” correspondent, in a thoughtful study, says public opinion is not moving towards such things as marches on the Pentagon. He finds a collection of straws in the wind that

suggest “a painful and hesitant reappraisal of the war —what it is all about and what should be done about it—by many moderate Americans who have tended to support without much question the President, the troops and their country’s foreign policy.” For the first time the polls

show a majority of Americans who consider entry into the war a mistake. In addition, 61 per cent feel that the United States and her allies are either losing the war or making no progress towards winning it. A number of people feel,

with Walter Lippmann, that the central and critical fact is that the Vietnamese war is a diversion (Lippmann uses the word “monstrous diversion”) from the real American problem, which is not to police Asia but to master human adustment to the modern, urban, highly-technological society in which most Americans live. People don’t think'in the

same high-flown terms as Lippmann, but there are many who

feel that the money and lives being expended in Vietnam could be more usefully employed ironing out the racial problems at home, strengthening the economy, fighting poverty and, in short, making this nation very strong. They feel that the war Is

weakening the country rather than strengthening it and, as more and more adverse comment comes in from nations overseas, they tend to feel isolated. Lippmann thinks the war

having taken a bad turn, the nation is, quite unexpectedly, faced with the formerly unthinkable and absurd question: “Are we being defeated in South Vietnam?” The fact that the question is being asked, he says, is causing a shock of which the force is only now being felt