McCarthy Accuses Johnson Of Intensifying War

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31760, 17 August 1968, Page 13

McCarthy Accuses Johnson Of Intensifying War

ffIZP A -Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK, Aug. 16. Senator Eugene McCarthy has accused President Johnson of intensifying the Vietnam war while claiming to be scaling it down.

The Minnesota senator, a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination, said last night the Administration had not begun realistically to seek a settlement of the war. He told a Madison Square Garden rally of his supporters: “We say we seek not to escalate, yet we continue to send more troops. We say we reduce the bombing of the North, yet the number of bombing missions over the territory of the 19th Parallel increases.”

Senator McCarthy added that both Vice-President Hubert Humphrey (who is widely thought to be in the lead for the Democratic nomination) and the declared Republican Presidential candidate, Mr Richard Nixon, both supported the Administration’s basic Vietnam policy. "The American people deserve more in 1968 than a choice between the positions of the earliest and strongest supporters of the war in Vietnam,” Senator McCarthy declared. HUMPHREY ON TV Appearing in the National Broadcasting Corporation’s “Today Show” television programme last night, Mr Humphrey repeated his view that the United States should stop is bombing of North Vietnam “if and when we see restraint or any reasoned response from the North Vietnamese. “The reason I say that is that we still have 500,000 men in South Vietnam, and

we don’t want to see them left there without some cover of protection,” Mr Humphrey said. “After all we do have to think of our own men.

“But we are also engaged in peace negotiations and if the stopping of the bombing can aid those negotiations, then that helps protect the men.”

At an impromptu news conference after the telecast, the Vice-President said he felt Mr Nixon’s statements on Vietnam were “prudent”, but he added: “I think his emphasis

is a little different froir mine.” In Atlanta, Governor Lester Maddox, of Georgia, called a mass meeting of hundreds of friends, supporters and State leaders in an apparent attempt to boost his bid for the Presidency. Governor Maddox said yesterday he would announce at a press conference on Saturday whether he would seek the Democratic nomination. Democratic Party chiefs from six Southern States agreed in Atlanta yesterday

ito seek the Vice-Presidential nomination for one of these seven “moderate conservative” southerners: Governor . John Connally (Texas), Governor Buford Ellington (Tennessee), Governor John McKeithen (Louisiana), Governor Robert McNair (South Carolina), the former Georgia Governor (Mr Carl Sanders), the former North Carolina Governor (Mr Terry Sanford), and Senator George Smathers, of Florida. In the Republican camp, the co-chairman of Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s campaign organisation has joined the “Nixon-for-President” effort and has given assurances that Governor Rockefeller himself would vigorously support it.