JOHNSON FIRM ON VIETNAM

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31763, 21 August 1968, Page 13

JOHNSON FIRM ON VIETNAM

Party’s Dilemma Aggravated

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, August 20.

President Johnson’s firm declaration last night that the United States could not make any further moves to scale down the Vietnam war unless there was a definite response from Hanoi is expected to have sharp repercussions within the Democratic Party.

The Democrats’ platform committee is at present meeting in Washington in a desperate attempt to draw up an election manifesto that will be acceptable to both the “dovish” supporters of Senator Eugene McCarthy and the party’s “war hard-liners” who back Vice-President Hubert Humphrey.

Mr Johnson stressed that the responsibility for making policy on Vietnam would remain his until he is succeeded by the next President, on January 20.

Observers regard Mr Johnson’s reiteration of his policy as setting the stage for a fullscale battle at next week’s national Democratic convention in Chicago. ' In a speech in Detroit to a war veterans’ convention, the President said a halt in the bombing of the North would be a foolhardy gesture in the present circumstances. “The decision taken on March 31 to restrict bombing missions over the North was a major first step towards peace which has not yet been accepted,” Mr Johnson said. "Communist infiltration of the South has continued and preparations for a major wave of attacks have not ceased. “There is no serious responsible leader in Asia who does not know that the struggle now taking place in Vietnam is the hinge on which the fate of Asia will swing, one way or another, for many years, far into the future.” The President said that when the United States insisted on permitting independent nations to survive it was talking not about the 17 million people of South Vietnam, but about nations which contained hundreds of millions of people throughout the whole of Asia.

Commenting on statements by some Americans that the United States should get out of Vietnam, the President said: “I profoundly believe this course would be disastrous to our nation and for the world, now and in the years to come. “I doubt if any American President will take a substantially different view when he bears the burdens of office and has available to him all the information that flows to the President, and is responsible to our people for all the

consequences of the alternatives before him.” Shortly before the President's speech, the Democratic Party’s policy-makers, deeply split in trying to frame a Vietnam election manifesto, called on the Secretary of State (Mr Dean Rusk) to testify before them to help them make a final decision.

The surprise invitation to Mr Rusk came while the platform committee was still trying to find a compromise between Vice-President Hubert Humphrey’s supporters and those of Senator McCarthy, who is campaigning for a bombing halt and a coalition govmment in Saigon. Both are candidates for the party’s Presidential nomination.

The Secretary of State, who has ruled out any further reduction in the American war effort unless Hanoi pledges restraint, has been asked to appear at a special session of the committee tonight. Senator George McGovern, of South Dakota, another contender for the Democratic nomination, has announced that he is asking the committee to adopt a plank calling for a 250,000-man reduction in the United States military strength in South Vietnam, and an end to offensive operations. He also asks the United States to stop its bombing and withdraw "to just a defensive role.” Mr McGovern says he will refuse the party's Vice-Presi-dential nomination .if he fails to win the Presidential nomination. Hileman’s View As if to emphasise the party’s dilemma, the former Assistant Secretary of State (Mr Roger Hilsman) today called for an unconditional halt to the bombing of North Vietnam and for the inclusion of Communists in a coalition government in Saigon. Mt Hilsman, the State Department’s Far East expert in President Kennedy’s Administration, backed the position of Senator Eugene McCarthy in an appearance before the platform. Mr Hilsman said the Johnson Administration had failed to admit to itself that the American intervention in Vietnam had failed.

Although he was one of the architects of the policy that sent American military advisers to South Vietnam in the early 19605, Mr Hilsman said the United States had made the fundamental mistake of turning the Vietnam struggle into an American war and of failing to understand the “new nationalism” in SouthEast Asia. “We continue to talk of rejecting a settlement in Vietnam that provides for a coalition government with the Communists,” he said. “Yet the realities of the situation are such that the Communist side commands substantial political support within South Vietnam, while the Saigon Government does not even have the support of substantial factions of the nonCommunist elements in the South.

“If the United States, unilaterally and without insisting upon reciprocation, not

only stopped all bombing of North Vietnam but declared an end to offensive operations in the South—in effect, declaring a cease-fire unless actually attacked—the Communist side might well succumb to the temptation to take advantage of it.” Cease-fire Call Senator William Fulbright, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today proposed that the Democratic Party should go on record in favour of an immediate cease-fire in Vietnam, followed by the creation of a coalition government to supervise free elections. Testifying before the platform committee, the Arkansas senator took pains to avoid personal criticism of President Johnson while asking the party to repudiate what he called “honest but serious errors in policy that have led to America’s present deep involvement in Vietnam.”

Senator Fulbright’s detailed prescription for peace may become the rallying point for the Democratic “doves.”