American Commitment In Vietnam War

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31982, 8 May 1969, Page 16

American Commitment In Vietnam War

Of the 3m men in the United States armed forces 20 per cent were committed in Vietnam in what was not officially a war but a police action, said Professor H. Schiller in an address to a luncheon meeting of the Christchurch Junior Chamber yesterday. Professor Schiller is one of two American professors on a lecture tour of Australia and New Zealand. In Christchurch their programme was arranged by the Joint Council on Vietnam.

Many Americans were appalled by the human costs :t--volved in Vietnam, Professor Schiller said. In some sectors of the American community there was a feeling of guilt, while others were disappointed that the war was not going as well as they had hoped. Many, if not most, young people were unhappy about the moral issues of the Vietnam conflict, he said. His own view was that Ame rica's involvement and its steady increase reflected a short-sighted leadership. Even by American standards the manpower commitment in Vietnam was very heavy, and the war was costing America $30,000m a year. This $30,000m was in addition to the annual $50,000m defence budget. The combined total amounted to 10

per cent of the gross national product. In the seven years since America became involved it had spent about $125,000m on police action in Vietnam.

This could have been spent elsewhere such as in badly needed social expenditure within the United States or ta greater production and more purchasing power. This kind of diversion of the economic forces had precipitated powerful industrial expansion in the private sector of the American economy. If America pulled out of Vietnam, Professor Schiller said, he did not believe there would be any abrupt reduction in military expenditure. It was hoped that the diver* sion of money from Vietnam would be ploughed into social expenditure for urban development and on the provision of an educational system which would begin to cope with the large number of Americans who had been kept out of the educational mainstream.

Unless the basic social problems were alleviated more money might have to be spent on enforcement agencies to keep social disorders under control. Unless massive finance was spent America could expect the worst sort of social disorders.