Symbolism In Nixon’s Trip

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32059, 6 August 1969, Page 9

Symbolism In Nixon’s Trip

(From IOUIS HEREN of "TM Times/* through N.Z.P.A.) WASHINGTON, Aug. 5. President Nixon has returned to Washington from a trip heavy with symbolism.

He sought to symbolise a fundamental change in American national security policy, and the points of departure and arrival were two slogans: the “No more Munichs," of the 1940’5, and “No more Vietnams," of today. The indications are that he has made a good beginning, but Mr George Ball, a former Under-Secretary of State, remarked recently that someone is always devising a slogan or aphorism to dispose of an idea too complex for facile solution. Writing in “Foreign Affairs,” he said that the Vietnam slogan could mean whatever the user wanted it to mean. Isolationism “It may serve as a bugle note sounding the retreat to isolationism, or an argument that we should abandon South-East Asia altogether, or an insistence that we should never again commit American power so uncritically, or a hawkish demand that we cast aside the restraints of limited war, unleash the military and drop lethal bombs without inhibition" Mr Ball wrote. Sure enough, some lessbalanced critics in Washington believe that Mr Nr <

bu returned borne with his objectives no leas obscure. In Guam, where he briefed reporters, Manila and Djakarta, the President sounded as if be was retreating at least from the forward policies of Mr John Foster Dullies, but in Bangkok he

said: “The United States will stand proudly with Thailand against those who might threaten it from abroad or from within.” Went Too Far Tricky Dickie was up to bis tricks again, according to those who will never learn to love him. I doubt it. Mr Nixon clearly went too far in Bangkok, and he has yet to define the new policy which is to keep the peace in Asia without involving 500,000 American troops in another Vietnam. Nevertheless, the critics are asking too much of him. Mr Dean Acheson, a former Secretary of State, is not the only American to remember the consequences of excluding South Korea from the American sphere of interest 20 years ago. The Thais are also jittery, as must be expected after abandoning their age-old policy of playing one side against another. The situation is too complex and American power too inadequate for another quick new doctrine. The one obvious new factor is the realisation of the inadequacy even of American power. This is a bitter fact for a nation which has always refused to accept limits to American endeavour, but it explains much of what was

said between Guam and Lahore. At least the intentions have been fairly stated. The United States intends to remain a Pacific power because the peace of Asia is seen to be essential to its own peace. Treaty commitments will be met, and non-aligned, but friendly countries, such as India, will be helped. More specifically, it • will react strongly to an invasion of an ally’s territory, and India will remain under the American nuclear umbrella. There will be no new treaties, or attempts to extend existing ones. American troops will not be used to help put down insurrections, whether or not they are Com-munist-led. The best defence against insurrection is seen to be political, economic and social progress and reform, and only in special cases will military logistical support be available. As Mr Max Frankel said in the “New York Times”: “There is less to all this than meets the eye," but these principles are expected to nurture Asian independence, self-help and mutual defence. American rhetoric is now also under strict control. In Disfavour

More important, the assert tion of President Kennedy and his Defence Secretary, Mr Robert McNamara, that so-called wars of national liberation must be contested, is in disfavour. Has President Ho Chi Minh won his larger ideological objective, of demonstrating that liberation wars can

defeat the United States? One will not know unless another liberation war is launched. Only then will the new American national security policy be tested.

Thailand could be the resting ground, hence Mr Nixon’s one lapse into the old rhetoric, but be—and Thailand—might well have time to get ready. Moreover, Mr Nixon’s peregrinations have not ended. A third journey, to the Soviet Union or the Middle East, has been suggested. But that is another story.