V-IETNAM
625
Dominican Republic are not "good ones." Critics of American policy
are apolitical or naive about Communism. No alternative policies are
available (or recommended by your signers), but our present policies are
held unjustifiable. "The time has come for new thinking."
Why should men of such calibre publish such crap? Why should
men of such calibre bother to backbite the increasing student protest
about our war in Vietnam? I share the views of "the critics of American
actions in Vietnam" but my assumptions about the Cold War and Amer–
ican responsibility for its inception, escalation and continuance are hardly
apolitical. I think about what would happen should American troops be
withdrawn from Vietn'am. I think the N.L.F. would constitute a govern–
ment. I think that government would be collectivist. I do not think that
Stalinist nightmares would inevitably follow that government's inception,
and my hope is that a humane socialism, rather than a dictatorial com–
munism, will result from the N.L.F.'s regime. But should authoritarian
terror be guaranteed (which it certainly is not) , I would still demand
American troops get out of Vietnam. I am no isolationist, but I do not
believe our present American government has the right to intervene any–
where in the world. Our troops and resources are destroying the economy
and society of both North and South Vietnam, in the name of a demo–
cratic alternative we have h\!lped to destroy, in the service of a freedom
substantial numbers of American citizens do not and have never enjoyed.
Had your signers been more committed to aiding the growing pres–
sure for American withdrawal than to setting their juniors and inferiors
straight, they might have produced a less compromised and petty
statement. Consider this question of alternatives. I want our involvement
ended, our troops home, the killing ended. All of us who want an end
to our war .have a responsibility to maximize our protest, not to draft
alternative policies.
If
we can make our protest significant, and that
protest buttresses the growing outcry and outrage against our Vietnam
war, the Administration (pressured by a deteriorating international situa–
.tion) might decide to withdraw. Strategists and similar experts will then
be charged to devise a policy for withdrawal which saves maximum
"face." (Witness the process of our decision not to press for payment of
the Soviet Union's debt to the U.N. ) Saving "face" is the Administra–
tion's problem, as
is
the definition of the appropriate policy. I'd get out
now and lose all "face"; internationally, ours gets more loathsome each
month our war continues, partly because our "tactics" get more exposure
abroad than in our domestic (and domesticated) media.
Your signers can only "lament" and ask, plaintively, for "new think–
ing." New thinking won't get us out of Vietnam; an escalating protest
