VIETNAM
627
might. But your signers seem more upset about the naivete and apolitical
assumptions of the protestors than they are anguished by the damage
our war causes. Your statement will not aid new or clear thinking, will
not aid protest, will not encourage solutions, will not bring our govern–
ment closer to recalling our troops and ending our war. There is
neither anger nor anguish implicit in your statement, only an irrita–
tion about being disturbed and a weary determination to set the
record straight. And a repetition of stale formulas about social democracy,
a use of cliches ("go Communist," "free societies") your signers would
do welLto blue-pencil when they appear on student themes. Some of your
signers' students have transcended both the impotent world-weariness and
the ideological cliches, and are managing more than laments; your signers
would have done better
to
have joined the growing protest, or kept silent.
IrvinV Howe
Though I signed the statement on Vietnam that appeared in
the last PR I felt uneasy about it
onc~
the issue came out. Apart from a
few minor exaggerations (e.g., I doubt that
"most
of the criticism of
Administration policy at the teach-ins ... has simply taken for granted
that everything would be fine if only the Yanks would go home"), the
thrust of the statement against the kind of campus pietism which revels
in the worst about U .S. policy while turning mush-headed about the Viet–
cong seems to me justified. But meanwhile U .S. policy has taken still
another turn for the worse: wholesale shelling of Vietnamese villages,
refusal to cease bombing in the North, plans for large shipments of
troops. We cannot discount the possibility of drifting into a war that
would
be
politically and militarily frustrating, as well as humanly ap–
palling. In these circumstances, I feel that the pontifical foolishness that
has fringed the otherwise excellent teach-ins is not nearly so important as
the need to struggle for changes in U.S. policy. Let me therefore sum–
marize an opinion:
It
is
h'Opeless.
South Vietnam, as an independent political entity, has
virtually ceased to exist. Withdraw U.S. troops, and it would collapse in
a day. The internal social disintegration is far advanced; there is no
popular or even effective indigenous leadership; the cities are sullen and
demoralized; the peasants seek only for ways to avoid shells from both
sides. There is a pervasive weariness and cynicism: a response the U.S."
has richly earned.
No doubt, by pouring in 300,000 or more troops the U.S. could
