632
CHRISTOPHER LASCH
naive, "apolitical," etc., PR echoes the Administration's complaint about
the "gullibility" of intellectuals. I can understand why the Administra–
tion holds these opinions; I cannot understand why intellectuals them–
selves should find them so congenial.
In the second place, the suggestion that we should support democra–
tic revolutions is too harmless and vague. It is unimpeachable, but it
doesn't take you very far toward a policy for Vietnam, where the choice
is not between a democratic revolution and an authoritarian one but
between an authoritarian revolution and no revolution at all.
It
is
im–
possible any longer to imagine a South Vietnam (short of one which
has
been razed to the ground and permanently occupied by an American
army) in which the Vietcong will not play the decisive role. PR has
nothing to suggest about how the United States should cope with a situa–
tion of this sort-as opposed
to
one like the Dominican Republic, where
the issues are somewhat simpler. Trying to find a "democratic revolu–
tionary group" in South Vietnam-a movement which is at once demo–
cratic and committed to fight the Vietcong-is looking for something
that no longer exists. The best we can do is'install a neutralist government
in Saigon; instruct it to negotiate a settlement with the Vietcong and
with Ho Chi Minh which will lead to reunification, through elections, of
North and South Vietnam; and resign ourselves to a preponderant Com–
munist influence in the new government. We should then encourage the
new government to pursue a course independent of Moscow and Peking,
and help to make this possible by means of economic assistance and
political forbearance. In short, we should treat Vietnam as another Yugo–
slavia. Perhaps it is too late even for that, but such an outcome is
certainly the best we can hope to promote. In any case, it is much too
easy to make vague pronouncements, from an Olympian perspective high
above the sordid level of concrete discussions of actual situations, about
the need to support democratic revolutions. Can anyone to the left of
Goldwater possibly object to such a statement? And doesn't the very un–
objectionable character of the statement, under the circumstances, become
objectionable in its own right?
Jack Ludwig
I don't know what would be gained by a comment on the
statement
in
PRo I choose, I think, to be mum-an alternative
to
which
the drafters and signers gave a certain amount of thought, I suppose.-
