638
DWIGHT MACDONALD
wealthy and racist and as using its superior military technique to crush
the aspirations of the awakening colored peoples of Asia."
Unsophisticated the masses, crude the propaganda, but why are
we behaving the way Castro and Mao want us to, why are we going
in for Kiplingesque idealism, shouldering The White Man's Burden
("The blame of those ye better / The hate of those ye guard") long
after more sophisticated imperialisms have let it drop as too weighty
an anachronism? Why do we think that, even if we miraculously win
a military victory over the Vietcong-which now after ten years of
massive American economic-military support to its enemies, controls
most of the
country~ur
army of occupation can set up and sustain
a viable non-Communist government, assuming there is much left to
govern after our bombings? And finally, why are
we
asked whether we
"really
care
what happens to the people of Southeast Asia so long as
America gets out"? The question is not what will or may happen
to
those people, but what is happening to them so long as America stays in.
Norman Mailer
Three cheers, lads. Your words read like they were written in
milk and milk of magnesia. Still, your committee didn't close shop until
close after this extraordinary remark: "The time has coine for new think–
ing." Cha cha chao
We will do our best
to
serve. First let it be established-as is done
nowhere in the statement-that the editors support the war in Vietnam.
For after all somber dubiety, and every reservation, we are left back
at the beginning-"we have not heard of any alternative policy which
would actually lead to a negotiated peace in Vietnam." But to provide
alternative policy, people's front must remind you how the war in Viet–
nam goes on. The following statistics are furnished by Ho Chi Minh.
No, indeed they are not. They are from a statement by Robert Mc–
Namara before the Senate Subcommittee on Department of Defense
Appropriations and appeared August 5 in the
Times.
((We now estimate the hard core of Vietcong strength at some
70,000 men .
..
In addition, they have some 90,000 to 100,000
irregulars and some 30,000 in their political cadres, i.e., tax
collectors, propagandists, etc. We have also identified at least
three battalions 'Of the regular North Vietnamese Army, and
there are probably considerably more."
At least three battalions! That is
to
say, at most, 3,000 North
