Nation: The Use of Power With a Passion for Peace

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With a visible villain like Hitler afoot, it seemed clear that war was then the lesser evil—a supposition with which the professors and their liberal allies heartily agreed. Today, faced with a totalitarianism of the left rather than the right, and with less identifiable villains, the liberals have swapped sides with the isolationists. The extent to which this is true is sometimes astonishing. In a recent debate on Viet Nam policy at the University of Wisconsin, for example, a liberal graduate student commented in all earnestness that the U.S. need not worry about the Chinese Communists' taking over Southeast Asia because "we can defend our United States from within our own shores."

Bundy's initial reaction to such comments was one of wintry scorn. When 127 Washington University faculty members invited him to St. Louis to answer a few pejorative questions—such as "Who is the enemy?"—he not only cut them cold, but did so in a scathingly critical letter. (Although he would not take back a syllable of that letter, he now regrets having sent it, since it only served to stir up more campus criticism.) Last month, when at the last moment he was ordered to go to Santo Domingo and was therefore forced to cancel a scheduled television debate, he sent his regrets along with a swipe at the critics. "I think many of these critics have been wrong in earlier moments of stress and danger," he said, "and I think many of them misunderstand the hard realities of this dangerous world."

In His Element. It was in that same spirit that Bundy last week ducked out of the top-level White House meeting and headed for Harvard to take part in a panel discussion on U.S. foreign policy. It was held in Lowell Lecture Hall, where Bundy used to conduct his popular course, Government 185—"The U.S. in World Politics." More than a thousand people, many of them old acquaintances, packed the hall. And when the discussion got going, Bundy spoke with the ease and confidence of a man in his element.

He did not attempt to underplay the gravity of events in Viet Nam. "The situation is serious, dangerous and difficult," he said. "But I do not believe it is hopeless." There will be "more Americans in South Viet Nam," he went on, because "in light of the Vietnamese effort and their sacrifice, it is somewhat too soon for America to pull the plug. We have to stay with it." If Viet Nam fell, he added, "there would be a great weakening in the free societies in their ability to withstand Communism."

On the rain-slicked sidewalk outside, students picketed with placards reading BUNDY NO. 1 DROPOUT (referring to his absence from the televised debate) and

WHEN WILL BUNDY PAY FOR HIS WAR CRIMES? Inside, hostile questions flew at Bundy, and of themselves drew applause. "Perhaps," said Bundy after one such outburst, "I could have a chance to answer the questions before they are applauded." When Bundy declared that the Viet Cong holds sway over Vietnamese peasants through force and terror, a long hiss came from the middle of the auditorium. "That interesting noise is not an argument," Bundy said.

"Let us go on."