The War: Exhaustive, Explicit--& Enough

It might, and should, have been a historic debate, a solemn, searching in quiry into the fundamental aims, origins and prospects of America's deepening commitment to a land war in Asia.

If its five-day hearings on Viet Nam fell short of that ideal, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee may nonetheless have served well to quicken public interest in the conflict and—though certainly not by intent—to bulwark the Administration's case that it is a necessary war.

For the 30 million or more Americans who followed the proceedings each day on television, Chairman William Fulbright and his colleagues offered no compelling new arguments for or against the defense of Viet Nam. Yet the dispassionate eyes and ears of electronic journalism did help bring into focus the complex and contrasting personalities of those who chart U.S. policy and those who challenge it. On that score, at least, the hearings' anti-Administration sponsors last week could only regret the cameras' unblinking presence. For, unlike the previous week, when the committee's star witnesses-retired General James Gavin and Sovietologist George F. Kennan—were convinced opponents of the effort in Viet Nam, the closing sessions were effectively dominated by two of the Administration's most polished and lucid articulators.

Not Without Risks. First to take the stand in the marble-walled, chandeliered chamber was retired Army General Maxwell Taylor, 64, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former U.S. Ambassador to Saigon, a major architect of U.S. policy in Viet Nam since 1961 and one of the President's most trusted advisers on the war. As commander of the 101st Airborne Division* at Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, Taylor earned the sobriquet "Mr. Attack." During the hearings, he proved that he is also a master of cool, impenetrable defense. Under heavy fire from committee members, Taylor, crisply handsome in dark grey suit and TV-blue shirt, held his ground with the grace and sang-froid of a man whose intellect and experience were more than a match for his august adversaries.

Speaking so softly that a technician had to turn up the volume on his microphone, the general began with a precise, lucid defense of U.S. purposes and policies. The objective, he said, is not "the occupation of all South Viet Nam or the hunting down of the last armed guerrilla" but rather the nation's independence and freedom from attack. An ancillary aim is to discourage future Communist attempts to swallow "weak nations which are vulnerable targets for subversive aggression—to use the proper term for the 'war of liberation.' " The importance of the conflict can be measured in part by the fact that "it is considered so important by the other side."

Memories of Paris. Defending bombing raids against the North, Taylor testified that a major object is to weaken "the will of the enemy leadership," added that "the warning message is getting through." Said he: "I for one know from experience that no one derives any enjoyment from receiving incoming shells and bombs day after day."