The War: On Two Fronts

Donning a blue suit, dark tie and rimless glasses for his televised press conference last week, Lyndon Johnson projected an aura of somber calm. His remarks matched his manner. He presented a cool, dispassionate defense of his conduct of the Viet Nam war. He turned away critics with soft answers, explained once more his decision to continue bombing the North (see box next page). The President was confident but cautious. While he could "no longer see any possibility of military victory on the part of North Viet Nam," neither could he forecast a quick or easy victory for the Allies.

Johnson is more certain than ever that the air war is badly hurting Hanoi and that the best way to get peace talks started is not to relax the pressure but to keep it up. Accordingly, he moved to tighten the screws "another notch or two," as he put it. From bases in Thailand, U.S. F-105s streaked to the big Thai Nguyen steel complex 28 miles north of Hanoi and damaged it severely (see THE WORLD).

As the President and his advisers see it, such strikes put a high price on Hanoi's efforts to resupply and reinforce Communist forces in the South. Were the bombing to end, U.S. casualties would almost certainly increase, and Johnson would find himself in an indefensible political position. As it is, American losses* for the week ending March 4 were the highest of the war: 232 dead, 1,381 wounded, four missing (v. 1,736 Communist dead, at least twice as many wounded).

Not to Be Trusted. For Johnson, Viet Nam is a two-front war—the military conflict across the Pacific, and the political battle in the U.S. At home, the hostilities seemed to be escalating, despite his efforts to damp down his long-running vendetta with Bobby Kennedy. The feud, which had its beginnings in the 1960 Democratic Convention, flamed into open warfare last month when Bobby returned from Europe amidst rumors that he had received a significant peace feeler in Paris (which he had not).

During a 45-minute meeting in his White House office on Feb. 6, Johnson castigated Kennedy for his stance on Viet Nam. "If you keep talking like this, you won't have a political future in this country within six months," the President is said to have warned. "In six months, all you doves will be destroyed." At one point, Johnson used the phrase, "The blood of American boys will be on your hands." Finally, the President told Kennedy, "I never want to hear your views on Viet Nam again." He also reportedly said to the Senator: "I never want to see you again."

Bobby, for his part, is said to have called the President an s.o.b. and to have told him at one point: "I don't have to sit here and take that —." When the President asked him to go before the press and say that the U.S. had never received a genuine peace feeler from Hanoi, Kennedy said that unless he saw all the pertinent communications he could not make such an announcement. "I'm telling you that you can," said Johnson. Bobby, implying that the President was not to be trusted, refused to accept that assurance.