Nation: More of the Same

The political ramifications of the U.S. involvement in Viet Nam are one thing; the war itself, as viewed from cockpits, rifle sights and radarscopes, is quite another. For the better part of a month, the Senate's Preparedness Subcommittee, under Mississippi's John Stennis, has been trying to assess the military effort through the testimony of the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff. Last week Air Force Chief J. P. McConnell had his saw-toothed say. It was predictably and powerfully in support of the air war in the North.

McConnell testified that without the 21 years of aerial interdiction so far leveled against North Viet Nam, "perhaps more than 800,000 additional U. S. troops, at a cost of $75 billion over what we have spent," might have been needed to maintain the war at its cur rent level—and, of course, "we would have suffered many more casualties on the battlefield." McConnell argued that American bombing could have been more effective if it had been less "gradual." "It was the second of March 1965," he reminisced, "and we recommended what we called a sharp, sudden blow which would have paralyzed the enemy's capability. That was disapproved as a concept."

Swift Sword. Pressing for a swift sword stroke against Hanoi's logistical network, McConnell cited the Israeli air attacks last June against the Egyptians: "If you had applied those sorties in 1965 when the North Vietnamese had practically no defense up there, you could have gone a long way. They had no opposition." Then he added with phlegmatic poignancy: "So it is a different world than it was in 1965."

It is indeed. Prior to the August testimony, McConnell and his Navy counterpart, Admiral Thomas Moorer, had demanded air strikes on the 30-mile "buffer zone" between North Viet Nam and China, along with heavy attacks on Hanoi and Haiphong harbor. Since then, while bombers have not directly struck Haiphong's docks through which the bulk of North Viet Nam's war material moves, they have cut off rail and road links between the port and the rest of the country. The buffer zone and Hanoi itself have been hit sporadically, with pilots striking only at specific military targets and taking special care to avoid civilian casualties. Understandably, neither aviator favors a bombing pause. Said McConnell: "If you ever release the pressure, they will be just that much better off." The bluntest remark on the subject came last week from Air Force Colonel Robin Olds, 45, the World War II ace who downed four MIGs in Viet Nam: "Good Lord, you've got the best armed services you ever fielded. Why don't you use them?"