The War: Debate in a Vacuum

• Share

Lyndon Johnson last week pondered one of the most critical decisions of his presidency—and he pondered it almost entirely alone. The question was how many more U.S. fighting men will be needed for the Viet Nam war. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, civilian policymakers at the Pentagon and State Department functionaries mulled over more than half a dozen plans, probably one from General William C. West moreland, the U.S. commander in Viet Nam, calling for 206,000 troops beyond the 525,000 already authorized. But there was a feeling that the debate was being conducted in a vacuum.

The President has retreated into an ever-narrowing inner circle of advisers, and nobody outside that coterie knows what is on his mind, what questions he is asking or what he hopes to accomplish. According to one Cabinet member, the key men around him are newly installed Defense Secretary Clark Clifford, National Security Adviser Walt W. Rostow and Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, a hawk from the first, has apparently lost much of his influence with the President because, one observer suggests, he has developed some doubts about the war. So has Central Intelligence Agency Director Richard Helms, who made the mistake of questioning some of the rosy statistics coming out of Saigon. In both the Defense and State Departments, many sub-Cabinet-level officials flatly oppose sending as many men to Viet Nam as some of the military chiefs would like, but it is uncertain whether their objections are getting through to the President.

Should Johnson decide on a massive new input of men, the impact on the U.S. would be profound: mobilization of some elements of the reserves and of the National Guard at a time when both may be needed to cope with disorders in the cities; higher taxes; perhaps even wage and price controls. The effects on Johnson's political future would be no less profound, for support of the war has reached an alltime low within the nation. According to a Gallup poll released this week, 49% of Americans-the highest total ever—believe that the U.S. made a mistake in sending troops to fight in Viet Nam, while only 41% approved.

Beyond Korea. Clearly, the Communists' Tet offensive had much to do with the groundswell of pessimism. An unremitting stream of TV clips and still photographs—such as LIFE'S classic shot of wounded U.S. Marines stacked aboard a tank in Hue—daily underscored the war's horror. Since the widespread attacks began on Jan. 31, the U.S. has lost an average of 500 men a week, pushing the overall casualty total—Americans killed in action or wounded—since the beginning of 1961 above Korean War totals.*

Those who object to the war have always done so for three basic reasons, and the Tet offensive helped swell the ranks. The three: