Which Way?

Friday, Oct. 14, 1966
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The U.S. once again is on the threshold of fundamental and far-reaching decisions about the war in Viet Nam. The decisions have been deferred for the time being by the coming Manila conference, a fresh flurry of peace feelers and, not least, next month's congressional elections. Once Nov. 8 is past, President Johnson will not be able to delay much longer the need to determine how far and by what means—barring any realistic prospect of a negotiated peace —the U.S. is prepared to go to achieve a military victory.

A year and a half after the U.S. began bombing the North and pouring troops into the South to avert an imminent Communist victory, the war is undeniably going well for the allies. Yet there is little prospect that it can be won easily or soon. French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville. who shares Charles de Gaulle's distaste for the U.S. presence in Viet Nam, told Johnson during a 90-minute talk at the White House last week that Hanoi, for its part, no longer believes it can achieve a military victory in the South, but is convinced that it can outwait the U.S.

Thus Washington is caught in a dilemma. Should the U.S. begin to level off in the hope that diplomacy, which so far has been totally ineffectual, can end the war? Or should it risk another round of escalation, increasing the pressure just enough to force Hanoi to seek peace?

Risk & Riposte. Many U.S. military men naturally want to tighten the screws, chiefly by increased bombing. Stung by the criticism that air power has failed to stem North Vietnamese infiltration, they argue that, even though prohibited from hitting the North's most important targets, they have managed to knock out two-thirds of its petroleum supply, to keep 250,000 people constantly at work repairing bomb damage, and to deny Communist units 50% of the supplies that combat soldiers normally need.

General Curtis LeMay, who retired in 1965 as Air Force Chief of Staff, last week described this limitation as "the ultimate in military blindness," added that if the "calculated risk" of heavier bombing were to fail, "then we must be prepared to fight Red China." Dwight Eisenhower said that he "would not automatically preclude anything"—including, by implication, nuclear weapons—"that would bring the war to an honorable and successful conclusion."

To date, Johnson has been at pains to seek Eisenhower's advice at almost every turn in the war, but last week he skipped any tete a tete with Ike and merely said publicly: "The easiest thing we could do is to get into a larger war with other nations. We are constantly concerned with the dangers of that. At the same time, we have no desire to capitulate or retreat."

Former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Foy Kohler, recently named Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that increased bombing carried the risk of killing Soviet technicians now being sent to North Viet Nam in ever greater numbers. To blockade Haiphong harbor—another step favored by the military—might, in his view, result in a military riposte from Russia.