The War: Thunder from a Distant Hill

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majority of war critics were "no longer just a handful of left-footed erratics," Oregon Republican Mark Hatfield complained that "misleading the American public" has been a "consistent policy of the Administration."

Two attacks, in particular, wounded the President. New Jersey Republican Clifford Case, among the mildest, most even-tempered of men, lit into Johnson for his "misuse" and "perversion" of the Tonkin Gulf resolution, accusing him of having acted in a "highly irresponsible manner" and of having "squandered his credibility."

On the heels of Case's attack came an outspoken rebuke by Kentucky's Republican Senator Thruston Morton. His forum was a convention of the Business Executives Move for Viet Nam Peace, a 950-member group that wants to end the bombing. Morton acknowledged that he once supported Johnson's Viet Nam policies, but declared: "I was wrong."

Getting Iffy. One Republican who did not waver in his support of the President's Viet Nam policy was Everett Dirksen. The scramble among his fellow Republicans to dissociate themselves from Johnson's war policy prompted him to shake his head. "They're all getting iffy. I don't know what the hell's wrong with them," he complained last week. "The fellows in uniform over there aren't going to appreciate it one damn."

For his part, Johnson spent more time than usual expounding his Administration's policies. In a ceremony during which he awarded the 19th Medal of Honor of the Viet Nam war, he replied to Morton's charges that he had been "brainwashed"—a usage that must have warmed George Romney—by the military-industrial complex into seeking a solely "military" solution to the impasse in Viet Nam. Said the President: "We have also had to face the hard reality that only military power can bar aggression and make a political solution possible."

Within the privacy of his White House office, the President assiduously searched for some common ground with his critics. One evening he played host to a dozen Democratic Senators, ten of whom face re-election next year. Among them were some of his harshest opponents on the war, but Johnson was eminently conciliatory, assuring them that he bore no grudges and wanted to do all he could to help them win reelection.

At another meeting, Johnson spent two hours with 15 Harvard professors, including Nobel-Prizewinning Physicist Edward Purcell, who wrote him in August with a list of questions about Viet Nam. The professors, representing the "troubled middle" of academe, neither urged Johnson to get out of Viet Nam nor to leap into an ill-timed bombing pause. But they did want to know whether some move toward de-escalation could be made. "We are groping for ways out of this war," the President said, but he added: "There is absolutely no sign that these fellows want to end the war."

"We Are Going to Stay." In a public move to stanch the nation's unrest, the President decided to turn an address to the National Legislative Conference in San Antonio into a major policy speech. His timing, uncharacteristically, was bad. Only NBC-TV aired him live. As a result, most Americans missed a hard-hitting speech, briskly delivered without any