Nation: A SAVAGE CHALLENGE TO DETENTE

• Share

(3 of 5)

Embargo. Congress was out of session, but a meeting of legislative leaders supported the President. More varied reaction may come next month when the Senate considers ratification of the nuclear-nonproliferation treaty. Approval of the pact may well be delayed, but it is unlikely that the Senate will kill the agreement. One clue to Congress' attitude came from Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, who had been pressing for additional reductions in the U.S. Seventh Army in Europe. Further cutbacks "at this time" are not feasible, he said last week. His Republican counterpart, Everett Dirksen, suggested an embargo on trade with the Soviets. In the nation, there was a notable lack of hysteria. The mood was one of disappointment and resignation rather than rage.

Despite the relative calm of both the Administration and the public, Senator Eugene McCarthy insisted that the Government had overreacted. He carped at Johnson's decision to call a late-night meeting of his National Security Council to review the Czechoslovak situ ation. Arguing that the invasion did not amount to a "major world crisis," the Senator said that in Johnson's place, he would have "listened to the news and checked it out with one or two people to see whether it was accurate. And then I would have said, 'Let's keep informed, and we'll meet in the morning.'" It was at best ill-timed frivolity to needle the Administration, at worst an instance of absurd misjudgment. At the suggestion of more realistic advisers, McCarthy subsequently "amended" his statement to criticize Russia and make clear that he did con sider the invasion a serious matter.

Moral Myopia. Reaction from the near to the far left, and antiwar groups in general, was intriguing. The left provided some of the most outspoken criticism of the Russians (exception: the American Communist Party, which sid ed with Moscow against the "creeping counterrevolution" in Prague). The Socialist Party leadership joined with prominent liberals to urge, along with Washington, that the U.N. demand an end to Soviet intervention. But con demnation of Russia scarcely reached the pitch that generally goes with condemnation of the U.S. in Viet Nam.

Leading war critics like Dr. Benjamin Spock lumped Soviet aggression with the U.S. role in Viet Nam. Senators McCarthy and George McGovern joined in this view, arguing that American interventions, whether in the Dominican Republic or Southeast Asia, encouraged the Russians to act and also robbed the U.S. of moral authority.