Nation: A SAVAGE CHALLENGE TO DETENTE

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Dean Rusk dismissed parallels between Viet Nam and Czechoslovakia as "moral myopia." Yet the question deserved to be considered. Here and there in Washington, amid genuine indignation, there was also an occasional flicker of professional sympathy for Russia, as between one world power and another ("There are, after all, not many in the club," said one official). In both the Dominican Republic and Viet Nam, the U.S. intervened in what it con sidered a legitimate sphere of influence. But in the Dominican Republic, the government had been ousted and civil war threatened anarchy and, quite possibly, a new dictatorship. The U.S. intervention restored peace, saved lives, and resulted finally in re-establishment of elective government. Thus it can hardly be equated with Soviet aggression against Czechoslovakia.

In Viet Nam, a legitimate—though dependent—government in Saigon requested U.S. assistance and continues to do so. The U.S. originally entered on a very small scale and only after fighting had already started. South Viet Nam was under very real attack from within and without. These circum stances hardly duplicate those in Czechoslovakia, quite apart from the fact that U.S. and Russian aims in the world are fundamentally and philosophically different. To establish a real parallel with Soviet behavior, one would have to imagine France's being taken over through a Communist coup and renouncing all its military and economic alliances, prompting a concerted move by NATO forces against Paris.

Nor is there much basis for argument that the Soviets felt free to act because the U.S. is tied down in Asia. The U.S. had no such preoccupation in 1956 when the Russians moved with far greater savagery to suppress the Hungarian uprising. And the involvement in Viet Nam was insignificant in 1962, when the Russians sanctioned erection of the Berlin Wall. In all three cases, the only kind of effective U.S. response would have involved the threat of large-scale military action—and the probability of World War III. Few would argue that the stakes were worth it.

Still, the feeling persists that the U.S. might have done more to protect Prague. Before the invasion, the Administration had made clear to the So viets that the use of force might seriously jeopardize Soviet-American relations. Missile rattling would have been meaningless because there was no willingness to back it up. The Soviets knew that; Washington knew that they knew it. Almost any overt U.S. involvement could well have given the Russians a further excuse to crack down on Prague.

Washington could not help being impressed—and concerned—at the speed and efficiency with which the Soviet army had moved. No one could be sure of what would now happen in Eastern Europe. Would Rumania be next on Moscow's list? Nor was it clear how, if at all, Moscow's new preoccupation with events in Eastern Europe would affect the Viet Nam negotiations. What the invasion and the U.S. re sponse (or nonresponse) to it proved once again was one hard fact: the U.S. and Russia still live, as they have with some modifications since World War II, at the center of their own spheres of influence. There are certain lines beyond which neither side dares to go without the serious risk of nuclear war.