The Administration: Counterattack

"The Bible says Thou shall grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness.' One feels occasionally that for us it is that kind of noonday." Thus, in a speech at the University of North Carolina last week, John Gardner, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, articulated the Administration's concern at the rancorous tone that is now so pervasive in America. "More and more," said Gardner, "hostility and venom are the hallmarks of any conversation on the affairs of the nation.

Today, all seem caught up in mutual recriminations—Negro and white, rich and poor, conservative and liberal, hawk and dove, labor and management, North and South, young and old."

The times, said Gardner, call for cohesion. "Today, the first duty of responsible citizens is to bind together rather than tear apart. The fissures in our society are already dangerously deep." It was a ringing cry for unity from a wise administrator who is all too infrequently heard from.

Bluff & Tough. Gardner was referring to every facet of American life, from the turbulent cities through the quarrelsome Congress to the Viet Nam war, which sparks most of the venom and hostility in the American air. Gardner is not the only one who is bothered. New York's Senator Jacob Javits called on President Johnson to deliver an "extraordinary State of the Union message" to resolve American doubts and dissent over the war. But the President seems to prefer a different tactic. He is deploying his most influential aides in a verbal counterattack.

Dean Rusk, for example, made no effort to restrain his anger in an unprecedented 55-minute news conference that lashed out at the President's crit ics. "If any who would be our adversary," warned the Secretary of State, "should suppose that our treaties are a bluff, or will be abandoned if the going gets tough, the result could be catastrophe for all mankind." Bluntly disagreeing with doubters, Rusk said that abandoning Saigon would put the U.S. in "mortal danger."

Acid & Acrimony. Every bit as aggressive as Rusk, Vice President Hubert Humphrey ranged from Minnesota to California and back to Washington, where he decried the "notes of acrimony, the acid quality heard today on our objectives." He said that "the war would be shortened considerably if Americans showed their sense of purpose." House Speaker John McCormack warned as well that further divisiveness over Viet Nam would only prolong the war. If he were guilty of giving such comfort, McCormack added, "my conscience would disturb me the rest of my life."

Senate Majority Leader Mike Mans field, a sometime critic of the war, also rallied behind the President. He urged his colleagues to forget the simplistic labels of "hawk" and "dove," and tried to draw some of the fire away from L.B.J. by denouncing the United Nations, which Mansfield charged, was "dodging its responsibility" to bring "this disastrous, this dirty, this brutal war to an end."