The Administration: Counterattack

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Gaining Sustenance. Behind all the angry words, the most thoughtful discussion last week concerned the possibility of a bombing pause (TIME, Oct. 6). Insistence on a halt in attacks on the North came from all quarters. Massachusetts' Republican Senator Edward Brooke, who only seven months ago came to the support of the bombing, switched his ground to demand a halt to heed "the call of the nations of the world." In the press, LIFE magazine suggested that a pause might pay off.

The argument for such a pause gained some sustenance from Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. When he appeared before the Senate Preparedness Subcommittee last August, he was anxious to cool the urge for escalation that had been stirred by earlier testimony from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The brass had argued that without air strikes against North Viet Nam, the U.S. would have needed 800,000 men and $75 billion more to keep even in the war. McNamara insisted that even though the bombing was exacting a high price, it was not cutting the southward flow of men and supplies from Hanoi. "I am simply saying," he told the Senators, "that I have seen no evidence of any kind . . . that an accelerated campaign of air attacks against the North in the past would have reduced our casualties in the South."

However slim the chances that Hanoi will respond to a bombing pause with meaningful negotiations, the opportunity may soon be offered. South Viet Nam's newly elected President Nguyen Van Thieu said again that he would propose a bombing pause if it would lead to reciprocal talks. And it seems clear that the North Vietnamese are listening—both to him and the current U.S. debate. There even seems to be a remote chance that this will lead to talks sooner rather than later. Hanoi's hard-bitten Defense Minister Giap suggested last week that he is convinced that whoever is elected President in 1968, Lyndon Johnson or his opponent, the war—if it is still going on—is sure to increase in intensity.