At War with War

Monday, May. 18, 1970
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WITH an almost manic abruptness, the nation seemed, as Yeats once wrote, "all changed, changed utterly." With the killing of four Kent State University students by Ohio National Guardsmen last week, dissent against the U.S. venture into Cambodia suddenly coalesced into a nationwide student strike. Across the country 441 colleges and universities were affected, many of them shut down entirely. Antiwar fever, which President Richard Nixon had skillfully reduced to a tolerable level last fall, surged upward again to a point unequaled since Lyndon Johnson was driven from the White House. The military advantage to be gained in Cambodia seemed more and more dubious (see THE WORLD), and Nixon found that he had probably sacrificed what he himself once claimed was crucial to achieving an acceptable settlement: wide domestic support, or at least acquiescence, for his policies. Now it is the opposition that has gained strength.

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Both the eruption of protest and the reaction to it mocked Nixon's still unfulfilled promise to lead the nation "forward together." Not only were there rending, sometimes bloody clashes between peace demonstrators and peace officers, but a scattering of vicious brawls set citizen against citizen as well.

Morale Destroyed

Not long ago, the Administration was considered an artful, managerial mechanism, oiled with serenity, unanimity and self-confidence. Now it showed symptoms of severe internal distress. Interior Secretary Walter Hickel's letter of criticism to the President (see box, page 10) and the abrupt resignation of two young Administration staffers were among the most tangible signs of strain. There were also hints of basic disagreement in the Cabinet over the Cambodian decision—hints that Nixon declined to deny at a hastily called press conference. On Capitol Hill dissension increased daily.

The President had carefully calculated the diplomatic and military hazards of invading the Cambodian sanctuaries. But the more important risk involved the response at home—and in that crucial area he has proved to be dangerously wrong. Nixon, to be sure, could not have foreseen the Kent State shootings.

But he was sadly slow in recognizing their impact. After the four students were gunned down, he found no reason to censure the Guardsmen. All he could bring himself to say was: "When dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy." That much was obvious. It seemed equally clear that even if the Cambodian expedition should accomplish more than now appears likely, it has already destroyed far more American resources of morale and cohesion than any North Vietnamese supplies could be worth.

Conciliation