Retreat

On the world stage it was a fretful and disappointing week for the U.S. and the other free nations. The disheartening events reached round the globe, from the conference rooms at Geneva to the battlefields of Indo-China, to the Pentagon and State Department in Washington, and back to the Palais-Bourbon in Paris.

In Indo-China the Communist Viet Minh forces were closing in on the key city of Hanoi. Top U.S. military men were resigned to the imminent fall of Hanoi, of the whole Red River delta and of all northern Indo-China. Any possibility of a U.S. effort to save the North had been abandoned. It was too late. At the Pentagon the discussion had turned to another kind of effort: how to evacuate the 300,000 non-Communist residents and troops in the area. This would require some 130 ships, would rival Dunkirk in its drama and scope.

In Geneva the ill-fated conference on Korea and Indo-China was close to an abortive end. Characteristically, the Communists had used the talking time to increase their military pressure in IndoChina and had refused to move a fraction of an inch toward a reasonable basis for negotiation with the West. Such fresh evidence of unrelenting Communist purpose should have driven the Western nations closer together, but it had no such effect.

Instead, the fall of the Laniel government in Paris (see FOREIGN NEWS) knocked still another hole in the West's armor, and exposed weaknesses both in Europe and Asia.

Could the U.S. act to patch the hole? Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, in a series of speeches across the continent, laid down the five conditions for U.S. military intervention in Indo-China: I) "an invitation from the present lawful authorities"; 2) "clear assurance of complete independence to Laos, Cambodia and Viet Nam"; 3) "evidence of concern by the United Nations"; 4) "a joining in the collective effort of some of the other nations of the area"; and 5) "assurance that France will not itself withdraw from the battle until it is won." No one really thought these conditions would be met.

In effect, the U.S. thought northern IndoChina beyond repair.

The cold, cruel prospect is that the free world is close to another big retreat before Communism. To pretend that the Communist diplomatic and military gains are insignificant would be the worst kind of self-deceit. The U.S. can gain its greatest strength and unity if it clearly recognizes that the Communists are being appallingly successful, clearly understands that there is not much leeway left for further retreat.

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