Support from Most

"Since Barry Goldwater was visiting France recently on a gastronomic tour," began an acid article in Paris' Le Figaro Litteraire last week, "it is difficult to believe that he occupies the White House under the pseudonym of L. B. Johnson." But Barry might just as well be there, the weekly magazine complained: L.B.J. is the faithful executor of Goldwater's plans. The Times of London chimed in: "The U.S. is doing its best to appear as if it has reverted to the American colonialism of the 19th century."

Touring Europe last week, Columnist Joe Alsop complained that U.S. newspapers were giving aid and comfort to this kind of anti-Americanism abroad at a time when the "motives and aims of the Government's action must be given the benefit of the doubt." Said Alsop:

"The Times of London appears to have gone through the U.S. press with a fine-toothed comb, with special emphasis on its great opposite number in New York, to find means of presenting the American action in Santo Domingo in the worst possible light."

Inner Resolve. In spite of Alsop's complaint, the press abroad quoted only sparingly from U.S. newspapers. While the French were scathingly critical of the Dominican intervention, the British, in general, were low-keyed in their response and often downright sympathetic. After its first harsh comment, the Times of London added: "If President Johnson has taken the deliberate risk of touching Latin American feelings on their most sensitive spot by recalling the days when Theodore Roosevelt policed the Caribbean with marines, it is presumably because American feelings too have been touched on their most sensitive spot -- the prospect of another Castro-like regime being established in an other Caribbean island."

Nor was the U.S. press, with a few important exceptions, overly critical of Johnson. The New Republic announced in a front-cover editorial that L.B.J. "just misses flunking" his foreign-policy tests, and the New York Times ran one editorial after another faulting Johnson --for thinking the U.S. omnipotent, heating up the Cold War, hamstringing Congress. Yet even the Times had its disagreements. The same day that an editorial lambasted the "Johnson Doctrine" (a term coined largely by the Times itself, with some help from other papers) for putting the U.S. in the "unenviable, self-righteous and self-defeating position of world policeman," Times Washington Bureau Chief Tom Wicker denied that there was any such thing as a Johnson Doctrine.

In fact, the vast majority of the nation's press supported Johnson's intervention. Said the Chattanooga Times: "President Johnson took a bold step, one fraught with difficulties and even dangers, but he had the same solid reason of which Mr. Kennedy spoke --the security of our nation." Agreed the Chicago Daily News: "The Dominican rebellion forced President Johnson to decide whether the Western Hemisphere was threatened by another Cuba. He decided it was. Let those who did not have his information or responsibility decide that he was wrong; that is the luxury of the spectator."

Sphere of Influence. President Johnson himself feels he has converted some of his critics. Columnist Walter Lippmann, for example, after many pieces advising a hasty disengagement from South Viet Nam, last week acknowledged that a U.S. military buildup in the area of Danang would help the U.S. in any future negotiations with North Viet Nam--which puts him close to Johnson's position. And L.B.J. could not have asked for warmer support on the Dominican Republic. While Lippmann has always been wary of far-flung commitments overseas, he considers it perfectly proper for the U.S. to maintain order in its own backyard. "The Dominican Republic lies squarely within the sphere of influence of the U.S., and it is normal for a great power to insist that within its sphere of influence no other great power shall exercise hostile military and political force."

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