The Commitment

Six more battalions of U.S. combat troops, totaling 8,000 men, were being sent to South Viet Nam last week. To go with them were 13,000 support troops, all part of the buildup that will soon bring U.S. forces in South Viet Nam to 75,000--more than triple the number there just six months ago.

Also last week, 30 Strategic Air Command B-52 bombers took off from Guam, streaked 5,000 miles to rain 400 tons of high explosives upon a tiny strip of Viet Cong-held jungle. That sortie may have moot consequences (see THE WORLD), but day after day, other U.S. aircraft continued to plaster Communist targets both north and south of the 17th Parallel.

All this was part of the increasing U.S. involvement in the Vietnamese war. And as that involvement accelerated, so did the political debate about it, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Ominous Sounds. For months, that debate has been flaring in U.S. academic and intellectual circles, where the dissenters argue that the U.S. has no rightful role in Asia. Now the debate was expanding into political and diplomatic areas, and it centered not so much on whether the U.S. should be in Viet Nam but upon the tactics of U.S. participation in the war.

For the first time, U.S. Republicans were making ominous sounds. Said Wisconsin's Melvin Laird, ranking G.O.P. member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee: "We may be dangerously close to ending any Republican support of our present Viet Nam policy, because the American people do not know how far the Administration is prepared to go with large-scale use of ground forces in order to save face in Viet Nam." More importantly, said Laird, the G.O.P. might withdraw its backing of the U.S. commitment in Viet Nam if the President's real objective turned out to be merely "some sort of negotiated settlement that would include Communist elements in a coalition government."

Barry Goldwater, speaking to a convention of Young Republicans in Miami, said that increasing the number of U.S. troops involved in ground combat was not "an effective addition to the war." Michigan's Governor George Romney, in Nashville for a commencement address, told reporters: "The President is taking a direct course in military action in Viet Nam. I think that is an unwise action from so great a distance."

Without an Unkind Word. On the Democratic side of the debate, Arkansas' William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made a speech from the Senate floor, lauding the President for his "steadfastness and statesmanship." Nevertheless, Fulbright said flatly that any "expansion of the war would be most unwise." Without saying a single unkind word about the Communist aggressors, Fulbright urged a negotiated settlement that would include "major concessions by both sides," insisted that the U.S. must somehow "offer the Communists a reasonable and attractive alternative to military victory."

Fulbright suggested "a return to the Geneva accords of 1954, not just in their essentials, but in all their specifications." What did that mean? In terms that the Communists could conceivably consider an "attractive alternative," absolutely nothing. The Geneva accords set up the boundary line between North and South Viet Nam; the Communists have constantly and consistently crossed that line in military aggressions. The Geneva accords also envisioned the day when North and South Viet Nam might be able to reunite under a freely elected government. But a free election is hardly possible in a country overrun by Communist troops.

Into the Act. A lot of other people were getting into the act. Among them was British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, so far a staunch defender of U.S. involvement. At a Commonwealth meeting in London last week, Wilson proposed that a delegation of Commonwealth Ministers go to Washington, Moscow, Peking, Hanoi and Saigon to strive for peace. Everybody was very polite about the idea; even President Johnson professed himself to be "delighted." But for a variety of reasons, the mission would probably never get off the ground.

President Johnson himself, weeks ago, disclosed his willingness to enter into "unconditional discussions" leading toward peace in Viet Nam. But he has also refused to negotiate with an enemy who refuses to negotiate except on his own absolute terms. North Viet Nam's President Ho Chi Minh is just such an enemy--and he finds considerable cause for optimism in the argumentation now going on within the U.S. and between the U.S. and its allies. Last week he was quoted in Pravda as saying: "The American imperialists see that their isolation is increasing with each passing day. They are subjected to ever-sharper criticism throughout the world, and even in the United States."

President Johnson is aware of that criticism, knows it does not represent a majority view, and says: "We all wish we could settle the differences by discussion and by reasoning them out, instead of by the way we are attempting to settle them." But under present circumstances, the differences cannot be "reasoned out." For, as the President has said many times before, it is tough to talk peace with an enemy who wants war.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.