FROM CONTAINMENT TO ISOLATION

The case for a U.S. withdrawal from Viet Nam was argued before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week by the distinguished career diplomat who is generally regarded as the architect of America's postwar policy of containment against Communist aggression in Europe. George F. Kennan, who retired from the State Department in 1963 to return to his professorship at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, believes that resisting Communist aggression in Southeast Asia is "not our business." Excerpts:

"If we were not already involved as we are today in Viet Nam, I would know of no reason why we should wish to. Viet Nam is not a region of major military-industrial importance. It is difficult to believe that any decisive developments of the world situation would be determined by what happens in that territory. Even a situation in which South Viet Nam was controlled exclusively by the Viet Cong, while regrettable and no doubt morally unwarranted, would not present dangers great enough to justify our direct military intervention. There is every likelihood that a Communist regime in South Viet Nam would follow a fairly independent political course.

"Any total rooting out of the Viet Cong could be achieved, if at all, only at the cost of a degree of damage to civilian life for which I would not like to see this country responsible. To attempt to crush North Vietnamese strength to a point where Hanoi could no longer give any support for Viet Cong political activity in the South would almost certainly have the effect of bringing in Chinese forces, thus involving us in a military conflict with Communist China in one of the most unfavorable theaters of hostility that we could possibly choose.

"Not only are great and potentially more important questions of world affairs not receiving the attention they should, but in some instances assets we already enjoy and, hopefully, possibilities we should be developing, are being sacrificed. Our relations with the Soviet Union have suffered grievously-and this at a time when far more important things were involved in those relations than what is ultimately involved in Viet Nam.

"Even among peoples normally friendly to us, our motives are widely misinterpreted. The spectacle of Americans inflicting grievous injury on the lives of a poor and helpless people of different race and color produces reactions among millions of people throughout the world profoundly detrimental to [our] image.

"I hope that our Government will restrict our military operations in Viet Nam to the minimum necessary to assure the security of our forces and to maintain our military presence until we can achieve a satisfactory peaceful resolution of the conflict. There is more respect to be won in the opinion of this world by a resolute and courageous liquidation of unsound positions than by the most stubborn pursuit of extravagant or unpromising objectives.

"Our country should not be asked, and should not ask of itself, to shoulder the main burden of determining the political realities in any other country, and particularly not in one remote from our shores, from our culture and from the experience of our people. This is not only not our business, but I don't think we can do it successfully."

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