More Light, Less Heat

THE PRESIDENCY

It has become a truism in the U.S. today that the public is confused and uneasy over the war in Viet Nam. The disquiet results in part from President Johnson's failure to justify the conflict in terms that Americans can readily understand and believe. But if there has been too little enlightenment from the top, there has been too much obfuscation from the nation's academic and intellectual communities, whose present chorus of dissent has reached a volume unparalleled since the antiwar diatribes of the '30s.

Last week at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Government and International Affairs, Lyndon Johnson, venerably capped and gowned for the occasion, made a determined attempt to enlist the support of academe. At the same time, he delivered a few more oblique shafts at his chief tormentor, Senator William Fulbright, a whilom hero of the intellectuals.

"Cool It." In a low-key speech before an audience of 2,000, the President discussed the role of the intellectual in the complex society of 1966. He argued equably that dedicated men of education must indeed search for the truth but must also understand that if the truth does not conform with their opinions, truth itself is not altered. Said Johnson: "More than one scholar has learned how deeply frustrating it is to try to bring purist approaches to a highly impure problem. They have learned that criticism is one thing, diplomacy another. They have learned to fear dogmatism in the classroom as well as in the capital."

On the other hand, he continued, in a thinly veiled critique of Fulbright's power-is-arrogance thesis: "Strident emotionalism in the pursuit of truth, no matter how disguised in the language of wisdom, is harmful to public policy --just as harmful as self-righteousness in the application of power. The responsible intellectual who moves between his campus and Washington knows above all that his task is, in the language of the current generation, 'to cool it'--to bring what my generation called 'not heat but light' to public affairs."

"Recklessly, Never." For the U.S., the President declared, "the exercise of power in this century has meant not arrogance but agony. We have used our power not willingly and recklessly ever, but always reluctantly and with restraint. The aims for which we struggle are aims which, in the ordinary course of affairs, men of the intellectual world applaud and serve: the principle of choice over coercion, the defense of the weak against the strong and aggressive, the right of a young and frail nation to develop free from the interference of her neighbors."

Next day, after a visit with wounded Viet Nam veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, he appeared before a high-spirited crowd of 6,000 Democrats at a $100-a-plate dinner in Washington and unloosed an oldfashioned, stump politician's spellbinder--and, this time, some far broader barbs at Fulbright. When Johnson rose to speak, he glanced a dozen seats down the head table where the Arkansas Senator sat. Said the President: "I am delighted to be here tonight with many of my very old friends--as well as some members of the Foreign Relations Committee." Chairman Fulbright, wearing a thin smile, rose and bowed slightly toward the howling crowd. When the laughter faded, Johnson gibed: "I can say one thing about those hearings. But I don't think this is the place to say it."

Then, alternately waving his fists in the air and pounding the rostrum, Johnson cried: "We have always hated the horrors of war! We will have our differences and our disputes, and we will do it without questioning the honor and integrity of our fellow man. If we were to turn our backs on freedom in South Viet Nam--if Viet Nam were to fall to force--what an empty thing our commitment to liberty would turn out to be! We will stand there with honor, and we shall stand there with courage, and we shall stand there with patience. It is the stand the free people of the world will respect!"

The President's new air of confidence was buoyed by several hours of discussion last week with Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, back from his Saigon post for the first time in nearly nine months. Lodge also briefed the first meeting of the National Security Council since July, when the President and his advisers were agonizing over the possibility of having to declare a national emergency because of Viet Nam's sagging fortunes.

Spreading the Word. For their part, Fulbright and his antiwar coterie in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee continued their assault on the Administration. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, making his eighth appearance before the committee this year, proceeded to outline--in extensive detail--the legal basis for the U.S. commitment in South Viet Nam. The Secretary's discourse ended in a hot-tempered exchange among Democratic members of the committee.

Oregon's Wayne Morse complained waspishly that Rusk's explanation of Administration policies was a "one-way street" allowing no rebuttal. Ohio's Frank Lausche called that a "complete misstatement" and retorted--correctly --that the committee itself had brought up the subject, though the hearings were supposed to be limited to foreign aid. Fulbright insisted that "this morning is for the aid program," adding curtly that the legality of the war is a "very involved subject" that should be pursued later.

Fulbright's committee also hammered at Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who testified for the third time in ten weeks. Unperturbed under needling from Morse, McNamara reported that 3,234 Americans had been killed since 1961 in Viet Nam, and some 15,000 wounded. But without those sacrifices and the great increase in U.S. forces there, he declared, "the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese would have won. They would have slaughtered thousands, probably tens of thousands, of South Vietnamese, and all of Southeast Asia would be in a turmoil." As for the bombings in North Viet Nam, which reached new peaks last week (see THE WORLD), the Defense Secretary said flatly that destruction of Communist communications and supply lines had produced "a noticeably adverse effect on Viet Cong morale and expectation of victory."

Clearly the morale of Americans at home is equally crucial to victory. In belated recognition of that fact, the President last week commanded Democratic Party workers to spread the word across the land that "America will persevere until peace comes to Viet Nam." Thus, there could no longer be speculation that Johnson intends to mute the war issue between now and November.

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