A Look at the Score Card

From U.S. warships in the South China Sea to the forward combat zones of South Viet Nam's Central Highlands, the visiting Congressman or news correspondent is asked over and over again: "What's with the people back home?" It is a question that Lyndon Johnson would dearly like to answer, and clearly should. For if the war seems necessary and honorable to most U.S. fighting men in Viet Nam--and, by his say-so, to their Commander in Chief--it continues increasingly to baffle, depress or infuriate millions of voters in America.

The score card is clear enough. Just a year ago, the victory-flushed Viet Cong stood poised for the final thrust that would cut South Viet Nam in two and assure a Communist takeover. Month by month, the insurgents' momentum has since been slowed, stemmed and finally reversed by the massive input of U.S. arms and men. Today, with 275,000 Americans fighting in Viet Nam and 400,000 expected by year's end, the Communists are finding that the war of liberation plotted by North Viet Nam's General Vo Nguyen Giap is disastrously out of date (see THE WORLD).

Strange Silence. Less dramatically, an intensive and intelligent program to give the Vietnamese peasant a more equitable, hopeful life is also beginning to take effect. This "other war" has been ardently espoused by the President in the past. Yet most Americans have been left surprisingly uninformed of its successes: the dozens of 59-man teams now fanning out into the countryside to rebuild it; the new schools and clinics that have sprouted in the Delta; the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese treated by U.S. military medical teams; and the Allies' slow but steady attempts to create a political infrastructure in the villages and provinces. Moreover, for all the gloomy headlines, the political situation is not without hope, and the Sept. 11 elections may well put the country on the long road to genuinely representative government.

On all these matters, the President has remained strangely silent. According to his aides, one of the things that restrains him from expressing a sanguine view of events is his concern that if he did, home-front warriors would demand all-out escalation and instant victory. Conversely, Johnson often sounds as much or more concerned with the dovecoterie, apparently fearing that optimistic portents from the White House would redouble the clamor for a negotiated peace.

Whatever the President's aim, there is ample evidence that Americans remain uneasy over Viet Nam. A Michigan poll showed that, while 62% approved Johnson's overall handling of the presidency, 62% also disapproved of his conduct of the war; in Virginia, 53% liked the way he was doing his job, while 53% disliked the way he was doing it in Viet Nam. Yet another poll --one the White House does not discuss --indicates that the voters may want a different man for the task. In Iowa, the Des Moines Register reported that while the President led Michigan's Republican Governor George Romney 45% to 31% in a January poll, he trailed him 46% to 35% in May--and it is safe to assume that Viet Nam was a major factor in the turnabout.

No Magic. Despite these disturbing signs of disquietude, the President's consensus envy is such that he often seems to worry less about sustaining his support from the middle than about converting the dissenters on every fringe. Thus, in a speech last week before a group of State Department officials, he said pointedly:

"I urge you to remember that Americans often grow impatient when they cannot see light at the end of the tunnel --when policies do not overnight usher in a new order. But politics is not magic. And when some of our fellow citizens despair of the tedium and time necessary to bring change--as, for example, in Viet Nam today--they are forgetting our own history."

Rare Asperity. It was sound advice --and sound history, too; for, as he observed, it took the U.S. 13 years from the time the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 until George Washington was inaugurated as the President of a viable nation. All the same, it was scarcely the kind of talk to rally U.S. opinion behind him. A more practical approach was suggested by a namesake of the President's, Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson, who told a group of Oklahoma newsmen that while Americans must naturally be fully informed about setbacks and casualties, they should also be told more about "personal acts of heroism, civic action and construction work" in Viet Nam. Indeed, a single act of heroism like that of Army Captain William Carpenter in the Central Highlands last week (see following story) can do more to put the war in focus for most Americans than quartos of consensus-seeking rhetoric.

The President's reluctance to speak more forthrightly prompted G.O.P. Senate Leader Everett M. Dirksen and House Leader Gerald Ford to ask last week: "Mr. President, what can we believe?" With unusual asperity, Dirksen faulted Johnson for failing to be "candid or consistently credible" on Viet Nam. What is needed, he said, is a bipartisan committee to examine U.S. policy so that Republicans "will be better able to provide that unqualified support so necessary to the winning of a swift, secure and honorable peace." In fact, virtually all Americans might be convinced of that necessity if they were kept honestly apprised not only of the nation's goals in Viet Nam but also of the score card, which includes victories as well as setbacks.

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