Cards on the Table
(See Cover) This was no MacArthur, moving Congress to tears at the end of a distinguished career with his threnody, "Old soldiers never die . . ." Nor was this an Eisenhower, home from his triumphant crusade in Europe to accept the lustrous tributes of the nation's lawmakers. This was a commander whose battle is far from finished, on leave from his post to report on a divisive, hotly debated and unpopular war. He will never be treated as a demigod, as was the charismatic MacArthur, and he is not yet a hero, as was Ike when he returned from Europe in 1945. Yet from the moment when House Doorkeeper William ("Fishbait") Miller swept down the center aisle of the packed chamber last week and announced, in his resonant Southern accent, "Mistah Speak-ah, Gen'ral William C. Westmoreland," the tall, tanned soldier held Congress in thrall.
He was the paradigm of the professional military man-- dark hair fringed with grey, jaw square and trim, brown eyes alert under thick brown brows. His tunic was ablaze with the trophies of three wars -- six tiers of campaign ribbons and medals from battles in North Africa and Sicily, France and Germany, Korea and Viet Nam, as well as the silver emblem of the master parachutist and the combat infantryman's badge.
His very presence in the House was unprecedented -- no other military commander had ever addressed a joint meeting of Congress in the midst of a conflict that he was still directing. As straightforward as he is straight-backed, he delivered a speech that was strong but not strident, emphatic without being emotional.
"I stand in the shadow of military men who have been here before me," Westmoreland began, "but none of them could have had more pride than is mine in representing the gallant men fighting in Viet Nam today." Congress broke in to applaud him -- and did so 19 times during his 28-minute speech. He drew an ovation when he touched, ever so lightly, on the delicate topic of antiwar protests. "In evaluating the enemy strategy, it is evident to me that he believes our Achilles heel is our resolve," said Westmoreland. "Your continued strong support is vital to the success of our mission." But he roused his audience to its greatest enthusiasm when, toward the very end, he declared forcefully: "Backed at home by resolve, confidence, patience, determination and continued support, we will prevail in Viet Nam over the Communist aggressor!"
When he was done and the applause washed over him, Westmoreland's face bore an expression of commingled embarrassment and pleasure. He turned to Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Speaker John McCormack on the dais behind him and saluted. Turning back toward the semicircular rows of seats, he saluted three times more--to those on his left, to those in front of him, and to those on his right. It was a gesture that came instinctively to him after 31 years as an officer, but as a symbol of deference by a military man to the nation's civilian representatives, it was also politically astute.
Silenced by Events. For William Childs Westmoreland, 53, the visit to the U.S. coincided with a new notch-up in the war: the bombing of half a dozen formerly proscribed targets in the North, including two MIG bases. The Administration, which previously had minimized each increase in the war effort, now clearly signaled its determination to put every possible pressure on Hanoi. Among its critics, there was growing apprehension over the war's direction, duration and denouement--a fear that the U.S. and its antagonists were swiftly approaching the point where a little slip could mean a big war.
At the same time, there were signs that Washington's new toughness toward the enemy--and possibly greater candor in discussing its aims--may muffle the long-running domestic debate and even diminish the growing disconnection between those who think it a just and justifiable war and those who have argued that it should be ended at almost any price. In the Senate, Kentucky Republican Thruston Morton attacked both groups for indulging in "verbal overkill" in the debate, warning that "loose talk on the one hand, and deplorable, even illegal behavior on the other, both tend to heighten current misunderstanding and misapprehension." If the war's critics have been less vociferous in recent months, he implied, it is not because they are being silenced by the Administration but by events. "All they've got to do," he said, "is look at the results of the elections and the polls."
For the time being, though, the debate raged at such high-decibel levels that Westmoreland might well have yearned for the less complicated hostilities of the war zone during his visit. Almost from the moment he flew in from Hawaii to an Air Force base near West Point, he was caught in the political crossfire. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman J. William Fulbright charged that he had been brought back to "shut up" dissent on the war. The New York Post called his trip a "search-and-destroy" mission laid on by the President against the antiwar faction. Complained Minnesota's Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy: "I have grave reservations about using a field commander on active duty as an instrument to make a case which is not only military but also political."
DMZ Buildup. It seemed especially ominous to critics of the war that the general's tour should have come at a time when the U.S. was notably accelerating its war effort. It also coincided with a massive North Vietnamese buildup just north of the 17th parallel, though little note was taken .of .that particular fact in the U.S. Yet, with four divisions of North Vietnamese regulars poised across the Demilitarized Zone, State Department officials are openly acknowledging for the first time the strong possibility of a massive, conventional invasion in a desperate attempt by Hanoi to deal the U.S. a shattering reverse.
The Administration has been stepping up its military pressure on the North since February, when Ho Chi Minh rejected all peace proposals in starkly uncompromising terms. The U.S. sowed mines in the mouths of North Viet Nam's rivers, lobbed shells across the DMZ, ordered Navy vessels to interdict coastal targets and local shipping in Operation Sea Dragon. Two weeks ago, President Johnson gave Navy jets the "go" signal to attack power plants within the city of Haiphong, previously a proscribed area. Last week, from attack carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin and from bases in Thailand and South Viet Nam, fighter-bombers blasted six new targets: a Haiphong factory that turns out 95% of the North's cement, the country's biggest rail-repair yard just 2.5 miles from the center of Hanoi, a power transformer seven miles from the capital, a 738-ft. bridge on the Canal des Rapides across which all the traffic from Communist China and 30% of the North's war materiel are conveyed, and two of the six airbases that accommodate Hanoi's 120-MIG air force (see THE WORLD).
Fraught with Hazards. It was against this background that Westmoreland returned to the U.S. In fact, a group of Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, had urged Johnson more than a year ago to bring the general home to address Congress on the war. The President demurred at the time. Last March, when Associated Press President Paul Miller asked Johnson during a luncheon whether it might be possible for Westmoreland to address the news services' annual luncheon, the answer was yes--if the exigencies of the war allowed it.
The luncheon was held early last week (four days before the speech to Congress) at Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria --a hotel Westmoreland had last visited in January 1964, when he called on "my friend, General Douglas MacArthur," for some advice just before leaving for Saigon. MacArthur told him: "This new assignment carries with it great opportunities, but it is also fraught with hazards."
Westmoreland's address was a sober, thoughtful review of the war. He offered no simplistic solutions. "I foresee, in the months ahead, some of the bitterest fighting of the war," he warned. In response to a question, he said that he did not see "any end of the war in sight. It's going to be a question of putting maximum pressure on the enemy anywhere and everywhere that we can. We will have to grind him down. In effect, we are fighting a war of attrition."
But this message was all but obscured by press and political reaction to four sentences in the speech. As 50 protesters picketed outside the Waldorf with signs reading HELL, NO, WE WON'T GO! and tried to burn him in effigy, Westmoreland confessed that his troops "are dismayed, and so am I, by recent unpatriotic acts here at home." He pointed out that the enemy hopes to "win politically that which he cannot accomplish militarily." Noting that North Viet Nam is waging war both on the battlefield and on the propaganda front, he said that the enemy "does not understand that American democracy is founded on debate, and he sees every protest as evidence of crumbling morale and diminishing resolve. Thus, discouraged by repeated military defeats but encouraged by what he believes to be popular opposition to our effort in Viet Nam, he is determined to continue his aggression from the North. This, inevitably, will cost lives."
No Charlie McCarthy. Westmoreland was not urging that dissent be stifled. He was, to be sure, suggesting that some forms of protest might have a demoralizing effect on U.S. troops in Viet Nam and encourage Hanoi to prolong the war. Though that observation may have been politically risky, it was a legitimate expression of concern on the part of the U.S. commander in Viet Nam. Yet, judging from the reaction, he might just as well have called for a suspension of the Bill of Rights.
In the Senate, the long-quiescent Democratic doves mounted a joint attack against Westmoreland and the Administration's recent moves aimed at hitting the North harder. "The new level of escalation marked by our bombing of the North Vietnamese airfields has brought us one step closer to World War III involving the limitless legions of China backed by the enormous firepower of Soviet Russia," declared South Dakota's George McGovern. "I do not intend to remain silent in the face of what I regard as a policy of madness which sooner or later will envelop my son and American youth by the millions."
Complaining that the Administration was "trying to silence its critics," McGovern patronizingly absolved Westmoreland of blame, "because he is obviously doing exactly what he is told to do by his Commander in Chief." Florida Democrat Spessard Holland, one of the few non-doves on the floor during McGovern's tirade, took exception to that remark. "The Senator from Florida," said Holland, "does not think that General Westmoreland is a Charlie McCarthy, to come over here and tell the people of this country what someone else wants them to hear."
New York's Robert Kennedy took note of warnings that the bombing "might drive the Soviet Union and Communist China together again." What made him think so? "I had a visitor, a rather important visitor, from the Soviet Union during the last week," he explained cryptically, and the visitor told him so. Reaching for a description of the U.S. role in Viet Nam, Bobby misquoted Roman Historian Tacitus--and ludicrously mislabeled him "one of their generals"--as saying, "We made a desert and we called it peace." Fulbright joined the debate, warned darkly that "this, I fear, is one of the last times that anybody will have courage to say anything else about the war."
Hardly. Within hours, a fresh platoon of protesters--this time Republicans--had managed to screw up ample courage. Oregon's Senator Mark Hatfield, in a Yale speech, accused the Administration of using "political blackmail" and, likening it to yet another McCarthy--the late Joe--condemned its "indiscriminate insinuation of unpatriotic motives to those who dissent." Vermont Republican George Aiken protested that Westmoreland's visit was designed "to quiet disapproving comment on the course of the war."
Any Peace. The storm spread beyond the Senate. In Norwalk, Conn., the Rev. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, general secretary of the 400 million-member World Council of Churches, warned that the U.S. "seems to be stumbling toward final disaster" and the obliteration of Viet Nam. "But when the swamps of the Mekong Delta are filled up with dead Vietnamese, and when the flower of our youth lies dead with them, what victory will have been won?" he asked in a particularly graphic phrase. Blake urged an immediate halt to the bombing of North Viet Nam and a pledge by the Administration to "accept any peace" that its European and Asian allies agree upon. He overlooked the fact that the allies thus far have been noticeably barren of practicable proposals--and that Hanoi, in any case, has vehemently rejected every rational peace offer to date.
In Madrid, 1,500 students--including American exchange students from such spots as Berkeley--burned four U.S. flags. In Algiers, 2,000 students protested U.S. "murder." In Britain's House of Commons, left-wing Laborites quoted reports from Hanoi--still unconfirmed--that six Chinese crewmen aboard the Hong Kong-registered British freighter Dartford, under charter to Peking, had been hit by U.S. bullets during the raid on Haiphong's cement factory. But when one backbencher demanded that the government "make the strongest representations to Washington against this outrage," Foreign Secretary George Brown reined him in.
Just a week earlier, Brown pointed out, a Viet Cong mine had almost sunk a British ship in Saigon harbor. "No one in the House asked me a question about that," said Brown. "When it happens in Haiphong, it is regarded by some of you as escalation, and when it happens in Saigon harbor, it passes unnoticed."
Onus & Bonus. Condemnation, however, is a commodity that rarely is apportioned equally. For that reason, some of President Johnson's advisers urged that as long as he was going to be pilloried by his critics anyway, he might as well get some benefit from it. As one of them puts it: "Why not get the bonus as well as the onus?"
The strikes at the MIG bases, however, illustrated Johnson's peculiar ability to add to the onus. Barely three days before the bases were bombed, Illinois' Republican Senator Charles H. Percy was assured by both the State and Defense Departments that they would not be touched. Moreover, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara had said only a few weeks earlier that "under present circumstances--and this belief can change as time goes by--we think the loss in U.S. lives will be less if we pursue our present target policy than they would, were we to attack those airfields." McNamara could have avoided the problem--and reduced the credibility gap--simply by declining to comment on specific targets.
Instead, Pentagon officials had to go through all manner of contortions to explain why the MIGs had suddenly become a threat. For one thing, they said, the Communist jets have forced many U.S. pilots to jettison their bomb loads so as to lighten their planes for impending dogfights which, as often as not, failed to materialize. For another, when the MIGs are aloft, U.S. planes fly closer to the ground to avoid becoming targets --and that makes them more vulnerable to intense flak and small-arms fire. Moreover, as one Air Force general put it, if the MIGs were forced to retreat to Red Chinese airfields, their effectiveness would be drastically reduced, since they would then have only three to five minutes' "loiter time" over Hanoi.
In the wake of Westmoreland's visit, Administration spokesmen are pointedly leaving the door open to the possibility of further air raids. Among the possible targets are the remaining MIG bases, particularly Phuc Yen; two big power plants near Hanoi; and, above all, the Haiphong waterfront, through which 70% of the North's war supplies are funneled.
First at the Table. In the debate that raged last week, the President and Westmoreland had their defenders. Georgia's Senator Richard Russell complained: "You can't please some people. If the President brings the general home to report on the war, that's propaganda in their minds. If he doesn't bring him home, there's a credibility gap." Said Humphrey: "Dissent must be responsible, and we must have the equal right to state our position."
Indeed, there were signs of a strong reaction against the irresponsible brand of dissent that scarred Humphrey's recent European tour. This week's Harris poll shows that the Vice President, who trailed Bobby Kennedy in November's popularity samplings by a 61-to-39 margin, has now edged ahead of him, 51 to 49. One of the chief reasons, speculates Pollster Lou Harris, is that the egg-tossing, paint-splattering European Vietniks who dogged Hubert won him a considerable sympathy vote back home.
Fresh from his own trip to Europe to attend Konrad Adenauer's funeral, the President decided not to ignore the newly revived tempest over Viet Nam. Departing from the text of a speech to a group of physicists, he declared: "I want to negotiate a political settlement. But I can't just negotiate with myself. Maybe somewhere, somehow, some day, someone will sit down and want to talk instead of kill. If they do, I'll be the first one at the table."
Inspirational Performance. As for Westmoreland, in between his A.P. speech and his Congressional appearance, he spent two days back home in South Carolina. He visited his 81-year-old mother, accepted an honorary LL.D. degree from the University of South Carolina, and paid a call on former Secretary of State James F. Byrnes. It was Byrnes, then a U.S. Senator, who got Westmoreland his appointment to West Point in 1932--and he had reason to be proud of his choice when his protege became first captain of cadets in the famed class of 1936./-
Accepting a citation from the state's general assembly, Westmoreland went out of his way to note that "the performance of the Negro serviceman has been particularly inspirational to me." The Negro, said Westmoreland, "has been a credit to the country. He has been courageous on the battlefield, proficient in a cross section of technical skills and, like his white colleagues, he understands what the war is all about."
Mutual Admiration. Westmoreland's tribute to the Negro G.I. before an audience of Deep South legislators was very characteristic of him--and of the traits that have won him Lyndon Johnson's respect. The President has never been at ease with military men--a legacy from his days as a member of the old Naval Affairs Committee in the 1930s and '40s, when he decided that altogether too many brasshats were stuffy, if not stupid. He and Westmoreland are not friends, still address each other as "Mr. President" and "General Westmoreland," but they have developed a close rapport and mutual admiration.
Johnson considers Westmoreland "the very best man" for the job in Viet Nam and believes that he will one day be rated as a truly great general. In every major war in the past century, U.S. generals faltered at first--and only later gained momentum. In the Civil War, both World Wars and Korea, the pattern was the same--defeats followed by heroic turnabouts. In Viet Nam, by contrast, Westmoreland's men started winning almost from the hour they arrived in force two years ago.
When Johnson conferred with Westmoreland at Honolulu 15 months ago, he repeated to the general something that he had told McNamara earlier: "I said that I will give Westmoreland everything he wants because he wants what I want in Viet Nam. But I may have to give it to him a little slower than he wants." Then he leaned back to see what Westmoreland would say in reply. "Mr. President," said the general, "I may not want it as fast as you think I will. We cannot bring it in faster than Viet Nam can absorb it." Johnson liked that answer, and told McNamara: "I ought to see more of this fellow."
He did--in Viet Nam last fall, at Guam last March and, also last fall, at the L.B.J. ranch, where the two men stayed up beyond midnight discussing Viet Nam, with the President firing questions, and the general, with rarely a pause or a stumble, giving him the information he wanted.
Notable Absentee. On last week's visit, before he addressed Congress, Westmoreland spent three hours briefing the President and his top advisers on the war. He answered questions on enemy supplies and strategy, the pacification program and the tense situation along the DMZ, where 36 North Vietnamese battalions were poised for a fight. Undoubtedly, the question of U.S. manpower was also raised, and whether to increase it from the 475,000-man level now projected for year's end. Mississippi's Senator John Stennis, whose inside information on the war has proved highly accurate in the past, predicts a 60,000-man increase in the near future.
Westmoreland had had no advance warning that he would be asked to speak to a joint meeting of Congress until after he arrived in the U.S. But, in soldierly fashion, he drafted a reserve speech for any eventuality. President Johnson was in Germany when the general gave his talk at the A.P. luncheon, but everybody assumed he had read it in advance. He had not. But, especially in view of the uproar, he did have a look at the congressional speech. With his aides, Johnson watched it on television at the White House.
Though some congressional critics had suggested boycotting the speech, Fulbright persuaded them that it would be "foolish" and "disrespectful of the soldiers in Viet Nam." About the only notable absentee was Dirksen, who was stricken with pneumonia after a long spell in his garden on a chilly day and was confined to Walter Reed Army Hospital. Twenty-three Governors, the Joint Chiefs, the diplomatic corps and the entire Cabinet--excepting Rusk, who watched on TV--were on hand.
At All Levels. It was a speech particularly attuned to its audience. Westmoreland noted that "I have seen many of you in Viet Nam during the last three years"--and might have added that a good number of those who saw the battleground at first hand came away supporters of the U.S. effort there. He declared that after three years of the closest study, "I have seen no evidence that this is an internal insurrection. I have seen much evidence to the contrary--documented by the enemy himself--that it is aggression from the North."
Citing Viet Cong atrocities against South Vietnamese civilians, he deplored the fact that "one hears little of this brutality here at home. What we do hear about is our own aerial bombing against North Viet Nam." Addressing himself to those who criticize the U.S. unilaterally for "escalating" the war, he noted that the North Vietnamese enemy "believes in force, and his intensification of violence is limited only by his resources and not by any moral inhibitions."
With a cease-fire currently under consideration in honor of the May 23 birthday of Buddha, Westmoreland confessed that he is averse to such pauses because Hanoi has consistently exploited them to accelerate its "resupply and infiltration activity." To defeat this enemy, said Westmoreland deliberately, "the only strategy is one of unrelenting --but discriminating--military, political and psychological pressure on his whole structure, and at all levels." Westmoreland has applied this strategy of unrelenting pressure to the allies' own performance as well, and the results have been dramatic.
"Several indices clearly point to steady and encouraging success," he said. "Two years ago, the Republic of Viet Nam had fewer than 30 combat-ready battalions. Today it has 154. Then, there were three jet-capable runways in South Viet Nam. Today there are 14. In April 1965, there were 15 airfields that could take C-130 transport aircraft. We now have 89. Then, there was one deepwater port for seagoing ships. Now there are seven. In 1965, ships had to wait weeks to unload. We now turn them around in as little as one week. A year ago, there was no long-haul highway transport. Last month alone, 160,000 tons of supplies were moved over the highways. During the last year, the mileage of essential highways open for our use has risen from about 52% to 80%. During 1965, the Republic of Viet Nam armed forces and its allies killed 36,000 of the enemy at a cost of approximately 12,000 friendly killed--and 90% of these were Vietnamese. During recent months, this 3-to-1 ratio in favor of the allies has risen significantly, and in some weeks has been as high as 10 or 20 to 1."
Incongruous Interlude. His speech over, Westmoreland returned to the White House for a luncheon in the East Room with 26 Governors (among the missing: the three Republican Rs--Rockefeller, Romney and Reagan), 77 House members, 38 Senators, eleven Cabinet officers, the Joint Chiefs, the secretaries of the individual services and Presidential assistants.
After a somewhat incongruous interlude--Martha Raye sang two songs from Hello, Dolly!--Westmoreland briefed the guests and alluded once more to antiwar protest back home. He quoted North Vietnamese Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap's comment that the home-front controversy reflected widespread lack of support for the war in the U.S., then told the audience: "I defer to your judgment in this regard. It is the central consideration."
The Last Mile. The results of Westmoreland's eight-day visit may prove even more far-reaching. For now, as they have not been in the past, the cards are out on the table. The outcome should not be to stifle responsible debate, but rather to make it more relevant to realpolitik.
With its obsessive lack of forthrightness, the Johnson Administration had consistently deluded the American people--and Hanoi as well. Official spokesmen quailed at the prospect of admitting that this far-off war, like any other in history, had to get bigger; they have denied that the U.S. was intensifying the conflict even as more troops poured into South Viet Nam and bigger bombing missions sought out new targets. While many Americans grew skeptical of the Administration's pronouncements, Hanoi, by contrast, may well have interpreted them as evidence of Washington's ultimate unwillingness to go the last mile to stem North Viet Nam's thrust for the South.
Now candor seems to be replacing cant, and the picture should soon come more clearly into focus for Hanoi. "The enemy is only going to respond to pressure," Westmoreland told an interviewer before leaving for Saigon. "Once he realizes that we're no pushover, that his country is being drained when its finest manpower moves south, never to return, that his industry is being destroyed, that at the same time South Viet Nam is on the upswing, he will reassess his strategy. Once he realizes that we're ready, willing and able to continue this pressure, the facts of life will prevail. If not, it's going to take him a generation or more to recover."
Those may be harsh words, but they encompass a harsh situation. The very fact that they are being said in public should signal a more realistic approach to the war, to the enemy and--not least --to the American public.
/- One of whose members, General Creighton ("Abe") Abrams, was appointed last month as Westmoreland's deputy and likely successor.
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