THE RIGHT TO DISSENT & THE DUTY TO ANSWER

EVERY day in every way, things are getting worse and worse. They are, that is, in the angry eyes of those who disapprove of U.S. policy in Viet Nam. As they see it, the very expression of their dissent is getting more dangerous. So it was that to Senator J. William Fulbright, General Westmoreland's report to Congress signaled nothing less than an onslaught of official repression that might silence dissenters altogether by branding them traitors. Said he on the Senate floor: "This, I fear, is one of the last times that anybody will have the courage to say anything else about the war."

The continuing chorus of dissent makes such fears sound absurd. The fact is that never before has the U.S. been so tolerant of dissent--especially in wartime. And that fact is all the more impressive when measured against the country's history. For dissent has flourished in all U.S. wars except World War II, when Pearl Harbor unified the nation. One-third of colonial Americans openly supported Britain in the Revolution; New England almost seceded in the War of 1812; the Mexican-American War was loudly scorned by such Congressmen as Abe Lincoln. During the Civil War, Lincoln himself was so reviled that at one point only one Congressman backed his re-election as President. Korea became "Truman's war"--and Ike's path to the White House. In scoffing at Stephen Decatur's maxim, "Our country, right or wrong," G. K. Chesterton echoed many Americans: "It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober.' "

There have been times, to be sure, when the U.S. majority has pilloried minority dissenters--to say nothing of abolitionists, suffragettes, Indians, Mormons, Irish Catholics, Chinese and Negroes. The U.S. was founded by fervent believers in free expression--who almost immediately ignored their own First Amendment. In 1798, Congress enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts empowering the Federalists to ruthlessly prosecute Republican editors for, among other things, criticizing the Government's undeclared naval war with France. Lincoln did not even consult Congress in 1861, when he suspended the right of habeas corpus for anyone his Government deemed disloyal. During World War I's anti-German hysteria, the 1918 Sedition Act prescribed 20 years' imprisonment for war dissenters. Superpatriots banned the teaching of German in 25 states, cheered sweeping federal raids on 60,000 "radicals" in 1920, and even put over Prohibition as a "war measure." In World War II, the Supreme Court itself approved the most drastic invasion of constitutional rights in history--the 1942 "relocation" in semi-concentration camps of 112,000 West Coast Japanese, two-thirds of them U.S. citizens by birth.

Painful Bind

For all that, freedom of dissent has made steady progress, particularly since the Supreme Court extended the First Amendment to the states in 1925. The right to criticize public officials in print, in speech and in the streets is now firmly rooted throughout U.S. law. The draft cannot be used to conscript critics; a conscientious objector can rely on any God he chooses. The civil rights movement has taught Americans to accept nonviolent demonstrations in pursuit of constitutional rights. The rejection of McCarthyism, the civilizing of U.S. criminal justice--such milestones have moved America ever closer to its professed ideals. Few today would cheer the jingoism of World War I, when a pacifist was likely to find his house painted yellow. Most would cheer what Justice Holmes called "free trade in ideas--that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted."

There is always a chance, of course, that this state of affairs may change as Viet Nam casualties mount and a remote war comes closer and closer to more and more homes.

For the present, though, the nation's tolerance puts the war's managers in a bind. While firmly endorsing free speech, Secretary of State Rusk points out that "Hanoi is undoubtedly watching the debate and drawing some conclusions from it. If we were to see 100,000 people marching in Hanoi calling for peace, we would think that the war was over." To Rusk, as to many others, the inescapable conclusion is that U.S. dissenters are helping to prolong the very war they decry.

Such logic is not new, and it is not stifling dissent now any more than it did in the past. Rusk's words could have been used by President McKinley during the so-called Philippine Insurrection at the turn of the century, when 70,000 U.S. troops sought to "Christianize" Aguinaldo's guerrillas, and safeguard U.S.-Asian commerce in the process. Home-front critics of that war included Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, and ex-Presidents Harrison and Cleveland. A Negro editor called it "a sinful extravagance to waste our civilizing influence upon the unappreciative Filipinos when it is so badly needed right here in Arkansas." A few simple name changes and he could have been Martin Luther King blaming the cost of warfare in Viet Nam for starving the Great Society at home. Aguinaldo himself seemed to be little different from Ho Chi Minh as he pinned his hopes on the dissenters' pressure. "The continuance of the fighting," protested General Henry Lawton before the guerrillas killed him, "is chiefly due to reports that are sent out from America." Had Senator Fulbright been around he would have found reason to worry. McKinley's Cabinet actually debated whether to prosecute the Nation and three U.S. newspapers for treason.

Candor Shortage

At this sophisticated stage of U.S. law and politics, such extreme measures are unlikely. But while President Johnson bows to no man in vocal defense of dissent, he obviously takes a dim view of it in practice. He has called his critics "Nervous Nellies," and implied that all dissenters--even men of reason--are killing American boys. Clearly, he would like it a lot better if his critics would simply shut up.

What is needed by both the dissenters and the dissented against is not more repression but more expression. "When a nation silences criticism and dissent," says Historian Henry Steele Commager, "it deprives itself of the power to correct its errors." Johnson likes to add that the need for correction cuts both ways. "We must guard every man's right to speak," he says, "but we must defend every man's right to answer." His point is well taken--as far as it goes. He too often seems to forget that without right answers, the right to answer is pure propaganda. And candor from Washington is perhaps the biggest shortage in the Viet Nam war.

Just as the Government should replace cant with candor, so the dissenters need a strong dose of realism and responsibility. Among the great legal lessons of the civil rights movement, for example, is the rule that a demonstration must be reasonably related to a specific target of protest. Demonstrators who glorify the Viet Cong, burn flags or draft cards, urge the world in general to "make love, not war," are indulging in dissent for dissent's sake. They are staging a mindless happening devoid of rational ideas.

"Get out of Viet Nam!" they cry, ignoring the how and when. No matter that power and politics are vital necessities in a troubled world. As they see it, the U.S. is evil if it uses violence--even to combat violence. Dropouts from the body politic--to say nothing of reality--they have been beguiled by constant reminders of their freedom to protest. The right to dissent is subtly reworked until any dissent becomes right. And any criticism of that dissent is exaggerated into a wrongheaded, repressive attack.

The argument is too important to be taken over by its extremists. Dissent is empty without the suggestion of practical alternatives. Candid answers and explanations are required from the policymakers who must make the decisions.

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