Counterattack

"The Bible says Thou shall grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness.' One feels occasionally that for us it is that kind of noonday." Thus, in a speech at the University of North Carolina last week, John Gardner, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, articulated the Administration's concern at the rancorous tone that is now so pervasive in America. "More and more," said Gardner, "hostility and venom are the hallmarks of any conversation on the affairs of the nation.

Today, all seem caught up in mutual recriminations--Negro and white, rich and poor, conservative and liberal, hawk and dove, labor and management, North and South, young and old."

The times, said Gardner, call for cohesion. "Today, the first duty of responsible citizens is to bind together rather than tear apart. The fissures in our society are already dangerously deep." It was a ringing cry for unity from a wise administrator who is all too infrequently heard from.

Bluff & Tough. Gardner was referring to every facet of American life, from the turbulent cities through the quarrelsome Congress to the Viet Nam war, which sparks most of the venom and hostility in the American air. Gardner is not the only one who is bothered. New York's Senator Jacob Javits called on President Johnson to deliver an "extraordinary State of the Union message" to resolve American doubts and dissent over the war. But the President seems to prefer a different tactic. He is deploying his most influential aides in a verbal counterattack.

Dean Rusk, for example, made no effort to restrain his anger in an unprecedented 55-minute news conference that lashed out at the President's crit ics. "If any who would be our adversary," warned the Secretary of State, "should suppose that our treaties are a bluff, or will be abandoned if the going gets tough, the result could be catastrophe for all mankind." Bluntly disagreeing with doubters, Rusk said that abandoning Saigon would put the U.S. in "mortal danger."

Acid & Acrimony. Every bit as aggressive as Rusk, Vice President Hubert Humphrey ranged from Minnesota to California and back to Washington, where he decried the "notes of acrimony, the acid quality heard today on our objectives." He said that "the war would be shortened considerably if Americans showed their sense of purpose." House Speaker John McCormack warned as well that further divisiveness over Viet Nam would only prolong the war. If he were guilty of giving such comfort, McCormack added, "my conscience would disturb me the rest of my life."

Senate Majority Leader Mike Mans field, a sometime critic of the war, also rallied behind the President. He urged his colleagues to forget the simplistic labels of "hawk" and "dove," and tried to draw some of the fire away from L.B.J. by denouncing the United Nations, which Mansfield charged, was "dodging its responsibility" to bring "this disastrous, this dirty, this brutal war to an end."

Gaining Sustenance. Behind all the angry words, the most thoughtful discussion last week concerned the possibility of a bombing pause (TIME, Oct. 6). Insistence on a halt in attacks on the North came from all quarters. Massachusetts' Republican Senator Edward Brooke, who only seven months ago came to the support of the bombing, switched his ground to demand a halt to heed "the call of the nations of the world." In the press, LIFE magazine suggested that a pause might pay off.

The argument for such a pause gained some sustenance from Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. When he appeared before the Senate Preparedness Subcommittee last August, he was anxious to cool the urge for escalation that had been stirred by earlier testimony from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The brass had argued that without air strikes against North Viet Nam, the U.S. would have needed 800,000 men and $75 billion more to keep even in the war. McNamara insisted that even though the bombing was exacting a high price, it was not cutting the southward flow of men and supplies from Hanoi. "I am simply saying," he told the Senators, "that I have seen no evidence of any kind . . . that an accelerated campaign of air attacks against the North in the past would have reduced our casualties in the South."

However slim the chances that Hanoi will respond to a bombing pause with meaningful negotiations, the opportunity may soon be offered. South Viet Nam's newly elected President Nguyen Van Thieu said again that he would propose a bombing pause if it would lead to reciprocal talks. And it seems clear that the North Vietnamese are listening--both to him and the current U.S. debate. There even seems to be a remote chance that this will lead to talks sooner rather than later. Hanoi's hard-bitten Defense Minister Giap suggested last week that he is convinced that whoever is elected President in 1968, Lyndon Johnson or his opponent, the war--if it is still going on--is sure to increase in intensity.

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