Editorial Unease

A gradual shift has taken place in the support that a majority of U.S. newspapers had been giving President Johnson's policies in Viet Nam.

Typical is the change that has come over the Los Angeles Times. A recent editorial served notice that it would deplore any extension of the war by invading North Viet Nam, bombing or blockading the port of Haiphong or even adding many new targets to be bombed. There is a "growing danger," said the paper, "that the means being used to prevent a Communist takeover may soon pass beyond the military boundaries which define limited war." According to Editorial Director James Bassett, "There's been an evolution in our thinking. As we begin to come up against the last of the options, we become gravely concerned about proliferation of the war and the limits to which our offensive actions should go in Viet Nam."

Too Rigid for Peace. It is this concern about getting too deeply involved that is most often expressed in editorials. "There must be a better way to carry on this war and bring it to an honorable conclusion," said Virginius Dabney's Richmond Times-Dispatch. "As things are going now, it will never end and the U.S. will be bled white. It has become obvious that little progress is being made, despite the presence of 500,000 U.S. soldiers in Viet Nam." The same fear has been expressed by the Miami Herald. "Politically, militarily and most important, honorably," said the paper, "the time for change has come. The alternative is to fight the war on the terms dictated by the terrain, climate and enemy methods. This would probably require an invasion of North Viet Nam and the deployment of tens of thousands of fresh troops from the U.S."

Many papers complain that Johnson is not showing enough resourcefulness as a peacemaker. While supporting the recent troop increase in Viet Nam, the Minneapolis Tribune fretted: "Reluctant as we are to criticize the President's handling of the war, escalation of the bombing in such a dangerous way makes us wonder whether the Administration is in a rut and needs some fresh thinking about our entire Asian policy." Usually an eloquent backer of the President's Viet Nam policy, the Washington Post was disturbed by his latest comments on the war. "The President's speech and other Administration pronouncements are beginning to be colored by a fixity and rigidity that does not encourage belief that the strategy and tactics of diminishing the scale of the effort always get full examination."

Some papers have become disillusioned with the bombing, and urge that it be stopped to give negotiations a chance to get started. "Evidence continues to mount," noted the Atlanta Journal, "that the bombing does not now do, and never has done, what its strongest advocates have argued it might do. Bombings have been a serious inconvenience for North Viet Nam's efforts in the South, but virtually every reliable observer has reported that they also have been a mighty factor in building morale there." It is possible, the Journal granted, for the U.S. to bomb North Viet Nam out of existence. But "could it bring stability and resistance to Communism to Southeast Asia? The spectacle of the world's most powerful nation becoming obsessed with the destruction of a relatively insignificant Asian country, for whatever reason, is unseemly. It is foolish, too."

Resort to Humor. Other than stopping the bombing, the nation's editorialists seem at a loss for advice. A few have been driven to rather desperate proposals, such as the suggestion made by Detroit Free Press Editor Mark Ethridge Jr. to negotiate a U.S. withdrawal on grounds that the National Liberation Front's program for South Viet Nam is much akin to U.S. principles (TIME, Oct 13). Otherwise, about all that is left the journalists is to resort to humor, as Richmond Times-Dispatch Columnist Ed Grimsley did last week. "Clearly what the country needs," he wrote, "is a defoliation expert--not to strip the jungles of Viet Nam but to defoliate the tangled thicket of contradictory views the Government officials, political leaders and journalistic pundits express on the war." Another Grimsley possibility: "Let Howard Hughes move into a Hanoi hotel and quietly buy up all of North Viet Nam before anybody knows what is going on."

Whatever their anxiety over the war, few papers propose extreme solutions, whether hawkish or dovish. In fact, they warn constantly against them and firmly counsel moderation.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.