A Different Kind of Conclusion

Throughout U.S. history, wars have almost invariably ended with a clear victor, a stirring surrender ceremony, and a touch of grandeur. There was Cornwallis capitulating at Yorktown; Lee yielding to Grant; the bowed Japanese aboard the Missouri. But Viet Nam, it is all too apparent, is a war unlike any other that the U.S. has ever had to fight. Accordingly, U.S. policymakers last week were sifting several shreds of evidence that may hint at a different and less dramatic conclusion.

One was the news that the Viet Cong had sought last September to send representatives to the United Nations. The U.S. said that it would not object to such a visit as long as the guerrillas were really interested in conducting "official business." But, added the State Department, "we do oppose their coming merely to mount a propaganda campaign." The V.C. thereupon abandoned their effort, indicating that they very well might have been after headlines. But the intriguing notion also remains that they might have been after something more.

That possibility was underscored in a notebook that was prepared by a Viet Cong political leader and captured recently by U.S. troops. In it, the guerrilla conceded that the V.C. could not deal , the U.S. and its allies "a lethal blow" and were thinking of turning toward a coalition government as a means of achieving what they could no longer hope to win on the battlefield. The Communists of late have been savagely mauled in battles from Dak To to the Delta.

That may help to explain their brutal reprisals against the men, women and children of a refugee village that they hosed down with flamethrowers last week; it may also account for an upsurge in defections under the "open arms" program (see THE WORLD).

Opening Wedge. Some U.S. observers believe that the Viet Cong are in the midst of a sharp internal dispute over their relations with Hanoi--not unlike the frequent spats between Saigon and Washington over who should be doing what in the war and who is really in charge. Speculation along those lines was heightened by Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who told a radio audience that there was a strong chance of a split within the Viet Cong's political arm, the National Liberation Front. "It may be that at some future date," he said, "some of the non-Communist members of the N.L.F. may very well want to be brought into a government and may very well be the very ones we have to negotiate with."

Officially, the U.S. reiterated last week that it will not deal with the Viet Cong without consulting "our fighting allies," particularly the Saigon government. The State Department also rejected a coalition government on the grounds that such a regime could be the opening wedge in a Viet Cong effort to ultimately take over the South.*

Nevertheless, this does not rule out the possibility that some groups within the Viet Cong may indeed be searching for a way out. It is most unlikely that the Allies will offer them membership in a coalition government, but some interim formula could be arranged that would ensure the Viet Cong continued sway over the hamlets they now control. Eventually, a solution could be worked out along the lines of the one that followed the guerrilla war in Greece, where the Communists eventually achieved limited political rights. Such a settlement is never entirely foolproof--witness the fact that the Greek army has since stepped in to strip away those rights--but there are few who would not find it preferable to several more years of a costly, bloody war.

*One reason why Washington felt it necessary to issue that reassurance was the recent arrest in Saigon of an alleged Viet Cong agent who had supposedly met secretly with U.S. officials. Last week, a U.S. source in Saigon said that the man was actually a CIA agent working with non-Communist elements of the N.L.F.

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