Conciliation, Confrontation

All week long Richard Nixon basked joyfully in the returns from the most important speech of his presidency, the televised address to his fellow citizens on the problems of war and peace in Viet Nam. There was a flood of congratulatory telegrams that he cheerfully displayed for photographers, a quickie Gallup telephone poll after the speech that showed a 77% favorable response, and a firm consensus of politicians and pundits that Nixon had achieved what he set out to do. At the same time, protesters against the war, unmollified by Nixon's blandishments, readied for this week's demonstrations even more ambitious than the Oct. 15 Moratorium. They would include rallies around the U.S., as before, but there could be as many as half a million marchers in Washington. If it seemed to be a scenario for confrontation, President Nixon had surely helped write the script as he penciled the Viet Nam address on his legal pads.

In his speech, Nixon abandoned the politics of conciliation, raising his voice to deliver a powerful, simplistic appeal, a personal plea to "the great silent majority" to back his Viet Nam policies and give him more time to carry out his chosen course. Three Presidents before him, said Nixon, had recognized the stakes in Viet Nam, and he did not intend to preside over a U.S. defeat. What he had done, he explained, was to begin "a pursuit for peace on many fronts"--including private proposals for a settlement that he initiated even before taking office, and a personal letter sent to Ho Chi Minh before the North Vietnamese President's death. "No progress whatever has been made," Nixon reported grimly, "except agreement on the shape of the bargaining table." The more support he got at home, he said, the sooner he could redeem his pledge "to end the war in a way that we could win the peace."

Waffled Points. Nixon set forth his plan "for the complete withdrawal of all United States combat ground forces and their replacement by South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled timetable." All that, he said, is contingent upon continued improvement in the fighting ability of the South Vietnamese--and on continued indications that the level of battle is lowering. He warned Hanoi that any stepped-up enemy action would bring "strong and effective measures" in response. It was a tough speech, and in it there was no gesture of accommodation to those who backed the Oct. 15 Moratorium protest. The President announced no new withdrawal of U.S. troops and proclaimed no cease-fire on the battlefield.

On several points, Nixon waffled his message. He started with a lengthy but inadequate review of U.S. involvement in South Viet Nam, and insisted on the need for a continued American presence in Southeast Asia. But he emphasized his program for bringing the boys home from Viet Nam, shifting the subject of withdrawal from "all combat ground forces" to "all of our forces." Although he presented himself as a peacemaker, he lapsed into hard-line rhetoric in attacking "those great powers who have not yet abandoned their goals of world conquest." He parroted Lyndon Johnson's domino theory: if the U.S. abandons the South Vietnamese, he contended, "this would spark violence wherever our commitments help maintain the peace--in the Middle East, in Berlin, eventually even in the Western Hemisphere." He left unanswered the question: If the U.S. presence in Viet Nam is so essential, why should there be any pull-out at all?

Favorable Calls. The President stepped onto a punji stake of illogic when he proclaimed that "ordering the immediate withdrawal of all American forces would have been a popular and easy course to follow" at the time he took office. In fact, support for an instant and unilateral pullout was minimal back in January; since then it has clearly grown among war-weary Americans. If backing out fast would have been "popular and easy" in January, it is difficult to understand how it can now be only "a vocal minority" that is trying to "impose" exactly that policy on the nation.

While he failed to resolve--and perhaps purposely fuzzed--some important issues, there was no question that Nixon was highly and justifiably pleased with the political impact of his performance. White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler spread word that the switchboard had been jammed with favorable telephone calls as soon as the speech ended. Nixon aides thought that the speech, delivered on the eve of gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, helped the Republican candidates to victory. Nixon had campaigned for the winners, Bill Cahill of New Jersey and Linwood Holton of Virginia, and he brought them both to Washington for a triumphant White House lunch. Said the President: "I am rather happy we won, because their opponents both made me the issue." Without doubt, Nixon has bought some time in which to try, in his own way, to untangle the U.S. from Viet Nam. "I think we can hold this majority for four to six months while we hold our course," says one White House adviser. The President may well try to gain still more time by making a further troop-withdrawal announcement before Christmas. Pentagon and State Department officials say that two plans are under consideration: one would get 40,000 to 60,000 more men out by March 31, and another would provide for pulling some 100,000 out by mid-1970. However, the new increase in enemy activity in Viet Nam (see THE WORLD) could give Nixon pause.

Nixon let drop several clues that he has such steps in mind. In the television speech, he said that things were looking better in Viet Nam than they had in June. That was when he declared that he hoped to beat a timetable proposed by ex-Defense Secretary Clark Clifford, who called for withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops by the end of next year. Privately, Nixon told a group of Republican Congressmen last week that nearly all U.S. troops will probably be out of combat before the November 1970 elections. Whether or not he can bring about that result, the President made one unassailable observation on television about his "plan for peace." "If it does succeed, what the critics say now won't matter," he said. "If it does not succeed, anything I say then won't matter." With that, Americans of practically every viewpoint could agree.

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