New Pressures to End It

The knowledge that the U.S. military force in Viet Nam is declining at the rate of 14,300 a month and will be down to 184,000 by Dec. 1--a 66% drop since the alltime high of 543,054 in February 1969--has served to blunt much of the pressure on Richard Nixon for an immediate end to the war. Almost cyclically, however, reflecting U.S. frustration over the long and unpopular war, pressure builds up in Washington for a quicker and more explicit declaration of intention to withdraw from Viet Nam than the President has been ready to make. Now the pressure is on again, and much of it this time has been produced by a pair of antiwar proposals pending in Congress. Part of it also emanated from a controversial new proposal advanced by former Defense Secretary Clark Clifford.

In the Senate, the McGovern-Hatfield amendment to the draft bill--an updated version of a measure that was defeated 55-39 last year--will reach a vote this week; it seeks to force the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Indochina by Dec. 31 by cutting off all funds for the continued deployment of troops there by that date. The House, meanwhile, is considering the Nedzi-Whalen amendment to the military procurement authorization bill, which would cut off spending for weapons for U.S. forces in Viet Nam after Dec. 31.

Fairly Free Rein. Since massive supplies for Viet Nam are already in the pipeline, the Nedzi-Whalen measure could have little effect on the course of the war. Nonetheless, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Edward Hebert claims that the proposal's psychological effect could be "disastrous," and the Administration has been combatting it with a series of White House breakfasts for Congressmen. Despite massive lobbying by John Gardners Common Cause, the amendment has little chance of success. It will, however, result in an interesting and useful bench mark: the vote will represent the first tally on the war since the House moved in January to record teller balloting, requiring each Representative to stand up and be counted.

To widen their base of support, the McGovern-Hatfield amendment's backers have added two important provisions: a clause that would give the President a 60-day leeway after the Dec. 31 deadline if arrangements for the release of U.S. war prisoners were not made by that time, and another that protects the President's powers to provide for the safe withdrawal of U.S. troops. The latter, in fact, has been interpreted by some congressional observers as an escape clause that would give the President fairly free rein while ending the war on his own terms. "I think you can safely say that's how we'd interpret it," said one Administration official.

In midweek the source of the antiwar pressure shifted from Congress to Hanoi and Paris. Clark Clifford, who played a major role in reversing Lyndon Johnson's bombing policy, announced that he had reason to believe that if the U.S. would agree to withdraw its troops from Viet Nam by Dec. 31, Hanoi and the National Liberation Front would agree to release all U.S. prisoners within 30 days. The plan, Clifford pointed out, contained a safeguard: if the Communists did not release the approximately 460 U.S. prisoners they are believed to hold, the U.S. would not be obligated to withdraw its troops. His information, said Clifford, came from "contacts in Paris," but not from "formal" representatives of Hanoi or the N.L.F.

"Ask Them." The Clifford proposal was denounced by the White House as raising "false hopes" about U.S. war prisoners for "domestic political purposes." The North Vietnamese, the Administration said, were seeking to "create an appearance of flexibility when in fact they remain hard in their posture." In response, Clifford challenged the President to instruct U.S. Ambassador David Bruce to present such a proposal to the Communists at the Paris peace talks. "Ask them," Clifford said.

Two other recent developments suggest that Clifford's information may be correct. At a three-hour session two weeks ago, the N.L.F.'s deputy negotiator in Paris, Nguyen Van Tien, told Representative Robert Leggett, a California Democrat, that the Viet Cong were ready to release their U.S. prisoners if the U.S. would agree to a date for withdrawal. Last week Washington Post Correspondent Chalmers Roberts interviewed Xuan Thuy, chief of Hanoi's team in Paris. Thuy told Roberts that the military issues of U.S. withdrawal and the release of prisoners could be settled while the Thieu-Ky regime was still in power in Saigon, but suggested that total withdrawal must also include stopping all U.S. military aid to South Viet Nam.

Reasonable Chance. The problem is that even if Clifford is correct, the formula would not be acceptable to the Nixon Administration at the moment. The President has emphasized the plight of the war prisoners in recent months, but the real issue is the Administration's belief that it must provide the South Vietnamese with a "reasonable chance" to fend off a Communist takeover--at least, in the words of a White House adviser, for a "decent interval." Presidential Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler said that the Clifford plan imposed "a deadline so precipitate that it would not give the South Vietnamese the opportunity to defend themselves and determine their own future." In other words, it is the price of the proposal that separates the President from Clifford, McGovern, Hatfield and the rest, and not the question of whether the Communists are ready to make a deal.

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