The Press: Two Views of Viet Nam

The debate over the Viet Nam war has produced a rash of newsletters, proclamations and manifestoes, most of which are forgotten almost as soon as they are written. Two new magazines devoted to the subject, however, seem determined to last as long as the war. Viet-Report, a monthly, stands foursquare against U.S. policy in Viet Nam; Vietnam Perspectives, a bimonthly, generally backs it. The magazines agree on hardly anything, not even basic facts. “Communism is the only regime capable of saving Asia from anarchy, misery and extortion,” says a writer in Viet-Report. Replies a contributor to Perspectives: “Communism is like a disease of the body that must be stopped before it spreads to the vital parts.”

Both publications are circulated largely on college campuses. Viet-Report, the larger of the two with a press run of 40,000, is edited by comely blonde Carol Brightman, 26, an English instructor at New York University. “U.S. policy,” she charges, “is not based on reliable information. Public compliance to expansion of the war has depended on the restriction of the truth at home.”

Viet-Report draws heavily on the reports of European correspondents; it also has some staff contributors, who like to march in anti-war parades when they are not writing. Supported by a $3,000 grant from the University Committee of New York, a group of New York teachers, the magazine has run articles on the “failure” of U.S. counterinsurgency, the weakness of the Saigon government, an account of U.S. “bombing atrocities” in North Viet Nam.

Perspectives, which has a press run of 15,000, is published by the American Friends of Vietnam, a decade-old organization of 150 concerned citizens* with varying political views, united in the belief that Viet Nam should be spared Communist dictatorship. The contributors, mostly academicians or Government officials with considerable experience in Viet Nam, have turned out well-researched articles on Communist control of the Viet Cong, on how North Viet Nam broke the Geneva agreements. But the magazine offers no dogmatic solution of its own. “We want to show that extremes are not the alter natives in Viet Nam,” says Executive Vice Chairman Gilbert Jonas.

A reader may be unsure which magazine to believe. But there is one reliable tipoff. Perspectives admits that the U.S. has made many mistakes in Viet Nam; Viet-Report will not concede a single U.S. success.

*A sampling: Max Lerner, Senator William Dodd, Senator Hugh Scott,Roger Hillsman, Representative Emanual Celler.