The War: Quarrels Later

President Johnson twice last week sought to palliate the nation’s deep disquiet over South Viet Nam’s self-destroying drift toward anarchy. His first attempt unfortunately gave more rein to his own frustrations than solace to his listeners’ fears.

In a Chicago speech before the faithful from the Cook County Democratic machine, he fired off a petulant homily that struck most observers as intemperate, ill-timed and self-serving. Instead of offering a rational discussion of the Administration’s reaction to the desperate idiosyncrasies reflected in Premier Nguyen Cao Ky’s latest political move (see THE WORLD), Johnson launched a round house counterpunch at U.S. critics of his Viet Nam policy.

Direct Assault. “Put away all the childish divisive things,” the President commanded an audience of 6,500. “I do not think that those men who are out there fighting for us tonight think we should enjoy the luxury of fighting each other back home.” In a direct assault on those of his congressional critics who are up for reelection, he urged voters to “read carefully the statements of every public official and of every candidate for every office. Ask yourselves, ‘Is he helping the cause of his country, or is he advancing the cause of himself? Is he trying to draw us together and unite our land, or is he trying to pull us apart to promote himself?’ ”

Johnson all but accused those who disagree with him of being unpatriotic. “The road ahead is going to be difficult,” he said. “There will be some nervous Nellies and some who will become frustrated and bothered and break ranks under the strain. And some will turn on their leaders, their country and our own fighting men.”

Four days later, Johnson was more to the point—and considerably more helpful to dubious Americans—when he summoned reporters into his White House office and calmly explained his views of the civil unrest in South Viet Nam. “They are trying to build a nation,” he said. “They have to do this in the teeth of Communist efforts to take the country over by force. It is a hard and frustrating job, and there is no easy answer—no instant solution—to any of the problems they face. Our wish is to see them increasingly able to manage their own affairs with the participation of an even broader share of the population. We regret any diversion from that task and from efforts to defeat the Communists’ attempt to take over South Viet Nam.”

“Make It 200%.” When he was asked about pollsters’ findings that indicate increasing dissatisfaction in the U.S. over the situation in Viet Nam, the President managed to sound cool and detached. “The longer we are there, the more sacrifices we make and the more we spend, the more discontent there will be,” he noted. “The more dissatisfaction there will be, the more wish and desire there will be to get out. If you want to feel that it troubles you 100%, just double that for the President and make it 200%.”

Indeed the Administration had been deeply troubled—and thoroughly startled—by the events in Viet Nam. Yet the President and his aides last week scrupulously refrained from public censure of the Ky regime and their policy was to keep hands off, offering official support neither to Ky nor to the dissidents and the Buddhists. Diplomatic cables to Saigon nonetheless conveyed Washington’s distress, and a hint of their content was dropped by Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who curtly told newsmen: “I think it should be obvious to our friends in South Viet Nam that there is restiveness here.”

Rusk pointed out that “when the American people are called upon to make a major effort to support the independence, the safety of a country like South Viet Nam,” they expect that nation’s leaders to recognize that “their own attitude, their own solidarity, their own effort are crucial elements.” The time had come, the Secretary said, for Ky and the dissident Buddhists to “set aside some of these issues that appear to be secondary to the issue of achieving a safe country.” He added dryly: “They can perhaps quarrel at their leisure later on.”