Newspapers: Sizing Up Viet Nam

“It may be nationally humiliating to confess it,” editorialized the liberal-minded St. Louis Post Dispatch, “but the truth is that we are risking world war in Southeast Asia for no sound national purpose at all. The new exchange of strikes simply emphasizes the bankruptcy of American policy. Our basic purpose ought to be to disengage from a fruitless and seemingly endless conflict by seeking a political instead of a military settlement.”

The conservative New York Daily News viewed the events in Viet Nam quite differently: “Why not stage repeated bombing raids on all North Viet Nam’s war-supply depots and routes known to us; and why not wreck Red China’s nuclear-arms facilities?” As the week wore on, the News proposed for good measure that the U.S. give “Chiang Kai-shek convoy and air help for his long-planned invasion of mainland China.”

No Substitute. Thus last week, as crisis flared again in Viet Nam, the support for strong U.S. action came, with rare exception, from conservative newspapers; the pleas for a negotiated settlement came from those on the liberal Side. NEGOTIATIONS PREFERABLE TO THIRD WORLD WAR, said the Miami News. “The strike at North Viet Nam was understandable and justifiable as a tactical response in a war situation,” said The New York Times. “It was not a substitute for policy.” And, in subsequent editorials, the Times left no doubt about what it felt that policy should be: “The only sane way out is diplomatic, international, political, economic—not military.”

“We are like a muscle-bound giant being besieged by gnats,” wrote the Milwaukee Journal. “Where do we go from here? A negotiated peace is vital.” The Christian Science Monitor managed to find some comfort in the Viet Cong raids and called U.S. retaliation “an escalation of diplomacy rather than an escalation of the war itself. It cannot be ruled out that these raids, demonstrating American firmness, may well speed the day when a diplomatic settlement of the Vietnamese civil strife will occur.”

No Initiative. The contrasting call from the right, for more toughness and less talk, was heard in varied accents. “We submit that it is a curious way to fight a war when you wait for the enemy to sock you first before returning a light jab,” said the Chicago Tribune. “As our global strategy is the same, the prospect for the survival of freedom doesn’t look too encouraging, even for the U.S.” In Atlanta, the Journal also faulted the U.S. for “permitting the initiative to rest with the Communists.”

“No dictator is so lowly and so puny that he does not dare to pull the tail feathers of the American Eagle,” said the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. “Certainly the risks are very great in South Viet Nam. It may be expensive to win the war, but the risks in winning it are far less than those in losing it.” The Dallas Morning News acknowledged that “it is a terrible situation, and, as the surrender salesmen say, it is one that we can escape simply by folding up. Our respite, however, would be short.”

No Explanations. Like the newspapers, the political columnists also tended to split along predictable lines. Joseph Alsop, an old Asia hand, whose own brand of liberalism does not rule out demands for tough action, chafed with impatience for more and bigger U.S. attacks: “Where then is our common sense, that we shrink and fall back, shrink and fall back? We have waited overlong.” Alsop added a warning: “Now what needs doing may perhaps be done at last. If not, we must expect dreadful trouble pretty soon.”

Columnist Max Lerner, who characterizes himself as a hard-nosed liberal, commended President Johnson for “showing iron nerve and flexibility together,” but argued that “he needs to do more as educator.” For until Johnson spells out the U.S. stake in Southeast Asia, said Lerner, “the field is left open for those who say that the present war is a futile folly, that the air strikes are a dangerous adventure and that, unless the Americans get out of Viet Nam one way or another, they will get involved in a full-scale war they cannot handle.”

For a moment, even conservative Columnist David Lawrence appeared to be endorsing negotiation. “It begins to look as if sooner or later,” he wrote at midweek, “there is going to have to be some conferring behind the scenes between the major powers, with an idea of finding a solution.” Walter Lippmann, on the other hand, seemed briefly to desert his long-repeated argument that the U.S. should disengage. “I would not count too much on American patience being greater than Chinese patience,” he said at first. “The United States is not a paper tiger.” By week’s end Lippmann was back on his customary line: “The United States should not hesitate to say that it is seeking a negotiated settlement in Southeast Asia.”

No Surprise. The division along ideological lines, the doubts about strategy, the questions about tactics were only to be expected as editorialists sized up a difficult and dangerous moment of history. The surprising part of the reaction was that some experienced journalists seemed to be saying that they did not know the basic reason why the U.S. was in Viet Nam. They have been writing about that ever since Harry Truman sent troops into Korea to halt the spread of Communism in Asia.