Foreign Relations: War of Words & Deeds

Inexorably, the U.S. intensified its air assault against the Vietnamese Communists.

Eight times in 13 days, U.S. and South Vietnamese bombers blasted in stallations north of the 17th parallel, moving ever closer to Hanoi. During a single week, U.S. and South Vietnamese pilots flew 17,570 sorties on both sides of the border. Their chief target was North Viet Nam’s radar network: with everything from half-ton bombs to deadly white phosphorous, they hit Donghoi, Hatinh, Cap Mui Ron and, in strikes by 100 Navy planes from the aircraft carriers Coral Sea and Han cock, Bachlongvi Island, only 80 miles from Red China’s heavily fortified Hainan Island. For the first time, U.S. pilots were allowed to seek out targets of opportunity instead of limiting their attacks to targets chosen in Washington. They were quick to exercise their new option. In one raid, eight F-105 Thunderchiefs found a break in the clouds over a radar site at Vinhson, swooped down to destroy it, then turned to sink three armed junks nearby.

All this was done with little public fanfare, but U.S. military men could not conceal their satisfaction. Said Seventh Fleet Commander Paul Blackburn of the North Vietnamese: “Those people are not getting much sleep up there.”

The Tightrope. They were beginning to sound cranky about it up there too. When Yugoslavia’s Tito urged talks to settle the war, North Viet Nam irritably accused him of “peddling the sinister design of ‘peaceful negotiations.’ ” When the Viet Cong guerrillas said they were considering asking Communist countries “to send youths and army men,” Peking responded with a promise “to send our men whenever the Vietnamese want them.” To underscore the threat, Premier Chou En-lai declared that President Johnson “is risking some surprises” by “dancing on the tightrope of war.” Added Chou: “The American Government will never force the South Vietnamese people and [North] Viet Nam into negotiations by intensifying the war.”

The U.S. was notably unfazed by the Red threats. At a Saigon Lions Club luncheon, U.S. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor, while insisting that “we don’t intend to get into World War III,” vowed that the U.S. would go right on escalating the Vietnamese war “in proportion to the requirements.” He wisely declined to discuss just how far the U.S. was prepared to go. “What has been done thus far,” he said firmly, “is public knowledge. What will be done in the future is something for Hanoi to worry about.”

In the Future. At week’s end Taylor flew back to Washington to report to the President—and he found Johnson steadfast in his policy of hitting the Communists where it hurts. Earlier in the week, at a three-hour White House briefing for 42 Governors, the President declared his determination to keep South Viet Nam free of Communist control whether it takes “20 or 50 years.”

Later, in a 500-word policy statement to the Cabinet, he said that he was “ready to go anywhere at any time and meet with anyone whenever there is promise of progress toward an honorable peace” but added that “the Communist aggressors have given no sign of any willingness to move in this direction.”

Looking beyond the war, Lyndon Johnson held open the prospect of “economic and social cooperation” with all of Southeast Asia—presumably including Hanoi—if the area can ever be made “free from terror, subversion and assassination.” At present, the President said, the U.S. is supporting several big development projects. One such program that Johnson has in mind: a TVA-type system for the vast Mekong River basin.

As the President well knew, all that was far in the future. To bring it to pass, he was perfectly prepared to continue the stepped-up war that might one day take the U.S. to the bargaining table in a position of strength, if not victory.