T
C, 0 91-01-1gan Bal-Ill
I
Viet Nam
Week: Beans and Caviar
Seventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
I
Where Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MicH.
Truth Will Prevail
NEWS PHONE: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1965 NIGHT EDITOR: ROBERT MOORE
The U.S. Is Slowly
Killing the United Nations
THE UNITED NATIONS is dying and the
United States is killing it.
World attention has, for approximate-
ly the past year, been focused on Asia.
It is felt that the future of the peoples
of Asia will be a determining factor in
the future of the whole of mankind. The
key to world peace and prosperity rests
in the Asian continent and the countrie
who have direct interest there.
In June, 1945, an international orga-
nization was created to help the people
of the world resolve differences peace-
fully and promote the 'welfare of the
world.
The preamble to the Charter of the
United Nations reads in part:
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNIT-
ED NATIONS DETERMINED:...
-To practice tolerance and live
together in peace with one another as
good neighbors, and
-To unite our strength to main-
tain international peace and secur-
ity, and
-To ensure, by the acceptance of
principles and the institution of
methods, that armed force shall not
be used, save in the common interest,
and
-To employ international machin-
ery for the promotion of the economic
and social advancement of all peo-
ples.
It is clear that these aims have not
been maintained in such situations as
the United States war in Viet Nam, the
dispute between India and Pakistan, the
bitterness between Indonesia and Ma-
laysia, and the ever-present bad feelings
between Russia, China and the United
States.
IN THE CASE of Viet Nam U.S. actions
have served to handcuff the UN while
escalating the war, through the invoca-
tion of Article 19 of the UN charter. Ar-
ticle 19 relates to the non-payment of
financial obligations to the UN. The U.S.
accused the Soviet Union of refusing to
pay its share in UN peacekeeping activi-
ties. The General Assembly has thus
been prevented from voting since the
spring of 1964, and the responsibility falls
directly on the shoulders of the United
States.
The United States has, of course, kept
the UN informed on its activities in Viet
Nam, but only after a particular action
had already taken place. No role was
given the UN in the prosecution or ter-
mination of the war. Perhaps the reason
has been the unexpressed acknowledge-
ment of the unjustifiable character of any
outside intervention in Viet Nam. The
UN could have provided for national free
elections throughout both halves. The
U.S. would perhaps have to face being
labeled an aggressor by the UN and Amer-
ican and Vietnamese war crimes would
be exposed and condemned.
Whatever the reason, the United States
has stubbornly refused any mission, fact
finding, peacekeeping or otherwise, from
taking part in the solution of the Viet
namese war.
THE OFFICIAL U.S. attitude has con-
sistently related the causes of the
struggle to China and North Viet Nam, a
position totally unsupported by facts. It
is true aid has been received in the
South from the North, but it is further
true that the largest single arms sup-
port received by the Viet Cong is from the
United States through captured, stolen or
sold weapons and ammunition.
One of the more tragic aspects of the
Vietnamese war is the example the Unit-
ed States has set for the rest of the
world. Since the world's greatest power
feels it can ignore the duly authorized in-
ternational organization, why then can-
not anyone?
The precedent has been set for Sukar-
no to walk out of the UN and execute an
invasion of Malaysia. The precedent has
been set for India and Pakistan to pursue
a full-scale war with each other over an
issue already decided by the UN.
The dispute over Kashmir and the im-
minent entry of China into that dispute
is clear subversion of the UN with the di-
rect aid of the United States.
THE WAR between India and Pakistan
is being fought almost exclusively with
American weapons. The weapons, includ-
ing Sherman and Patton tanks, were sup-
plied with the expressed intent of defense
against any attempted "aggression" by
China. Washington planners were evi-
dently too short-sighted to see beyond
their noses when the arms were given. It
should have been evident the arms would
have been used against each other before
they were used against China because of
the bitterness between the two nations
since 1947.
Both sides have rejected any UN settle-
ment and even the peace mission con-
ducted by Secretary-General U Thant
could not convince the sides to negotiate
under UN sanctions.
The entry of China into the dispute
apparently on the side of Pakistan has
given the United States another chance
to subvert the UN and ultimately itself.
PRIOR TO THE ARRIVAL of China, the
focal point of American fear, the U.S.
remained neutral in the war, urging both
sides to negotiate a settlement.
China evidently saw in the India-Paki-
stan conflict an opportunity to regain
territory it claims traditionally belongs to
China. Immediately, worldwide lines were
drawn and what started as an internal
dispute between two relatively minor
powers may end as an international in-
cident equaling Korea.
Further subverting the UN, the State
Department sent a diplomatic warning
to China stating the consequences of any
Chinese intervention in the Indian-Pak-
istan war. According to columnists Row-
land Evans and Robert Novak, "The
exact wording of the diplomatic warning
is secret. But it leaves little doubt in Mao
Tse-tung's mind that he can expect in-
stant retaliation from the United States
if Chinese troops again invade India to
take advantage of India's preoccupation
with Pakistan."
THE CONFLICT, without U.S. interfer-
ence, could have been solved by the
UN. Without the U.S. example in Viet
Nam the war between India and Pakistan
might never have occurred. Without U.S.
arms the war could never have been
fought. If China had made aggressive
moves toward India that should also be
handled by a legally authorized United
Nations peacekeeping force. Further, if
China had been a member of the United
Nations Security Council as she rightfully
should be she would have been bound by
the same rules as the other nations in the
organization.
The United States has opposed the en-
try of China into the Security Council or
even the General Assembly since the gov-
ernment of Chiang Kai-shek fell, short-
ly after the founding of the UN. The U.S.
clings stubbornly to a policy outdated
and impractical.
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS fell because
no international organization could
have existed without the participation of
the United States. The same theory would
hold true for China and the United Na-
tions. A third of the earth's population
cannot go unrepresented in any interna-
tional organization. iWthout the partici-
pation of China in the UN that organi-
zation is doomed to failure. This, again,
is another example of the United States'
slow strangulation of the UN.
If there is to be peace in the world in
the foreseeable future the U.S. must dras-
tically change its attitude toward the
United Nations and to other nations in
the world.
Given the present situation there are
a number of steps which must be taken by
the U.S.:
* Cessation of American bombings in
the Vietnamese war and the stoppage of
all active U.S. participation in Viet Nam.
The removal of American troops from the
battlefront back to the established bases
also is required. The whole conduct of
the war should then be turned directly
over to the UN and elections and reunifi-
cation of the country encouraged.
* An immediate appeal to the UN to
attiemnt to n fafn t a ttIamant ha
THE TEACH-IN has come and
gone-an experience of impor-
tance-and I should like to de-
vote the next few inches of type
to speculation on the meaning of
as much of that experience as pos-
sible.
Three questions-really all a
part of one-are vivid. All arise
out of our, America's, "fluid" sys-
tem of values. We are never cer-
tain of what is of value, what is
of importance. We are never cer-
tain that our abstract values are
grounded in the reality of fact.
Hence, we frequently chose chaff,
frequently embrace the half-fact
for the whole, the attractive lie
for the plain truth.
I am reminded of -a particularly
apt analogy of the . contemporary
situation. Appropriately, it is set
in one of those chrome-plated,
Arabian Nights supermarkets: a
housewife wins a contest and, for
her prize, is turned loose with 20
minutes to grab all she can.
The question, of course, is what
to choose? And, in the haste of
determining value, in the rush
with the cart and the shelves
and the advertising, how to tell
the beans from the caviar?
This last week it was the Uni-
versity community that was turn-
ed loose, only in a vast intellectual
supermarket. The serious intellec-
tual was made to run through lec-
ture and dialogue session like
some mouse in a cleverly engineer-
ed maze, piling as much truth in
his cart as he could.
In three crucial cases, the cases
of my questions, beans were chos-
en. And it is to our loss, though
hopefully to our knowledge, that
they were.
AT THE UNIVERSITY, Voice
and, more specifically, Stan Na-
del, chose to beat the drums for
Viet Nam, the Teach-In and Civ-
il Rights by an obnoxious, though
ironic, sign. To anyone familiar
with campus politics, Nadel's ac-
tions would have been dismissed
with a polite, "So he posted a sign
in the Fishbowl?" To the poli-
tically naive, the - oxes and the
mindless agitators, on the other
hand, it was plain and simple:
"a cause."
But rather than stimulating dia-
logue, Nadel succeeded in polar-
izing questions into two impene-
trable camps and erecting an iron
curtain between-a curtain one
yelled at but learned nothing from.
The first question is directed to
that sign. Not what it said, but
what it did: Why was it allowed
to become a cause?
Nadel's sign was not a can of
beans; rather,, it was an entire
case. If the problem we are faced
with as "intelligent individuals in
a democracy" is one of seeking
data and making judgments that
can be apprehended by decision-
makers wherever they may be,
then the sign controversy is noth-
ing less than the interjection of
confusion.
Where was its appeal? The guts.
And how did it convince? By raw
emotion. There was no dialogue,
no opposed sides of learning, only
emotion and hardened, harden-
ing anger.
I am reminded of a scene, one
of dozens during the week, be-
tween a spy Protestor and some
fraternity Behemoth-sweatshirt
and madras, low brow and bull
neck, with a brother in Viet Nam.
Points were scored not by intelli-
gent discussion but by the crowd's
registering, seismograph-fashion,
the anger on Sweatshirt's face.
The contest ended when the Pro-
testor replied to what would he
do if he were in Viet Nam -
"Shoot Americans . . ."-and the
Sweatshirt smothered him.
Such encounters were nothing
but ignorance-trading; they touch-
ed surfaces but, like a rabid evan-
gelist, made no lasting converts
either way.
LESS OBVIOUS, but more mis-
erably a failure, another case of
beans is apparent to anyone who
has read The Daily during the
week. The Daily, which has lived
off a reputation as the Times of
college newspapers for years, con-
tinued to coast on laurels won
by real newspapermen during the
'30's, '40's and in the McCarthy
era. There can be no other ex-
planation. Nothing else will ab-
solve the Daily of incredibly poor
news judgment and editorial an-
In Parenthesis
By GEORGE ABBOTT WHITE
alysis of the Viet Nam confer-
ence.
Rather than focus on the con-
ference, on the issues, it chose the
easier and "popular" path - it
jumped on the ghost issue of the
Fishbowl Sign, ala Berkeley Free
Speech, with its expansive and
sensationalistic coverage. Why?
The Daily is perfectly willing it
seems, to accept the advertising
money of the Committee to End
the War. But when it comes to
hard reporting, to sorting and an-
alyzing items of importance, in-
terpreting and communicating, it
is a host of administrators and
petty bureaucrats who are more
concerned with the mechanics of
the fanfare about a 75th Anniver-
sary than the performance of a
social duty.
That old Daily writer of the
'30's, Arthur Miller, had it right
in Hill Auditorium Friday night
when he spoke about his aware-
ness of "ghosts." If he had walk-
ed into the Daily during the week
or chanced to read a paper, he
would have sensed yet another-
he would have been convinced
that the University and the grade
point average had finally bureauc-
ratized and brutalized crusading
journalism at 420 Maynard into
another ghost of the past.
FINALLY, the grande finale at
Hill Auditorium was half-beans,
half-caviar. That afternoon I was
passing through the seething,
shouting, Fishbowl when a mem-
ber of the committee came up
to me and pointed at the mill-
ing and argumentative crowd:
"What the hell are they doing
here; they should be over at Hill
listening to the results of the
study groups!" Some question!
I thought the same thing, but
shrugged my shoulders with a
friend.
At Hill, it was the old story of
Big Guns and little fish. In ret-
rospect, I think I would rather
have been informed (if informa-
tion I was after) by Frithjof Berg-
mann, Carl Oglesby, or William
Gamson on the details of the
Viet Nam conflict than to have
listened to patronizing remarks
about Ann Arbor and its trees
and the nostalgic University of
Michigan.
Let me dismiss the "candid"
remarks of Lord Fenner-Brock-
way as pompous and long-winded,
considering the information and
analysis he contributed. Somzone
should tell him the Empire has
fallen. And as for Makota Oda,
I should have thought the com-
mittee would spare an audience
the difficulties of pidgin English.
What did come through in his
talk-between endless repetition-
was so-so; we learned, as we had
suspected, that other nations do
not like to be forced to see real-
ity on American terms, don't like
to be treated like second-class
citizens of the world, don't want
to sit on their haunches while
America ponders the details of ex-
tinction on the basis of national
honor and commitment.
I felt like singing "Solidarity
Forever" when UAW Emil Mazey
finished. He must have felt good
too, having spent the last few
years bargaining with fat, stuffy
executives. Miller began his speech
by thanking Mazey for a "helluva
speech."
Both of them were part of a
team-two men who had, as Mil-
ler later said, sat in auditoriums
around America in the '30's listen-
ing to union speeches, speeches
against fascism, speeches defend-
ing the picket lines, support for
the Loyalists, freedom of speech.
Only then, unlike now, Hill
echoed not cheers but silence. It
was not "in" to be concerned then,
not "cool" to be committed.
Miller, too, succeeded in filling
the cart with the goods. He was
caviar all the way, even in Brook-
lynese with ironic deferences to
his profession-"I write, but the
critics don't think so"-and his
past at the University.
He couldn't have been more
clear and concise, and he was
careful to limit his generaliza-
tions. He was uneasy over Ameri-
can policy not so much because
of what he had read in the jour-
nals or the newspapers, but be-
cause "I have listened closely to
what my leaders have said and it
just doesn't ring."
Like his Hopwood Lecture two
years ago, Miller came prepared
and earned his money. He ticked
off the problems, cleared the air
about them and spoke of viable
alternatives. After all, alterna-
tives were what we were after.
Especially pertinent, but subor-
dinate, was his reminder of the
ghost of McCarthy and his barb
that in those days "intellectuals
had rolled over on their sides like
a sick bug." His understatement
was clear: the witch-hunt that
bore down upon thousands who
"questioned" could easily come
again once American casualties
rise in Viet Nam and anything
less than unanimity becomes trea,
son.
He was careful to delineate real
issues from false issues, careful to
state that the duty was to learn
and then to act, not to waste
energy on ghosts of the past or
fighting the shadows of "Free
Speech." His conclusion was in-
cisive and valuable-he accepted
the responsibility for his own ac-
tions, and II-S students should do
likewise.
SOME THINGS had been said.
More were said in the seminars
later that evening. More will come
to light when the results of the
study groups get into print. Yet
somehow I couldn't shake off the
story I had heard earlier in the
day: An introductory political sci-
ence recitation section spent its
Friday "discussing" Viet Nam. Pre-
dictably, the class was silent, all
the grade-conscious students fell
in behind their "expert" instruc-
tor who supported the administra-
tion and who admirably and con-
clusively refuted Mr. Nadel's Fish-
gowl sign by saying that "neither
North nor South Viet Nam had
been signers of the Nuremberg
document."
What Miller had said at Hill
should have been obvious: "Ain't
all men brothers?"
4
1
Viet Nam:
when
Will North Negotiate?
Second of Two Parts
By MARK R. KILLINGSWORTH
"THE DESIRE of the United
States for negotiations on
Viet Nam has now been made
very clear; the problem is to in-
duce the North Vietnamese, who
believe they are winning to talk
about peace around a table," The
New York Times declared edi-
torially last month.
And, as the war in Viet Nam
continues this appears increasing-
ly to be the correct analysis of
the situation. The ultimate aim of
the President's policy-which in-
cludes three key elements: mili-
tary, political and diplomatic-is
negotiation.
*MILITARY: As The Times
noted, an important element of
United States Viet Nam policy is.
to convince the North Vietnamese
that they cannot succeed in their
attempt at enforcing their own
conception of how the South Viet-
namese should live.
The U.S.has, therefore, bombed
Northern staging centers and has
significantly increased its military
commitment in the South.
It appears that, militarily at
least, this strategy is beginning to
work.
THE REPEATED attacks on
Zone D, a long-time Viet Cong
sanctuary; the highly successful
assault near Chulai which re-
sulted in nearly 1000 Viet Cong
casualties and the significant re-
inforcement and material diffi-
culties which the raids on the
North have created for the Viet
Cong willeeventually affect Viet
Cong strength significantly. Al-
ready the much-feared "summer
offensive" of the Viet Cong has
largely failed.
Viet Cong prisoners and de-
fectors-including a provincial
political commissar-have report-
ed shortages of ammunition,
health problems, widespread fa-
tigue and discouragement.
The Viet Cong are also running
out of Southern volunteers. Fully
three-quarters of its new regular
troops are North Vietnamese, and
the 325th division of the North
Vietnamese army has had to be
infiltrated into the South.
CONSIDERABLE speculation
has surrounded the military issues
concerning a possible peace con-
ference.
Hanoi's demands, contained in
a four-point declaration by North-
ern Premier Pham Van Dong on
April 8, are withdrawal of troops
from the South and a halt to air
strikes on the North, agreement by
North and South Viet Nam to pro-
hibit foreign troops on their ter-
ritories, agreement that the Viet
Cong would have the decisive
Yugoslav foreign secretary, told
British foreign Secretary Michael
Stewart that it was "unrealistic"
for the North Vietnamese to de-
mand the U.S. withdrawal as a
condition for negotiations.
On the other hand, Lord Fenner
Brockway, chairman of the Brit-
ish Council for Peace in Viet Nam
and a participant in the inter-
national conference on Viet Nam
here, said North Vietnamese of-
ficials had told him in late Aug-
ust that Hanoi had never insisted
on withdrawal of American forces
as a necessity before negotiations
could begin.
Lord Brockway said the lack of
insistence on withdrawal repre-
sented a change from what had
previously been reported in Hanoi
and thereby "removed a major
obstacle to peace."
A similar report has come from
Prof. Robert Brown of Fairleigh
Dickinson University. And Senate
majority leader Mike Mansfield
(D-Mont) said on Sept. 1, in a
speech acknowledged by the White
House to reflect official policy,
that among other goals, the U.S.
sought "a withdrawal of all for-
eign forces and bases throughout
Viet Nam, North and South, pro-
vided peace can be re-established
and provided the arrangements
for peace include adequate inter-
national guarantees of noninter-
ference, not only for Viet Nam
but for Laos and for Cambodia as
well."
In short, the U.S. is already
prepared for withdrawal of its
forces-along with all other for-
eign forces-from the South as
the result of peace talks.
HOPEFULLY, this question will
be cleared up shortly. But in the
other crucial military-diplomatic
question-cessation of the raids
on the North - the North has
shown itself simply unwilling to
act.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk
disclosed on July 4 that the U.S.
had, in ceasing its attacks on
North Viet Nam in mid-May for
about six days, continually sound-
ed out Hanoi to see if it was
interested in negotiations or in
reducing its own role in the war.
The bombings were resumed,
Rusk added, only after Hanoi re-
plied in terms Rusk called "very
harsh, very harsh."
"We've asked the other side on
more than one occasion what else
would stop if we stopped the
bombing. Are you going to stop
sending those tens of thousands
of men from North Viet Nam to
South Viet Nam? Are you going to
stop attacking those villages and
killing off thousands of innocent
civilians? What else will stop?
And we've never had any reply,"
Rusk said.
Indeed, North Vietnamese pre-
mier Pham Van Dong has said
significant obstacles to a settle-
ment on Viet Nam.
* POLITICAL: The political
elements of the U.S. effort in
South Viet Nam are, quite simply,
to oppose the Viet Cong-North
Vietnamese attempt to subvert
the South Vietnamese government
and to work with that government
to provide security and elemental
economic and social Justice.
There is no evidence that in
the long run the Viet Cong-
whatever their slogans might be
-pretend to offer much of a
change. Viet Cong officials, The
New York Times reported on July
23, have taken up to 20 per cent
of some villages' incomes as
"taxes."
And for years the Viet Cong
have relied -on terror and abduc-
tions to help maintain, respective-
ly, their dominance in the coun-
tryside and their supply of mili-
tary manpower. Both the terrorism
and the kidnappings have in-
creased since the U.S. successfully
diffused the much-anticipated
Viet Cong summer offensive.
THE TIMES has noted, "As the
Communist presence in the coun-
try has expanded, there have been
fewer attempts to win over the
people politically."
Indeed, Charles Mohr, a former
Time reporter who resigned in
protest against that magazine's
overly-optimistic rewritings of his
Viet Nam dispatches, wrote in
The Times of August 4 that "care-
fully conducted, mathematically
valid surveys of peasant sentiment
show some surprising trends.
"The overwhelming concern of
many peasants, the surveys show,
is physical security. The studies
show that many people have no
real sense of loyalty or commit-
ment to either side in this guer-
rilla war."
THERE ARE, of course, many
South Vietnamese with grievances
against the government. But as
Prof. Robert Scalapino of Berkeley
has said, the Buddhists, the Cath-
olics, the Cao Dai and other
groups-all of whom have griev-
ances against the government-
have voiced these grievances
themselves and are not to any
appreciable extent affiliated with
the Viet Cong.
But while the Viet Cong are
clearly not the sole representatives
of the South Vietnamese, they in-
sist, as does Hanoi, that the U.S.
must accept them as such before
any peace conference can get un-
derway.
Not surprisingly, the U.S. says
this is completely unacceptable-
but, at the same time, indicates
clearly that, as representatives of
some of the South Vietnamese, the
Viet Cong would certainly be given
a voice at any peace talks.
formed part of a North Viet-
namese delegation to peace talks.
In fact, Rusk said July 4 that
direct talks could be held between
the Viet Cong and the South
Vietnamese.
"They can walk into the capital
tomorrow and say, 'We are pre-
pared to be like other South Viet-
namese and discuss the problems
of South Viet Nam on a political
basis rather than by arms.' They
can do that tomorrow, and their
voices undoubtedly would be heard
as thevoices of other groups in
Viet Nam are heard," Rusk said.
In the face of U.S. offers to al-
low the Viet Cong to participate
in a peace settlement, it becomes
evident that demands that the
Viet Cong-a vocal minority, an
armed minority, but still only a
minority - be granted carte
blanche to determine the future
of the South Vietnamese are both
unreasonable and a great obstacle
to any settlement.
IT IS NOT enough, however, to
say that the Viet Cong offer no
solution to the complex of prob-
lems that beset the South Viet-
namese and that their intransigent
insistence that somehow they
should determine the future of the
country despite this is presump-
tuous.
If current actions in Viet Nam
do not provide security to allow
education, medical care, agricul-
tural improvement, stabilization
and democratization of the gov-
ernment and all the other vital
social improvements to take place,
then social change is meaningless.
But if military success at re-
pulsing the Viet Cong attacks on
the people and on the institutions
which offer the most hope for
meaningful change in the South
is not accompanied by social
change, it will be useless-and,
since political change and mili-
tary success are so inter-related,
a lack of political progress im-
pedes military efforts as well.
Therefore, the U.S. must itself
work with the South Vietnamese
in attacking the problems which
the Viet Cong cannot solve. Here,
indeed, is the most important as-
pect of theuentire war-and the
most difficult.
WE SOMETIMES have assum-
ed, in ironic contradiction to our
own beginnings as a nation, that
bullets can somehow stop the
march of ideas. Perhaps they can
-briefly.
The U.S. has, however, in many
instances, proven itself the friend
of progress and social change, in
Viet Nam and elsewhere.
The announcement that Edward
G. Lansdale, a retired Air Force
major general with some highly
controversial ideas on how to fight
that its leaders can pay attention
to the future instead of the pro-
tection of their own careers;
-Help in the establishment of
new political leaders and: parties,
possibly with a role for them in
an assembly of notables, having as
one possible task the creation of
committees toacheck on hamlets
and villages and to certify them
as ready for free elections of local
officials;
--Reshape its local aid program
to provide rewards for stable con-
ditions rather than to buy the
loyalties, supplemented by political
attention to the economic organ-
izations of farmers and others
that would develop from aid; and
-Reorient military thinking to
"make it the number one'priority
for the military to protect and
help the people."
These, then, are some of the
dimensions of the U.S. commit-
ment to political, economic and
social change in South Viet Nam.
They, and other more familiar
elements such as the new South-
east Asian development plan the
President proposed in his Johns
Hopkins speech in April, are sig-
nificant responses to an extremely
difficult challenge.
0 DIPLOMATIC: So the war is
being fought for the purpose of
negotiating.
But Premier Pham Van Dong,
in fact, only recently repeated the
Northern vow to go on fightingIfor
20 years to win the war-"the
justifiable concern" of the coun-
tries of the world notwithstand-
ing.
While the U.S. has shown def-
inite interest in the April-.appeal
of 17 neutral- nations to begin
negotiations, all the Communist
powers rejected it.
When Ghana - hardly an im-
perialist stooge-attempts to gain
support for the Commonwealth
peace mission and is rebuffed;
when a concerned Gamal Abdel
Nasser makes queries of the North
Vietnamese and meets with an
equally cold attitude, then it seems
clear who has been willing to ne-
gotiate and who is not.
THUS FAR, North Viet Nam is
uninterested in any discussions
save on the most unrealistic of
terms-and thus the U.S. must
continue to fight, politically and
militarily, until it has convinced
the North that no other course is
possible.
And so the killing must con-
tinue. It is not an attractive pros-
pect, for this country as much as
for the Vietnamese.
But a change in the situation
cannot come any, other way. It
can only come slowly and peril-
ously-but, in the end, it will
come.
For a fundamental lesson of the