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OPINION
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Page 6
The Michigan Daily
Vol. XCIII, No. 31-S
93 Years of Editorial Freedom
Managed and Edited by students of
The University of Michigan
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the
Daily Editorial Board
A real
'Nowhere Man'
Long afan of rock & roll, President Reagan recently
rewrote the words to John Lennon's "Imagine,"
requesting Republican Party leaders to use his version
of the song as the 1984 party theme song. The Gipper
apparently has asked fellow Americans and part-time
entertainers, Frank Sinatra and Wayne Newton, to
record the Reagan/Lennon composition. The
following is a sneak preview of the song:
IMAGINE THERE'S no Central America
it's easy if you try
no Commies below us
above us only Canada Dry
Imagine all of the continent
living the American way (pause)
Imagine there are no public schools
it isn't hard to do
nothing to pressure Supreme Court Justices about
religion in the classrooms too
Imagine all the Conservatives
living like Ed Meese (pause)
Imagine no taxes
I wonder if you can
no need for charitable write-offs
a brotherhood of (white) man
Imagine all the women
cleaning all the world (pause)
You may say I'm a bigot-neofascist-idiot
but I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
and the world will be Re-pub-li-can
(Reprise)
Imagine no ERA
it isn't hard to do
all the women's libbers
shipped off to Peru
You may say I'm a sexist
but Lord knows I'm not the only one
Nancy and I hope you'll join us
and the world will be male-run
R4StiN5OA tI4OMA.
The Michigan Daily
Thursday, August 4, 193
A closer look at the Central
America- Vietnam analogy
0
By Franz Schurmann
As debate continues over our
growing involvement in Central
America, the "Vietnam analogy"
is heard more and more.
President Reagan and his sup-
porters insist that the analogy is
false. One way to test it is to size
up U.S. involvement in Central
America in 1983 against a com-
parable year for Vietnam: 1964.
There were some 16,000
American military advisers in
South Vietnam that year, as well
as large numbers of covert
operatives all over Southeast
Asia. In the summer, the 7th
Fleet had taken up positions in
the Gulf of Tonkin and the United
States backed a full-scale South
Vietnamese counterinsurgency
effort, which was faring badly.
In 1964, Washington sounded
alarms about "Chinese Com-
munist expansionism"
threatening the entire region,
from the Indian border to In-
donesia. The Viet Cong were
branded as tools of Hanoi, which
in turn was said to be the tool of
Peking.
The rhetoric on El Salvador is
clearly much the same now: The,
Reagan administration regards
the Salvadoran guerrillas asi
surrogates of Nicaragua, Cuba-
and, ultimately, the Soviet Union.
And the present large-scale
maneuvers off of both
Nicaraguan coasts, accompanied,
by land exercises in Honduras
close to the Nicaraguan border,;
suggest other, more substantive
similarities between 1964 and-
1983.
What worries many Reagan
critics is that it may only be a
matter of time before the United
States begins bombing its foes in
Central America, as it did in
Vietnam in February 1965, or
sending in the Marines, who lan-
ded in Southeast Asia the next
month. Those steps launched a
direct military involvement
which would last nearly eight
years.
Was it inevitable in 1964 that
such deep involvement lay
ahead? Assuming he was sincere,
Lyndon Johnson did not think so.
In August, following the Gulf of
Tonkin incidents, he said the
United States "seeks no wider
war." The official line from
Washington then was much like
that on El Salvador now: We
were only helping the South Viet-
namese defend themselves
against outside aggression.
The Pentagon Papers,
published six years later, suggest
that this help already included
some sharp twists on simple
defense of the South. "Operation
Rolling Thunder," the plan for
bombing in North Vietnam, was
in the'works and wouldbe put into
effect by presidential order in
February 1965.
Scattered evidence implies that
the United States also was sup-
porting a covert campaign to
"exfiltrate" its own guerrillas in-
to North Vietnam to carry out ac-
ts of sabotage and assassination.
Like Washington's present
reliance on the fumbling
Nicaraguan "Contras," the cam-
paign produced only disappoin-
ting results.
Neither of these two efforts
made deeper American in-
volvement in Vietnam inevitable.
The military always develops
drastic contingency plans; there
are most likely blueprints ready
today for full-scale aerial bom-
bing in Central America. Such
plans are not automatically im-
plemented. As to covert ac-
tivities, there was a great deal of
contempt and opposition to it
among the regular military in
1964, just as now the Pentagon
appears unenthusiastic about
what the CIA is doing with its
project for destabilizing
Nicaragua.
There were, however, two
other elements in the Vietnam
picture which proved to be the
difference between ominous
plans and ultimate involvement:
- The first was Lyndon John-
son's commitment - made in his
first official foreign policy
meeting the day after John Ken-
nedy was killed - not to allow
the United States to be defeated
in Vietnam. That commitment
sounds very much like President
Reagan's stated refusal to permit
the formation of another Marxist
state in Central America.
'during the Kennedy years, to
assume control of the South Viet-
namese government and army.
Washington believed that the
corrupt and reactionary regime
of Ngo Dinh Diem was certain to
be defeated. So U.S. advisers
were used to run the show - and
also to clean up the mess. In the
end, bitter fighting between Ken-
nedy's and Diem's men created
an even bigger mess. South Viet-
nam seemed to be "going down
the drain," and American bombs
and troops looked like the only
plausible stoppers.
Getting involved, in other words,
meant not just intervening in a
war but taking over a whole com-
pany.
Here lie the eeriest similarities
with El Salvador. The most
powerful political force fighting
the Salvadoran guerrillas is a
right wing which Washington
considers unfit to govern. But the
preferred political center is a
weak reed.
The Reagan administration
also would like to develop a
professionalized Salvadoran ar-
my. But to do that would require
a South Vietnam-style U.S.
takeover, something the inten-
sely nationalistic Salvadorans
resist.
These considerations are likely
to weigh even heavier ono the
president in the months ahead
and heavier yet in the coming
election year, perhaps even af-
fecting his decision whether to
run again. They could well con-
front President Reagan with the
choice of keeping his own anti-lef-
tist pledge - regardless of the
consequences - or quietly
replacing it with a policy of com-
promise.
I
4
- The second was the fact that Schurmann wrote this article
the United States had tried, for the Pacific News Service.
Gtti ttlW"t .,
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