European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 15, 1969, Darmstadt, Hesse Wednesday january 15, 1969 the stars and stripes William f. Buckley or. Galbraith & co. Seem to want Viet loss a while age at a forum or a part conference or whatever the indomitable John Kenneth Galbralth Wai asked How to account Lor the difference Between hit opinions and those of other people on a particular matter. He replied coolly i have made such reputation As i have by be ing ahead of other people in my this is probably an appropriate time to quote a clipping tent along by an admirer of prof. Galbralth. It is from the Santa Barbara news press for feb. 15, 1 my and under the headline South Vietnam govern ment collapse seen the Dis Patch reads Boston a John Kenneth Henry j. Taylor Galbralth Harvard professor says the collapse of the South vietnamese government and army Are sic imminent. Any thing that can effectively be called a government in South Vietnam will disappear Wolf Hon the next few weeks he said yesterday and about the same time Span will begin the effective dissolution of the South Viet namese army " now there is a robust prediction for you though not one which prof. Galbraith is Likely to adduce next time he gets on to the subject of his infallibility. But or. Galbralth engages in Brink Manship by continuing to proffer Anodic tidally his opinions on the situation in Vietnam notwithstanding i disastrous track record. He does so most frequently at the intended expense of or. Joseph atop whom he loves to tease which is a temptation quite generally Felt. Any Way Fust after the new year pkg addressed a letter to the Washington Post spoofing or. Alsop s frequent quotations from captured enemy documents. Needless to say or. Alsop was not amused. And he delivered a crushing rebuttal in a let Ter to the Washington Post. On the factual situation he quoted from or. Charles Mohr of fhe new York times significantly because the new York times has consistently tended to the All is lost View of the situation in Viet Nam. Or. Mohr reporting on the cumulative Impact of the great offensives of 1968 by the Viet Cong concluded 1 that the indigenous South vietnamese Viet Cong military and political move ment lost a Large part of its Best leadership 2 that rank and file . Lost very heavily in the attacks on the cities and 3 that the Lack of popular support for the . Has required that the enemy abandon guerrilla warfare. Or. Aesop Points out that by common agreement North Vietnam s participation in the War Cost her a Quarter of a million men. But or. Alsop makes a final and devastating thrust. Would t you think he notes that upon the release of the figures the re action by americans who greeted the end so gladly a year ago would be thank god i was to be sure says or. Alsop an american Success in Vietnam will make prof. Galbralth and his friends look very foolish indeed but that does not palliate the unattractive Ness of their insatiable appetite for bad news however ill founded and their arrogant rejection of Good news however factually but it s True one gets the feeling that the Vietnam War critics seem to want most of ail a Mili tary defeat and the psychological humiliation of this country if Only to prove that they have had Good opinions ahead of other people. C Washington Star Syndicate foreign policy debacle the new Nixon administration s fundamental problem in world affairs is to regain the initiative in foreign affairs. This has become a monumental task. But the objective is absolutely Basic. Unless the world s leading nation holds the initiative for its own conduct it has no foreign policy. President Truman established our postwar initiative in foreign policy with the profoundly important Success of the Berlin air lift. We retained the initiative in the far East president Eisen Hower by achieving Success in the testing pass that red China made against Matsu and Quemoy islands. We retained the initiative again president Eisenhower in latin America by our Success. In Guatemala and in the Middle East by the successful Lebanon Landing. And so on until Cuba. The Basic fault was not that we attempted to eliminate the threat of a communist Cuba to the United states within our own John p. Roche defense perimeter but that the attempt failed. Within a year and a half after the Bay of pigs Russia had been so encouraged that she placed her troops and missiles in Cuba. This required president Kennedy to confront the so Viets. He ordered the blockade and then inexplicably took it off within 30 Days. Within another year Castro s subversion was so damaging that Kennedy was forced to make a latin american trip and Tell pro testing latin american chiefs of state that there was nothing he could do about it. Six elected governments promptly fell. Our ancient Monroe doctrine which typifies the essence of the Prin Ciple of the initiative was shattered in the catastrophic cuban debacle. And the present de Bacle in Vietnam was directly connected with the Bay of pigs As Well. Shortly thereafter and at the worst possible time an embarrassed Kennedy sought a meet ing with soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna. Khrushchev by the president s own statement bullied and also by the president s own state ment he understood this saying that apparently Khrushchev had decided that anybody stupid enough to get involved in that situation the Bay of pigs was immature and anybody who did t see it through was timid and therefore could be As a result Kennedy sent the first 16,000 combat troops into Vietnam in a face saving opera Tion to prove to Khrushchev that the United states was not a paper Tiger. The fundamental weakness in our Paris talks position is that we cannot outlast the enemy in Viet Nam and nevertheless washing ton has refused to allow our forces to outright him. Meanwhile the enemy buildup has grown so great that he cannot be driven out by our present forces. What american foreign policy must have to regain the Initia Tive is a Success somewhere a series of successes. C 1969 United feature Syndicate inc. Ii i f i n be a " of 1 in in s v on 1 be a i y i t h n us a q 1 o i t a i g to i be i a i n i " \ " m r i r v ? v e a or Lvi let s not put our military responses on ice sen. J. W. Fulbright has emerged from the Senate foreign relations committee with a sense of the Senate Resolution designed to prevent future Vietnam. In essence it states that before the president com Mitt american Power in the world he must get permission from Congress thus allegedly restoring the constitutional balance intended by the found ing fathers when they gave the legislature the War Power. There is grave danger that this pious pronouncement will win Over whelming Liberal endorsement and Pun in a great whoop of isolationist nostalgia in realistic terms of Coutte nobody wanted the first Viet Nam except to Chi Munh. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson certainly never anticipated what and neither did Congress. Ful Bright is no illiterate and he sponsored the Tonkin Gulf Reso Lution which expressly approved presidential action to hold South Vietnam. He has been muttering that he was tricked but he is no better than the rest of us we were All tricked but by Hanoi not Lyndon Johnson. The North vietnamese who according to the scenario accepted by the president the Pentagon the state department and the con Gross were supposed to throw in the Towel at the approach of american might had never Boon properly programmed. Naturally the president hoi to carry the can that is part of Hie Fob description but con Gress was right in there behind him when the going looked easy. Now three Yean later Capitol Hill and the foreign policy Are popu o Long Savage War would result fated by tigers emeritus. What _ _ m. L a. T cd _1 a. Vi0ww 9 human is that these retired hard liners have generally managed to assert that the Ken Nedy Rusk Mcnamara policy was perfectly sound until it was perverted by Johnson Rusk me Namara Johnson for Short. If the policy was mistaken it was just As bad in 1962 Ashi 66. One function of the separa Tion of Powers i that Congress con blame the president for any thing that goes wrong. Ful Bright National commitments Resolution is therefore a quite traditional technique by which senators can sneak off when their foot net Woody from a Long unanticipated March. But the trouble is that while anyone who reflects on the situation til opinion form a in my column and Carta ont on thu pig apr eau of the author and a in no Way from american intervention Tom stars and fat Ripe Luvelt Eri find infuriating though quit vT�9T�n�� recognizes the Resolution As a pious fraud not unlike the Bricker amendment which Al most passed in the 50s, designed to guarantee the Republic against a traitorous president its passage would strongly buttress the general mood of isolationism and no commitment among the american people. If for example a president took its message seriously the deterrent aspect of american Power would to undermined if net destroyed. Can anyone imagine what would have happened in the cuban missile crisis of 1962 if John Kennedy Hod Felt obliged to Clear with Congress actions that might Lead to conflict similarly the whole Structure of nato no matter what anyone says about conventional responses and breath ing space is founded on the tripwire deterrent if the soviets go Tor Western Europe we go for them. If the russians knew that Fulbright and his fellow solons were going to put the american response on ice until the foreign relations committee held hearings they would strangle West Berlin in 24 hours. In practical terms then the Fulbright move is on a Par with the proposal the isolationists me among them advanced in the late 1930s, that there should to a National referendum before going to War. Once upon a time it would have been essentially harmless in 1812 Congress debated the declaration of War with Britain for weeks and it was Over a month after presi Dent Madison signed the measure that word of it reached London. But preposterous or not it is dangerous because it provides Superb cover for possible re publican isolationism. C 1w9, King Foat Urei
