University of Virginia Library

The New War: Myths And Contingencies

Now he can point back to these
bombings and others and continue
to steer a course of accelerating air
war against the people of North
Vietnam. This while the American
people content themselves with
decreasing U.S. casualties and the
slow withdrawal of troops.

Mr. Nixon's plan differs from
President Johnson's in that it
recognizes the futility of American
troops in the Asian countryside.
When Mr. Johnson ordered his
bombings at least there could be
the hope that they somehow lined
up with legitimate U.S. aims. In
fact, at that time, there existed no
choice under the announced policy
of the President.

NLF Won

The war had in effect been lost.
NFL controlled the rural areas and
held growing power in South
Vietnam's cities. If in the long run
those bombings failed, their
termination was taken by many as a
sign of hope.

Euphoric reveries of
"Vietnamization" now full one half
of the country, while those with
bigger ideas and duller brains may
hope for that "just and honorable
peace." In fact, today's
contingencies have nothing to do
with either.

Increased bombings may be
expected. The uncertain
"agreement" of Oct. 31, 1968,
which halted the Johnson
bombings, has already been pushed
to the limit, and this has been
accomplished wilfully and tactically
by Nixon and Laird.

What the latest attacks point to
is more of the same, especially as
U.S. troop levels decrease and U.S.
spy flights over North Vietnam
continue to meet determined
resistance. Can "protective
reaction" fully explain the whole
meaning of the new strategy? Some
observers think not.

Among them is Daniel Ellsberg,
a former researchers with Rand
Corporation who spent some time
working in LBJ's Vietnam
pacification program. He enjoys
righteous connections with top
Nixon aides like Henry Kissinger -
not for their shared opinions but as
a matter of friendship, personal
connections.

Mr. Ellsberg is now at MIT, a
senior research associate with the
Center for International Studies. He
is writing a book on Vietnam and
the war; his overwhelming sense of
outrage is notable for its
rationality.

Times Letter

In a recent letter to The New
York Times, which was endorsed
by a group of MIT faculty members
headed by Dr. Salvador Luria, Mr.
Ellsberg states:

"...current U.S. attacks are only
warnings of what the North
Vietnamese can expect from their
continues 'obduracy' after United
States troops are reduced to their
semipermanent levels, probably
between 100,000 and 200,000
men.

"Remaining measures, long
urged by the military (and in some
cases by Nixon himself) include
mining Haiphong, interference with
Soviet shipping and interdiction
attacks along the Chinese border
and the destruction of Hanoi and
Haiphong.

"The recent abortive commando
raid foretells even "limited"
Invasions of North Vietnam. What
else could have been the
contingency plan for rescuing the
"search and rescue" team itself, if it
was pinned down last weekend?

"When all such measures fail, a
full-scale invasion aimed at Hanoi,
or the threat and possible use of
nuclear weapons, could be
'contingencies' whose time has
come."

Prolong And Expand

Mr. Ellsberg concludes, "Nixon's
clearly announced and
demonstrated strategy entails not
only prolonging but vastly
expanding this immoral, illegal and
unconstitutional war"

Which Bombs?

Sources in Cambridge close to
Mr. Ellsberg are investigating
reports of a government-ordered
study, perhaps now underway at
Harvard, of not WHETHER to use
nuclear weapons on the North - not
simple feasibility - but rather
WHICH of those weapons to use.

Such research has always been
protected by an iron veil of secrecy.

It is paradoxical in the extreme
that now, just when the pressure of
an active, vital anti-war movement
might have helped avert
catastrophe, the deceit and
duplicity of men riveted to myths
of victory should so completely set
asunder their most constructive
opposition at home.

But they are succeeding in this.
Nixon the Politician chooses to
isolate a minority of activist
students, forcing a radical few over
the brink of madness. When
Weatherman socks it to a
corporation's offices, Nixon the
Politician picks up the pieces.

When an American
Vice-President can stand up and
demand that the "garbage" be
swept from society, when bomber
attacks are ordered without even
notifying the Secretary of State,
and when people grow increasingly
immune to the shock that their
government is lying to them, then
these are days of judgment.

Judgement will never end the
war. The new conflict brings with it
more than the sorrow and rage for
the American dead, more than the
despair of the Vietnamese people
who might live and grow, and
prosper in Mr. Nixon's "generation
of peace."

No such peace is in sight. The
technology (and psychology) of
modern warfare permits the
President to go on pushing for
victory while bringing men home at
the same time. As Americans
content themselves with the notion
that this policy serves U.S.
interests, they invite the worst of
outcomes.

No longer are apathy and
inaction passive conditions of
non involvement. They are
concomitant marks of the
accomplice yet the individual and
collective resistance needed to halt
this war seem further away than
ever.