University of Virginia Library

Unmasking Deception

Recent disclosures concerning United
States military involvements in Southeast
Asia, as well as pointing to the existence of a
credibility gap many Americans identified
only with the Johnson Administration, also
raise grave doubts about U.S. policy in the Far
East. The doubts, rather than subsiding, seem
to be piling up now in alarming proportions.

The release Sunday of previously censored
information by a Senate Foreign Relations
subcommittee headed by Sen. Stuart Symington
(D-Mo.) speaks louder than the high-flown
words Richard Nixon has voiced over and over
to the American people. According to the
Symington release, the U.S. is engaged in
"heavy escalation" of its air war in Laos while
purportedly trying to de-escalate the war in
Vietnam. More alarming is the news that when
the American bombing of North Vietnam
ended on 1 November 1968, U.S. air power
simply shifted targets to hit the "predominantly
North Vietnamese troops" in Laos.
Moreover, the secret bombing of Laos, begun
by President Johnson in 1964, was reported
to have doubled in May 1969, and nearly
tripled last August.

Sen. Symington was able to make his
disclosures only after a six-month struggle
with the Administration over releasing testimony
taken last October concerning secret
U.S. military activity in Laos. The testimony
has shown clearly that by agreement with the
Laotian Premier Souvanna Phouma, the U.S.
answered 1964 Vietnamese Communist violations
of the 1962 Geneva accords by
violating them too. American costs in this
endeavor are estimated in billions of dollars
and the records indicate that 200 U.S. troops
have already died in Laotian fighting. Military
and economic funds to Laos have surpassed
the Laotian's own contribution to their
nation's economy.

In view of this, it is not surprising that the
Laotian Premier "made it clear that he wanted
us to say as little as possible," according to
William H. Sullivan, a former U.S. ambassador
to Laos. There is a complex delusion involved
here. Most Americans, at least until recently,
fully believed that the question of U.S.
involvement in Laos was settled in 1962. The
revelations of the last few weeks point to
different conclusions, not the least of which is
the obvious fact that the Administration has
been engaged in an attempt at outright
deception. The fact that the deception
originated in a previous administration, far
from excusing Mr. Nixon, leads us to wonder
what other suppressed information, if published,
might reveal.

Shattering delusions is tricky business. Sen.
Symington is well aware of this, but the risks
inherent in perpetuating delusions must be
even trickier. Mr. Nixon, having failed to learn
a lesson from his predecessor, now must be
more aware of this than ever before.

Sen. Symington's task was not easy. It
took more than 100 meetings with Administration
officials for the subcommittee to
salvage the 237 pages of censored transcript
dealing with U.S. commitments abroad. A
guarded statement from President Nixon on 6
March broke the censorship deadlock, but the
newly-released information shows that the
war in Laos involves far more than the 1,040
Americans stationed in that country as Mr.
Nixon claimed. The subcommittee's hearings
disclosed that "tens of thousands" of
Americans are involved in the Laotian war in
air combat, in training, advisory, supply and
intelligence work - operating from Thailand,
from South Vietnam and from U.S. aircraft
carriers at sea. U.S. air strikes, although the
exact figures still remain suppressed, are
estimated to run up to 600 or more sorties a
day.

Stuart Symington's record in the
Senate indicates that he is no alarmist, no
matter how alarming his disclosures. His hope
in releasing the testimony, he says, is to avoid
what he calls "another Vietnam." The excuse
for such censorship has traditionally been that
the Administration must make decisions in
the interest of "national security." This can
be a valid rationale in certain instances, but in
the case of our controversial policy in
Southeast Asia, especially that which relates
to actions of six years ago, such suppression of
facts indicates cause for concern among those
who still regard this country as a viable
democracy. The Administration's words do
not compare favorably with its actions. Words
like "Vietnamization" and "withdrawal" and
"de-escalation" sound incredibly hollow when
the facts are dragged at long last into the light
of day. Mr. Nixon, what have you been telling
us? Or more importantly, what have you not
been telling us?

We are a nation at war. Our ability as a
people to deal with this grim fact is impaired in
many ways. The battlefields lie thousands of
miles away and the apparent willingness of the
Administration to relieve us of any factual
basis for national self-appraisal has never been
greater. The burden of justification for what
we are doing rests not only with Mr. Nixon
but with each of us. Our disagreement with
the President lies not only in the area of his
actions but in his words. Our ability to
correlate the two, seemingly distinct entities
and to make judgments is dependent on his
willingness to level with the public in
important matters of foreign policy such as
this. Our ability as individuals to judge and as
a nation to act decently can only be damaged
by such deceptive maneuvers at which the.
Administration has clearly been caught. And
the doubts keep piling up.

RPB IV