To Tolerate or Oppose?

While the U.S. warmed itself with news of Western propaganda victories at the Big Four Foreign Ministers' conference in Berlin last week, a chilling scene was quietly enacted in Indo-China. On direct orders from President Eisenhower, some 250 U.S. Air Force technicians landed in Indo-China from U.S. air bases in Japan. They were the vanguard of a major U.S. effort to save Indo-China from going down to defeat -- an evidence of the gravest crisis in U.S.-Asian policy since the out break of the war in Korea.

The crisis developed almost without warning. The press, which had overplayed a short-lived Communist foray across the waist of Indo-China last December, had underplayed the more recent and more serious worsening of the French position in Indo-China. Washington thought that France had agreed last year to drive for victory. But the agreement was only paper-deep. Paris' heart simply is not in the Indo-China war.

Wasted Season. Washington began to be suspicious of this when the French forces failed to take advantage of new U.S. supplies and good weather to launch a major offensive against Communist Leader Ho Chi Minh's forces. Recently the suspicions were confirmed when the French sent an S O S asking for a U.S. commander in Indo-China, along with U.S. air power and ground troops. Immediately the Indo-China problem flew to the top of the agenda of the National Security Council. Last week the President appointed an NSC subcommittee, consisting of Under Secretary of State Walter Bedell Smith and Deputy Defense Secretary Roger Kyes, to draw up a plan of action with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Joint Chiefs believe, professionally, that the war is being lost because the French tactics have been poor. From a strictly military viewpoint, the chiefs would like to 1) install a U.S. commander, 2) support him with U.S. air power and a naval blockade of the China coast, 3) give him money and men to develop independent native armies--much as General James Van Fleet developed them in Greece and the Republic of Korea.*

There were plenty of ready political arguments in Washington against this military solution. For one, G.O.P. leaders in Congress believe the Korean peace is one of their greatest political assets in this election year, shudder at the thought of involvement in a fresh war in Indo-China. For another, Treasury Secretary Humphrey and Budget Director Dodge have warned that a stepped-up military program will ruin their crusade for a balanced budget. The State Department, for its part, is worrying about how its European allies, notably Britain, might react to direct intervention, or even to a blockade of Communist China.

President Eisenhower must make the ultimate decision. To date, he clings to the hope that U.S. technical assistance will stiffen the French, and that the French can still win. The 250 U.S. officers and airmen in Indo-China will soon be reinforced by 150 more. Their job: to get the bogged-down French air force flying efficiently again. The next move may be a blockade of the Indo-Chinese coast (but not China) to prevent reinforcement by sea. This would require a naval carrier task force to move into the South China Sea. If these measures do not bring victory, the President may be asked to consider stronger measures.

The Source. These proposals do not seem to have much in common with Secretary Dulles' ringing announcement (TIME, Jan. 25) that the U.S. will meet the Communist challenge "vigorously at places and with means of its own choosing." And they do not because the Administration has never really made up its mind whether to move against Communist China, the source of supply for Communist armies in Indo-China.

Dulles has strengthened Dean Acheson's Far Eastern policy by building what is, in effect, a barbed-wire fence around Communist China. Thus, U.S. forces are al ready in place to retaliate against new aggression in Korea--not on the ground, but in the bombardment of Chinese Communist armies and supply routes in Manchuria. But a fence cannot stop the Chinese from shifting supplies under the wire; since the end of the Korean war, Peking has sent the Indo-Chinese Communists bigger shipments of better arms than ever before.

Worst of all, the fence concept gains no advantage for the free world from the strength of the best anti-Communist armies in Asia, the Republic of Korea forces and Chinese nationalist forces on Formosa. Held in by U.S. policy, Chiang's strength becomes a wasting, aging asset to the free world. Some U.S. planners, notably J.C.S. Chairman Admiral Arthur Radford, object strenuously to a policy which grants the Communists time to stabilize their position and prepare for a next move.

* A course best outlined by Van Fleet himself in the February Readers' Digest. "The lesson for us," he wrote, "is that free Asia may easily be saved if we provide our worthy allies with [U.S.-run military training] schools. They can be built for barely $5,000,000 each and, with the aid of less than two dozen American instructors . . . give courses lasting from four to 24 weeks to 10,000 eager pupils . . ."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.