Unpleasant Options

All of a sudden Southeast Asia--the whole area, not just Viet Nam--was back at the top of everybody's crisis list.

In Laos, Communist Pathet Lao troops had driven U.S.-endorsed neutralist forces off the strategic Plain of Jars and threatened to carry clear to the Thai border. In Cambodia, while Prince Sihanouk was howling about U.S. and South Vietnamese border violations, Communist Viet Cong guerrillas were enjoying sanctuary and transit rights to facilitate their war against the U.S.-backed government in Saigon. And in South Viet Nam, in the war into which the U.S. has poured both blood and billions, the struggle against the Reds was steadily deteriorating.

The Words. Only a few weeks ago, Southeast Asia evoked only bland smiles from most U.S. officials. Reason: President Johnson, for understandable political reasons, had decided to continue old policies, to let things slide--without a crash landing--until after November. Things slid, all right--almost to the bottom of the slide.

Realization of this fact brought some tough, sometimes eloquent, talk from the U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk last week warned that the U.S. intends to stand fast and that the conflict in Laos and South Viet Nam might expand, "if the Communists persist in their course of aggression." With particular emphasis, he added: "This is the signal which must be read with the greatest care in other capitals, and especially in Hanoi and Peking." He also called in Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin and sternly admonished him to give his boss the same message.

Similarly, United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, summoned home from a trip to Europe, warned the Security Council that the U.S. would remain in South Viet Nam as long as North Viet Nam, "with comradely assistance from the regime in Peking," continues to wage war there. "The U.S.," said Adlai, "cannot stand by while Southeast Asia is overrun by armed aggressors. If anyone has the illusion that my government will abandon the people of Viet Nam, or that we shall weary of the burden of support that we are rendering these people, it will be only due to ignorance of the strength and conviction of the American people."

But for all their forcefulness, neither Rusk nor Stevenson did much more than reiterate what U.S. policy has been all along--and there was mounting doubt about the efficacy of that policy. "We are rethinking the whole mess," said a State Department official.

The Crux. One alternative, already suggested by such people as France's Charles de Gaulle, is to neutralize all of Southeast Asia. But U.S. officials would have to do an awful lot of rethinking before they bought that one, for Laos is proof positive of just how badly neutralization can flop. Another possibility is to expand the war to North Viet Nam with bombing raids and guerrilla attacks. That, too, has its pitfalls, for the upshot could be massive Red Chinese intervention, and another Korea. Still a third option is to keep muddling, as the U.S. has been doing. But that policy has so far failed, and there is no prospect that it will suddenly start paying off.

The crux of the matter is Viet Nam, and U.S. policymakers see precious few glimmers of hope that the situation there will improve. Perhaps the grimmest fact, from the U.S. point of view, is this: Whatever the shortcomings of Ngo Dinh Diem's regime, his ouster and murder have not accomplished the reforms they were supposed to. South Viet Nam's present leader, General Khanh, is trying hard enough to take hold, and in fact, Washington fears that if he were eliminated by a coup or a killer, there would be nobody left to maintain even the semblance of an anti-Communist government. But Washington is beginning to realize that most of the complaints made against Diem can be made against Khanh: he has not rallied the people, he is out of touch with the countryside, he is a poor administrator, his finances are chaotic--and lately, the same old crowd that hounded Diem has even accused Buddhist Khanh of being beastly to Buddhists.

That leaves Lyndon Johnson with some mighty unpleasant options to choose from--particularly in an election year.

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