Gathering Protest

There was no reason for doubt left:

President Nixon's eight-month period of relative immunity from criticism on the Viet Nam war was over. The opponents of the war came out spoiling for a fight. A freshman Republican Senator, New York's conservative-turned-liberal, Charles Goodell, even had the temerity to introduce legislation asking the Congress to take the unheard-of step of cutting off all funds for U.S. participation in the war as of December 1, 1970. Of course, there is virtually no chance for his measure to become law.

But the proposal served to reopen debate on the war, largely muted since Nixon took office.

Arkansas Senator J. W. Fulbright seized on Goodell's initiative, which he called "ingenious," to announce that he will resume war hearings in his Foreign Relations Committee. Two dozen Democratic Senators and Representatives tried to make the war a sharply partisan issue for the first time. They pledged their support of students who are planning a national Moratorium Day of antiwar protest on Oct. 15.

Such attacks did not yet mean serious congressional trouble for Nixon, nor did they necessarily indicate that the patience of much of the rest of America had yet run out on the President. But Nixon seemed visibly on the defensive at his press conference. He bluntly dismissed the Goodell cutoff plan as representing "a defeatist attitude." He said it would preclude any movement toward peace until that cutoff date, since "any incentive for the enemy to negotiate is destroyed if he is told in advance if he just waits for 18 months, we'll be out anyway." Nixon seemed goaded into insisting that he hoped to end the war even faster, although the goal he stated of being out "before the end of 1970 or the middle of 1971" extends past Goodell's deadline. "We're on a course that is going to end this war," he declared. "It will end much sooner if we can have a united front behind our very reasonable proposals." But Nixon did not convincingly explain how his course will achieve peace, or how an appeal issued in public for a fac,ade of unity could possibly have much effect on the watching North Vietnamese. In any event, last week's outburst of criticism suggested that a united front on Viet Nam now is only a wishful thought.

Kind of Micawberism. Perhaps the most serious voice in the new chorus of protest is that of Democratic National Chairman Senator Fred Harris, who rallied Senators Edmund Muskie, George McGovern and Kennedy to a council of antiwar. They indicated that they will introduce resolutions expressing the intent of Congress that the U.S. withdraw from the war as speedily as possible. "It is time to take the gloves off on Viet Nam," said Harris. "I'm afraid that Mr. Nixon is rapidly losing the advantage he had by virtue of the fact that he could say, 'I didn't start this war.' I'm very alarmed that he really doesn't have a plan. His plan is a kind of Micawberism that maybe something will turn up."

The reappearance of dissent in the form of demands for U.S. troop withdrawals, whether immediate or on a specific timetable, reflects the war-weariness of a part of the U.S. public. In a sense that Nixon did not quite state, it does represent a form of "defeatism"--a widespread feeling that there is no clear way of forcing a peace settlement from Hanoi, but that the killing must stop and therefore the U.S. must pull out. On the other extreme, Nixon's plea for unity, while based on the valid notion that the war's real battleground has shifted to the field of U.S. public opinion, rests on the assumption that if the allies just hang on in South Viet Nam, the Communists will grow tired and seek a settlement--or the South Vietnamese army and government will grow strong enough to stand alone. What both views seem to exclude is the possibility of finding a means to get the peace talks moving short of withdrawing abruptly or lingering indefinitely.

The Administration proposes to let South Viet Nam's future be determined by free elections. This would meet President Nixon's bedrock condition for peace: that the South Vietnamese people be permitted to choose their own government, free of imposition by outsiders. It is a fine theory, and President Thieu supports it. The trouble with the theory is that whoever organizes elections in Viet Nam wins them. Hanoi cannot be expected to accept defeat at any elections the Thieu regime supervises--since the Communists are not defeated now. No doubt the North Vietnamese would like to get the war over with too, but they simply have not been hurt enough, as far as anyone can tell, to make them accept a settlement that they would regard as negating their achievements on the battlefield. One avenue that perhaps offers some hope is for elections organized by both sides with the help of outside observers. Thieu has offered to permit an international body and an electoral commission, including representatives of the National Liberation Front, to supervise the elections. Thus far, the Communists have denounced that as "perfidious trickery," apparently because it is too vague. It is more likely that they really do not yet feel politically strong enough to risk elections, no matter how fairly conducted.

Legalize the Realities. Free elections aside, what else can be done? There are a number of possibilities that can be tried. One is to push for what Cyrus

Vance, one of the Johnson Administration's peace negotiators in Paris, calls "a standstill cease-fire." This would be an agreement that all military forces would freeze in present positions and assume a defensive stance. The plan would also guarantee the Communists de facto political control over the areas of South Viet Nam that they occupy and ultimately, perhaps, a chance to elect representatives to a national Parliament. It would, in effect, legalize the realities of the military situation and amount to an uncontiguous partitioning of South Viet Nam, sometimes known as the "leopard spot" plan. But even if supervised by an international commission, as Vance suggests, it would require a high degree of cooperation between the bitter enemies.

Another possibility is a coalition government in which the Communists would have a share in ruling South Viet Nam. While Hanoi might accept that as a virtual victory, certainly the Saigon government of President Nguyen Van Thieu views it as just that for the Communists, and will have none of it. Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky recently declared: "The Americans are deluding themselves if they think they can replace this government with another and then bring about a coalition. If the new government tried to make a coalition with the Communists, there would be a coup inside ten days." Thieu agrees (see box on preceding page). Moreover, as Henry Kissinger wrote in Foreign Affairs shortly before he joined Nixon in the White House, "it is beyond imagination that parties that have been murdering and betraying each other for 25 years could work together as a team giving joint instructions to the entire country."

That leaves a possibility that some war critics raise, and one that is, now at any rate, anathema to officials in both Washington and Saigon: some kind of secret deal between the U.S. and Hanoi, in which the Thieu government would be replaced by a broader or neutralist government in return for a previously agreed-upon peace settlement. The notion admittedly opens a Pandora's box of horrendous problems, but its advocates argue that it is perhaps the one concession large enough to tempt Hanoi into serious negotiating. It is also one that appeals powerfully to opponents of the war.

The Dilemma. New York Congressman Jonathan Bingham, for example, last week charged in a speech on the House floor that "the Thieu-Ky regime has been consistently trying to block any reasonable settlement in Viet Nam" because the two generals fear for their jobs. Congressman Bingham urged Nixon to tell Thieu that "American boys will not go on dying to keep Mr. Thieu and Mr. Ky in power." Thieu provoked his critics even more last week by insisting, right after President Nixon had held out hopes of ending the war in barely more than a year, that it may take "years and years" before the South Vietnamese army could do the jobs of all the U.S. troops.

U.S. officials are quick to voice formidable objections to any attempts to throw the Thieu regime into the bargaining for peace. The Thieu government is the only stable regime that Saigon has known since the death of Ngo Dinh Diem. It holds power under a democratic constitution that the U.S. labored mightily to bring into being. It has the legitimacy of an elected government--and the solid support of South Viet Nam's military forces, still the most cohesive element in South Vietnamese society. There is no commanding figure ready to replace Thieu, except possibly General Duong Van ("Big") Minh,' who appeals to a broader political spectrum than Thieu but is not nearly so skillful--or bright--a leader. Any attempt to openly pressure Thieu to step aside now would probably create either chaos or a countercoup, in which U.S. and South Vietnamese troops might even wind up fighting each other.

Yet the dilemma remains: a negotiated peace does not seem readily at hand while Thieu and Ky hold power--and while Hanoi continues to insist that they must go. One possible answer may lie not in logic but evolution. It could come about as the timetable of U.S. withdrawals continues to unfold. At some point down the track, Thieu and Ky are likely to reach the conclusion that if they cannot live forever with Americans present to protect them, then they cannot operate without the Communists. When that point is reached, it may well be that something like an electoral or control commission, supervised by some outside nation like Japan, might become a far more interesting proposition for both sides.

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