JOHNSON DEFIED IN CAIRO AND SAIGON
As the year 1964 drew to a close, two of the current main contentions of American propaganda received stiff blows. Washington has presented its intervention in the internal affairs of the Congolese people as motivated by “humanitarian" reasons, It has presented its intervention in the internal affairs of the Vietnamese people as motivated by concern for the defense of “democracy” against the alleged "threat of Communism,"
On November 23 President Gamél Abdel Nasser gave a public answer to a letter which the government of the United Arab Republic had received from President Johnson, reportedly demanding that the UAR stop furnishing help for the Gongolese freedom fighters or face reprisals in allocations of food being sent from the United States to the Egyptian people.
"We have sent. arms to the Congolese nationalists and we will continue to send them," Nasser said,
gned material expresses, insofar as editorial opinion may appear, the standpoint of revolution: Marxism. T rit
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“We have no reason to hide this fact. We do not recognize Tshombe, who is an agent of imperialism. The Congolese revolutionists need aid from all the nationalist forces in the world. Our position is clear, therefore, and we announce it without any equivocation; we have sent arms and will continue to send arms to the Congo."
Nasser added: "This policy is the result of our total indapendence. We will co-operate with other countries in the whole world on the basis of nonintervention in our affairs. If the Americans imagine that. because they grant us aid they can dictate policy to us, they are mistaken and my answer to them is, no. We are ready to consume less tea, coffee and other food products in order to maintain our independence. Otherwise we would run the risk of completely losing our independence and the struggle of 1956 would have been in vain, no
The United Press reported Nasser as “saying, ' "We drink teaseven days now, we can cut it down to five. We drink coffee six days, we can cut it down to four. We eat meat four days, we can cut it down to three. We are people of dignity and we do not.:-accept disdain from anyone." eS oO oe ne e
. Agence France Press quoted him as declaring, ‘the. United States is delivering wheat, meat and chickens worth £50, 000, 000 ($113, 500, 000] a year. They don't furnish us factories. If it is necessary, we can give up this &50,000,000 and drink less tea and coffee."
On December 24 it was reported that Washington officials were not prepared to offer any comment on this speech by Nasser and another one the next day in which he called for greater self-reliance in armaments , industries and agriculture. Oo
Bub "sources said, " according to ‘the New. York Herald Tribune - [December 25 European edition] "that the U.A.R.'s recent request for
? ‘$35 million in surplus food wilt be. shelved without further conaideration,"
And along with that move, the same "sources" destroyed the Tast shred of pretense about the “humanitar tant aims : of the Johnson administration ain Africa. :
On the sane day in Saigon, a ‘novel turn occurred in the Amert= can intervention, The puppet Lt. Gen. Nguyen Khanh turned and bit the hand that manipulated the strings controlling him, —
On December 23, as Nasser spoke up in Cairo, the Vietnamese "strongman" set up by. the Pentagon, the State Department and the Cen= tral Intelligence Agency, denounced U.S. interference in the internal affairs of South Vietnam.
Openly referring to Maxwell D. Taylor, the U.S. ambassador, Khanh saids
"The United States and their representatives in Vietnam like Taylor should work with the decisive elements in the nation -- those that have the power of decision -- and not try to exert pressure.
"If you want to have a good solution for one problem you.-must be more realistic. . . you' must be more practical and not have a dream of having Vietnam be an image of the United States, because the way of life and the people are entirely different.
"Mostly: one should not impose on the Vietnamese people and the Vietnamese Army those leaders they do not want.
“The attitude of Gen. Taylor during the last 48 hours == as far as my small head is concerned -- and his activities have been beyond imagination as far as an ambassador is concerned,"
It should prove interesting to see how long a puppet can keep aa its head on its shoulders in defiance of blows apparently aimed at knocking it off. In any case, if-a puppet feels forced to talk like this, it is not difficult to gee how fraudulent is Weshington'ts claim © that U.S. troops are in South Vietnam only as "instructors" and "ob-'°" servers, rt and that the sole objective of U.S. intervention in the civil war there is to defend "democracy."