JOHNSON'S SOCIETY OF THE GREAT LIE
On April 26 at a nationally televised press conference, Secretary of Defense Robert 5S. McNamara said that while the U.S. is holding open the “option" of using "small" nuclear weapons, "no useful purpose can be served by speculation on remote contingencies."
The next day, President Johnson talked even more reassuringly in another nationally televised press conference. He affirmed == and he should know! -- that in the seventeen months he had been president of the United States not a "single official" of his administration had ever suggested using nuclear weapons in Vietnam.
On May 14 secret testimony given by Secretary of Defense Robert S, McNamara at a closed meeting of the House appropriations subcommittee on March 2 was made public. Here is part. of what the record shows him to have admitted to the congressmen:
"There has been no senior official, military or civilian, of this Government that I am aware of that has indicated that we have any policy restricting our use of nuclear weapons in any situation in the world when we believe it is desirable to use them in our own interestece
"TI think the risk of escalation is one of the risks you must look at when you are deciding to use nuclear weapons. It is not a sufficient risk to warrant refraining from the use of weapons under certain circumstances, but it is a clear risk that must be evaluated."
Thus we learn the truth. Not only have the group of advisers closest to Johnson discussed and speculated on the use of nuclear weapons. They are following a policy of not restricting their use "in any situation in the world" and even at the "risk of escalation."
Johnson's "Great Society" is at least great in one respect -it's use of the Great Lie.
OFFICIAL LIES OF U.S. HMBARRASS REPORTER
As Trotsky once observed, the muse of journalism has sturdy thighs. Nowhere could this be said with greater appropriateness than in the United States where most journalists consider prostitution of the pen to be the way of life in their profession. Consider, then, how gross the lies of the Johnson administration about U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic must be when even the cal= loused, case-hardened practitioners of bourgeois journalism find themselves gagging!
A good example is David Kraslow of the Los Angeles Times, Writing from Santo Domingo in the May 14 issue of his paper, he feels forced to make some damaging admissions:
"The harsh fact is that government officials have been less than candid with the American people about the U.S. intervention in the Dominican revolution. Why this should be is not precisely clear just yet Li], but that is the truth,'
He compares the official lies pouring out of Washington with those issued in 1960 "when Americans were fed a fairy tale about a U-2 plane shot down deep inside Russia" and again in 1961 "when the government put out cover stories in connection with the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.'
In Santo Domingo, he says: “Relentless probing by reporters has surfaced a good bit of truth about our extraordinary involvement in Santo Domingo. More of the truth will be exposed in time." What he does not mention is that most. of this probing has been done by