THEIR HEARTS THEY KNOW THEY'RE DOOMED
If the capacity to kill is any measure of strength, American imperialism is mightier than any other power on earth. It is capable of exterminating all of humanity at least seventy-five times over.
From another viewpoint, the United States is also the mightiest, for it possesses the world's biggest productive system. It can produce goods in an unimaginable flood, and its farms are still capable of producing such crops that the main problem is to keep from growing too much,
Yet this giant looks at the rest of the world with gnawing fear, for it is also the most hated power in all of human history,-.
And despite all its frenzied efforts to display ruthless confidence, at heart it sees no enduring hope for its capitalist system or its boasted "way of life."
This has been repeated many times by revolutionary social-
ists who have been led to see the true situation through Marxist analysis of the class structure of American society and close observation of its development. Not often, however, does direct evidence become available of the real views of America's masters of destiny. Last week was an exception. During the crisis paralyzing Washington over what to do next following the bombing of villages in North Vietnam, a most interesting revelation was made by Arthur Krock, the dean of correspondents in Washington.
In the New York Times of February 16 [International edition], he reported a conversation he had with President John F. Kennedy on May 5, 1961: ™. . . the President said General MacArthur had prophesied to him that eventually Southeast Asia in general would go Communist: .by popular choice but, whether or not that was true, Mr. Kennedy was. firm in the statement that United States policy must be to avoid a positive formal withdrawal and help protect the area as long as its governments and people wanted this protection,
"The President quoted General MacArthur as also remarking to him: ‘Our chickens are all coming home to roost, and you are in the chicken house.' Now President Johnson is in the chicken house. But the chickens have multiplied, and fighting gamecocks compete to rule the roost."
.MacArthur, it should be recalled, was a great hero among the most reactionary circles in the United States. He it was who took American armed forces beyond the thirty-eighth parallel in Korea and who wanted to go beyond the Yalu in a war against China. If this "samecock" was convinced that all of Southeast Asia would go Communist "by popular choice™ what must be the real opinions of the top figures in Washington today as they see precisely that happening in South Vietnam today?
The truth is that Washington séés no genuine hope of saving its position in South Vietnam. It knows that if its military support is removed, the puppet Saigon regime will crash over night.
Moreover Washington is aware that its military position is becoming desperate, Using mainly arms seized from the Saigon forces, bearing the label "Made in the USA," the freedom fighters have steadily built up their contingents until now they are not far from the qualitative point where they will be able to drive the Americans into the sea.
The Pentagon finds itself incapable of containing the rising revolution except through all-out war. But can it win a conflict inevitably involving China and the Soviet Union? To use nuclear arms would mean suicide; not to use them would mean defeat by revolution. The tide of the future is with communism "by popular choice" on a world scale. In their hearts, the American generals know it. They simply can't bring themselves to admit it -- publicly.
De Gaulle Doesn't Know It
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