NEGOTIATE" THE WAR IN VIETNAM
The world is still speculating over the meaning of Johnson's withdrawal March 31 as a presidential candidate and his ordering a "limitation" on the bombing of North Vietnam.
The official interpretation is that Johnson put the interests of peace above his personal ‘political ambitions and decided to remove himself as a center of division and controversy, the better to "unite America" and to "convince Hanoi" to come to the negotiations table.
Several more plausible explanations are circulating in political circles in the U.S. One is that Johnson became convinced by the latest polls and by the results of the primary elections in New Hampshire that he could not win the nomination in the Democratic party and that even if he did win he might well be defeated by even a Nixon in the Novenber elections.
The timing of his announcement was
related to the primary elections in Wis-
consin on April 2 where he was absolutely
certain to be defeated, and even more de-
cisively than in New Hampshire. To save
face, he had to withdraw before April 2.
Johnson's "limitation" of bombing
forays in North Vietnam is accounted for
in parallel fashion as recognition of the
staggering defeat dealt to the U.S. ag-
gression by the "Tet Offensive." The vic-
tory won by the Vietnamese freedom fight-
ers showed how illusory Johnson's pursuit
of a military victory had become. The
fresh impetus this gave to the antiwar
movement in the United States deepened
the fears of that sector of the ruling
class that has long doubted the wisdom
of Johnson's tactical course, won new ad-
herents among the ruling class to this
view and thus increased the pressure on
Johnson to such an extent that he had no
choice but to concede.
It is a curious fact that not even this explanation, so damaging to the standing of the president since it amounts to accusing him of truly colossal errors, is wholly convincing to wide sec-— tors of the population. After the first reaction of relief and even gratitude, many asked themselves, "What does this slick, conniving, lying capitalist machine politician have up his sleeve?"
Obviously Johnson's move had one immediate benefit for his potential candidacy. It gave him a plausible excuse to avoid campaigning, to evade facing the hostile crowds that have made it inpossible for him "to carry his case to the people," as the capitalist politicians put it.
Another immediate benefit was to clean up his image a bit and give him more of the appearance of the lofty president standing above sordid politics which he has sought to achieve since the beginning of the year.
Johnson's "peace offensive" ties in with such Machiavellian calculations. If "Hanoi" turned down his seemingly generous offer to negotiate "peace," he could in the months before the Democratic convention seek to convince the American people that the onus for continuation of the war rested solely with "the enemy" and that, like it or not, no choice was left open but to further escalate the war -- and on a qualitatively higher level.
The natural concomitant of this would be to draft a man who had gone to such extreme lengths to show his eagerness to end the war -- a man who at the same time had also shown his capacity to conduct a war in the style of a Churchill or Roosevelt.
That there might be a grain of truth in this account is indicated by the reports from Saigon that both the U.S. command and their puppet forces confidently expected that the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam would reject Johnson's "offer" out of hand. The first reaction in these circles, when news came that the Vietnamese had tentatively agreed to open talks, was deep dismay and even panic.
The corrupt layers around the Thieu-Ky government immediately began looking for escape hatches. Beverly Deepe reported in the April 5 Christian Science Monitor:
"Some are trying to buy Chinese Nationalist passports, selling under the table for 300,000 piastres -- $3,000, a sizable sum of money in Vietnam. Others are attempting to buy Lao passports, less expensive, ranging from $1,000 to $2,000, depending on one's connections....Other
Vietnamese are arranging to be smuggled
to Cambodia, and there try to buy Cambo-
dian passports, reliable sources report."
Whether Johnson counted on his "of-
fer" being rejected out of hand is, of
course, uncertain. That fact that his
order to “limit" the bombing nevertheless
permitted bombers to continue their for-
ays to within a few miles of Hanoi is
highly suspicious. The continuation of
bombing on this scale may have been in-
tended as a provocation, the idea being
that the continued raids would cause the
Ho Chi Minh government to spurn the "of-
fer" as fraudulent on the face of it.
In the resulting confusion and dis-
appointment among the American people,
Johnson might have figured he could still
Pin the onus on "the enemy."
This scheme, if that was what John-
son had in mind, was spoiled by Hanoi's
countermove.
At the time of the "Tet Offensive,"
the Johnson administration discounted the
Vietnamese victories as "only" psycholog-
ical or political. If we take Johnson's
March 31 speech at face value, then it
must be said that the White House propa-
ganda of last February was extremely
light-minded. Among the political gains
to be chalked up to the Vietnamese thrust
was nothing less than Johnson's own can-
didacy for reelection.
Direct credit for Johnson's forced
withdrawal goes, of course, to the develop-
ment of the antiwar movement in the United
States with its huge demonstrations and
its increasingly militant tone.
But the Vietnamese victory in Feb-
ruary served to precipitate things. It
opened a new stage of struggle in Vietnam
with immense repercussions not only in
Vietnam but in the entire world, the
United States in the first place for once.
The swift intensification of the
black liberation struggle in the U.S. is
part of the new pattern.
Another sector that may soon be
heard from is the half million U.S. troops
sent to Vietnam. They are in strategic
position to cut through any fraudulent
"peace" maneuvers emanating in Washington
and play a decisive role in bringing the
dirty war in Vietnam to an actual end.
A popular slogan in the antiwar
movement in the U.S. is, "Bring them back
alive -- NOW!"
Judging from various reports, the
GI's may soon be of a mood to reword
that slogan: "We're coming home -- NOW!
And don't let Johnson or anyone else try
to stop us!"
THE DOLLAR