"Just a Minute"

FOREIGN RELATIONS

President Johnson recently recalled what the late Sam Rayburn once told him about making a decision. If the decision is big enough, Mr. Sam advised Lyndon, the thing to do is say, "Just a minute." Last week, in many foreign policy areas where Lyndon Johnson had wisely said, "Just a minute," the clock was racing faster than ever.

"Full Responsibility." In the Congo, where leftist-led rebels butchered at least 80 American and European men, women and children held hostage behind their lines, the U.S. provided a dozen C-130 Hercules transports to carry Belgian paratroopers to the rescue (see cover story in THE WORLD). President Johnson, who sat up until 4 a.m. at the LBJ Ranch to hear how the operation went, said he took "full responsibility" for U.S. involvement. There was little doubt that he would soon have to take responsibility for other decisions concerning the Congo.

In Europe, U.S. diplomats are still trying to promote a multilateral nuclear fleet (MLF) as an alternative to proliferating national forces. But France's Charles de Gaulle seems more adamant than ever against the idea, and Britain's Prime Minister Harold Wilson, under intense pressure from left-wingers in his own Labor Party, expressed serious reservations about the whole project. Next week Wilson will be in Washington to talk it over with Johnson.

At the United Nations, which begins its 19th session this week, long-anticipated trouble was brewing over Moscow's continuing refusal to pay up for peace-keeping operations in the Middle East and the Congo. Unless the Russians kick in this time, the U.S. will move to strip them of their General Assembly vote under Article 19 of the U.N. Charter, which ought to touch off the liveliest scene since Khrushchev took off his shoe. If and when that problem is settled, the long-nettlesome issue of Red China's admission to the U.N. is certain to follow.

"Dirty Feet." And then, of course, there is always South Viet Nam, where the latest U.S.-backed government is struggling to cope with student riots and where Communist guerrillas roam freely over more than half the country. Last week U.S. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor hurried back from Saigon, preceded by reports that he would urge that the war be expanded to North Viet Nam.

The Pentagon currently has at least five such plans under study, ranging from limited strikes at the spidery jungle trails that thread through border areas all the way to massive air and sea bombardment of Hanoi and other targets in North Viet Nam. President Johnson is not enthusiastic about any of them. Even after he sent U.S. planes over North Viet Nam during last summer's Tonkin Gulf crisis, he declared: "We still seek no wider war." Signs are that he is sticking to that position.

Taylor himself, when he took the job of ambassador last July, and for two years before that as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was an outspoken opponent of escalation as long as the government in Saigon remained unstable. But, says a ranking U.S. official, "Now that he has got his feet dirty, he may be changing his mind a little."

In an interview published by LIFE the week Taylor left Saigon, the ambassador suggested that bombing the infiltration routes, training camps and staging areas used by the Viet Cong might "contribute to a solution." Taylor carefully qualified the suggestion, noted that one of its drawbacks was the continued absence of a "viable society" in South Viet Nam. But one of the strongest points in favor of escalation, he said, was that "the government of North Viet Nam would be reminded that it cannot get off unscathed."

Nothing Horrendous. Taylor's remarks drew a reflex-action warning from Moscow against intensifying the war. It also alarmed some Administration officials, who took pains to discourage speculation that dramatic new measures would emerge from Taylor's meeting with the President this week. "The purpose of this meeting is not to make some horrendous decision," said a White House aide.

When Taylor arrived in Washington for a weekend round of preliminary talks with Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, he was met by his 84-year-old mother and New York's Senator-elect Robert F. Kennedy, whose brother had brought Taylor out of military retirement and given him an active role in shaping Viet Nam policy. Questioned about his views on extending the war, Taylor sounded something like Barry Goldwater backpedaling from a controversial comment. He had, he insisted, only mentioned extension of the war as a possibility. "I ran into stories which seemed to indicate that I was approaching Washington with fixed bayonets in order to put through my program," he said. "Such is not the case."

Whatever the outcome of his meeting with President Johnson, Taylor says that he will not quit his post. "I have enlisted in this war for the duration," he said. Despite Taylor's denials that he will insist on extending the war, most military men believe that extension offers the only possible solution.

They also feel that it cannot be merely a token extension, but will be costly in lives, money and material.

At week's end, Lyndon Johnson told newsmen that any talk about expanding the war was "somewhat premature." Said the President: "When you crawl out on a limb, you always have to find another one to crawl back on."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.