Staving Off a Second Front

The U.S., already heavily committed to the defense of Southeast Asia, last week faced a diplomatic crisis and the unsettling possibility of military involvement on a second front. With Arab and Israeli armies massing in the Middle East for a confrontation that could be ignited by inadvertence, another set of American commitments may well be put to the test before long. Said Lyndon Johnson: "To the leaders of all the na tions of the Near East, I wish to say what three Presidents have said before: that the U.S. is firmly committed to the support of the political independence and territorial integrity of all the nations of the area." Added the Pres ident, in an obvious allusion to Viet Nam: "We have always opposed--and we oppose in other parts of the world at this moment--the efforts of other nations to resolve their problems with their neighbors by aggression. We shall continue to do so."

Potentially Disastrous. Initially, the Administration responded to the gathering clouds in the Middle East with an apparent equanimity in keeping with the air of unreality that enveloped the crisis. After all, the Arab-Israeli confrontation had for years been taken for granted as the normal state of affairs. But as tensions mounted and public concern increased in the U.S., the Administration acknowledged that an edgy situation had indeed been transformed into a potentially explosive one. When Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that he was sealing off the Gulf of Aqaba against all Israeli vessels and other ships that might be carrying "strategic" cargo to the Israeli port of Elath (see THE WORLD), Washington acted firmly. In so doing, the U.S. exerted a sobering effect on the excitable antagonists, and may well have helped nudge them back from the brink.

The President canceled minor appointments, put the White House Situation Room on special alert, and went before television cameras with a som ber, seven-minute statement. "The purported closing of the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping has brought a new and grave dimension to the crisis," said Johnson. "The U.S. considers the gulf to be an international waterway and feels that a blockade of Israeli shipping is illegal and potentially disastrous."

Coupled with the President's public expression of concern was a blunt, private warning delivered to United Arab Republic officials in Cairo that the U.S. considered the blockade "an act of aggression" and would consider using force to reassert what Johnson called "the right of free, innocent passage" for all ships. Britain strongly hinted that it would do the same.

"With Flags Flying." At hand for just such an eventuality--as it has been for 20 years--was the U.S. Sixth Fleet: 50 ships and 25,000 men led by the cruiser Little Rock and including a six-ship amphibious force whose 2,000 Marines were hurriedly recalled from shore leave in Naples, packed aboard their vessels and sped toward the crisis zone. The antisubmarine carrier Intrepid, bound for Viet Nam, was ordered to tarry for a while in the Med. The British aircraft carrier Victorious, en route home from Singapore, also was ordered to cruise about a bit.

Though Johnson's statement included an implicit threat of U.S. intervention, it was heartily applauded by many of those who have most stridently and steadfastly castigated U.S. intervention in Viet Nam. Oregon's Democratic Senator Wayne Morse urged the maritime nations to test the Egyptian blockade by sending ships into the gulf "with their flags flying." Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who knows where the votes come from in New York, proposed that the U.N. send a naval patrol into the gulf. If the U.N. failed to act, he said, the U.S. should step in with other interested nations. Such a seaborne U.N. patrol, he explained, "does not raise many of the same problems as stationing ground troops within the territory of any country." In the House, 96 Representatives pledged support of President Johnson in "whatever action may be necessary to resist aggression against Israel."

Few, if any, officials relished the idea of the U.S. acting alone. "None of us should be too hurried about getting into this thing," warned Dwight Eisenhower. "Any unilateral action would be a serious mistake." Officially, the Administration agreed, pinning its public hopes on the United Nations to settle the crisis before the Israelis lose patience and try to break the blockade themselves. But many U.S. policymakers are disenchanted with U.N. Secretary-General U Thant, not only for his blatant partisanship on Viet Nam, but also for his aphronic action in pulling the entire U.N. peace-keeping force out of the Sinai desert, particularly since Nasser originally asked him to remove it from only half of the 120-mile truce line. In a rare public slap at Thant, Johnson said he was "dismayed at the hurried withdrawal."

To explore the possibility of initiating a new U.N. peace-keeping action, the President flew to Canada where, after a desultory tour of Expo 67, he spent two hours with Prime Minister Lester Pearson, who won a Nobel Prize in 1957 for his post-Suez efforts to restore order to the Middle East. Johnson also conferred in Washington with Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban. The President kept Eban cooling his heels for a full day in punishment for the fact that the Israelis had imprudently announced his plan to meet Johnson before clearing it with the White House.

Exploring other avenues of multilateral action, the U.S. quickly accepted a rare proposal of cooperation from Paris for a Big Four conference (the U.S., the U.S.S.R., Britain and France) on the crisis. But Moscow, which is lending loud vocal support to the Arabs and has supplied its arsenals, opted out.

Ego-Building Bellicosity. Should a real crunch develop in the Mideast, would the U.S.--in the absence of U.N. action--intervene? In a speech at Newport News, Va., the President dropped an oblique hint that it would feel strongly compelled to do so. The occasion was the launching of the 61,450-ton attack carrier John F. Kennedy, christened by Caroline Kennedy, 9, with her mother Jacqueline standing alongside as matron of honor and a clutch of Kennedys near by. While earnestly praying that "this majestic ship" would sail the world's oceans in peace, Johnson noted that she might some day have to fight. For the fact is, said the President, indirectly referring to both Viet Nam and the Mideast, that "today, as throughout our history, we bear fateful responsibilities in the world." And, he added, "it has often been our strength and resolve which have tipped the scales of conflict against aggressors."

Another concern is whether the U.S. would have the resources to intervene or whether its forces might be stretched into a perilously thin line. But the U.S. did, after all, stifle a previous Middle East crisis by landing 15,000 men in Lebanon in 1958 with little strain. The Pentagon maintains that it could do the same today--Viet Nam notwithstanding --by flying troops in from Western European bases.

At week's end the necessity for such a move seemed remote. Despite Nasser's ego-building bellicosity, he does not really seem to want a showdown, for he is well aware that the Arab world is badly fragmented and that Israel's finely honed army could turn back anything less than a concerted assault by all of its neighbors. In this situation, Johnson's strategy is to leave the problem in the U.N.'s lap for as long as possible in the hope that Egypt will somehow find a way to disimpale itself from its own hook.

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