The President Digs In on Viet Nam

SOME dramatic action seemed needed amid the fresh divisions over the war. In the uproar over the Galley conviction, there was a yearning from both left and right to end it all. Democrats were demanding time limits on U.S. involvement. Congressional hawks were defecting. Yet when Richard Nixon appeared on television to discuss his embattled Viet Nam policy, he changed virtually nothing. He delivered a foxhole speech, digging in tenaciously in defense of his existing position.

It required political courage to cling to an increasingly unpopular policy. Yet there is also something discomforting, and a measure of his insecurity, in the defensiveness of a President who acknowledges that his words might not be believed and explains that "I do not ask you to take what I say on faith." Essentially, Nixon restated his determination to disengage from Viet Nam gradually and to end the war in such a way that "each one of us will come out of this searing experience with a measure of pride in our nation."

Unqualified Success. Nixon announced a small increase of the troops to be withdrawn between May 1 and Dec. 1: from 12,500 to 14,300 each month. The timing will allow him to assess the stability of the Thieu government in the October elections and the capability of the Communists to renew offensives in the autumn-winter dry season. If extended, that rate would reduce U.S. involvement to 25,000 troops by Election Day and sharply reduce the cost of the war, though there would still be considerable expenditures (see following story). Nixon's reminder that he had campaigned for the presidency on a pledge to end American involvement in the war and his willingness "to be held accountable by the American people if I fail" were interpreted by some as a promise of total withdrawal by election time. Confusion also stemmed from his mention of a goal of "total" withdrawal, but he refused to cite any date for its achievement. In effect, the President seemed to be promising a level of U.S. engagement that he considers politically tolerable while he continues to keep as many options open as possible until election eve.

Nixon again tried to walk the tightrope of a policy that seeks to reassure the South Vietnamese that they are not being abandoned, poses a continuing threat to the enemy--yet still promises withdrawal. Once again he fell into ambiguity. His plan, Nixon said, was "to end American involvement just as soon as the South Vietnamese have developed the capacity to defend their country against Communist aggression." Then he cited the damage inflicted on the Communists in the Cambodian incursion and claimed to have hurt the enemy even more in the Laos operation. That led Nixon to conclude without qualification that "Vietnamization has succeeded," a statement reminiscent of Republican Senator George Aiken's wry advice five years ago: that the U.S. unilaterally declare victory and leave. Why, then, his critics could ask, is Nixon not ready to quit the war now or set a deadline for doing so?

Nightmare. The answer would seem to be that Nixon is not at all certain that the South Vietnamese could actually survive alone yet. He suggested that a precipitate withdrawal from Viet Nam would "consciously turn the country over to the Communists." Nixon argued that "this way would abandon our friends, but even more important we would abandon ourselves. We would plunge from the anguish of war into a nightmare of recrimination. We would lose respect for our nation, respect for one another, respect for ourselves." Moreover, he wants to use the U.S. presence as "a bargaining counter" to win the release of U.S. prisoners of war.

Nixon's nightmare of the torment that would rack the U.S. if the nation were to seem defeated in Viet Nam has been a recurring phenomenon. One Administration official even claimed that "if we set a withdrawal date now, the domestic reaction would be worse than it was to the fall of China and the McCarthy period." Given the weariness with the war, that is highly arguable.

Indeed, there is a new danger of violence as peace groups press their plans for demonstrations in Washington beginning on April 24. "It is obvious that Nixon is not going to give one inch," observed one of the antiwar leaders, Sidney Peck of the People's Coalition for Peace and Justice. "He is intensifying the antiwar feeling. He is asking for trouble." Demonstrators plan to block streets near the Capitol, the Justice Department and the Pentagon.

Nixon is undoubtedly right in his belief that Americans cannot readily accept the bitter possibility that 45,000 Americans may have died in Viet Nam to no enduring purpose. While some may have winced at its bathos, Nixon's recital of four-year-old Kevin Taylor's salute as the President awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor to the boy's father Karl was a reminder of the personal courage and individual suffering of U.S. troops in the war. "I want to end this war in a way that is worthy of the sacrifice of Karl Taylor," Nixon said. Yet others could wonder how many more Karl Taylors need die, however nobly, for purposes that are no longer clear or perhaps even attainable. Too long ago, the observation was made that the only thing worse than a bad solution in Viet Nam now is the same solution a year or two from now--and so many additional deaths later.

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