The Bombing Blues

U.S. bombing of the Hanoi-Haiphong area in retribution for the North Vietnamese invasion provoked fresh editorial skirmishing between Administration critics and supporters. While the differences were as sharp as in the late '60s, hawkish editors and columnists seemed scarcer than before. Generally the hawks backed bombing as the means to hasten the U.S. pullout from Viet Nam, while doves dwelt on the dangers of deeper involvement in the fighting and confrontation with Moscow.

What was "an exercise in folly and futility" to the New York Times seemed "a courageous, nonpolitical act" to the San Diego Union. The Los Angeles Times warned that "B-52s over Haiphong cannot buy victory," while the Arizona Republic said that "bombs should continue to fall north of the Red River." The New York Daily News praised the re-escalated bombing as "a forceful reminder" of U.S. determination, but two other papers of the parent Tribune Co. took a softer line. The flagship Chicago Tribune simply noted with satisfaction that "the Communists have taken the very action the President warned against. He has reacted as he said he would." The afternoon paper, Chicago Today, raised mildly skeptical questions about Nixon's tactics.

Many editors seemed worried that an old policy might lead to a new entrapment for the U.S. "The notion of bombing Hanoi to the conference table," said the Minneapolis Tribune, "is so old, shopworn and discredited that it would be ludicrous if it were not so tragic in its present application." The South has been the region most sympathetic to the war and the military. Now many papers are sounding a disillusioned refrain of the bombing blues. The Birmingham News was among the few to give President Nixon unrestrained backing: "Let the voices denounce Hanoi's aggression before they decry America's support of South Viet Nam's resistance." More common were the views of the Nashville Tennessean ("Another package of dashed hopes and empty promises") and the Raleigh News and Observer (Nixon "owes the people an explanation of his intentions").

A presidential policy statement might in fact have helped to clear things up for the columnists, who could not seem to agree on what to make of the re-escalation. Where Joseph Kraft had Nixon "courting confrontation" with Moscow, James Reston spoke of a "temporary expression of presidential frustration and anger rather than a calculated plan to force a showdown." Victor Zorza, the London-based Kremlinologist, saw the bombing strategy as "a deep game designed to exploit the differences between the hawks and the doves in the Kremlin in order to maneuver Moscow into bringing about a peace settlement in Viet Nam." The New York Post's James Wechsler pooh-poohed any pretense of preplanning: "What often seemed a calculated strategy of surprise actually reflects the infirmity of deep insecurity." Responding to Nixon's critics, William F. Buckley Jr. chortled: "The best that can be said about them is that they have been rendered incoherent."

Perhaps last week's most impassioned overreaction came from the New York Times's Anthony Lewis: "In my generation we grew up believing in America. The truth is now impossible to escape if we open our eyes: the U.S. is the most dangerous and destructive power in the world."

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