Outrage and Releif

Outreage and Relief

The bombing stirred mixed hut predominantly critical reactions in the U.S. and round the world. Most of America's European allies were officially silent. The themes of world, reaction ranged from outrage, to a more moderate sadness, to a kind of unenthusiastic sympathy for the President's implacable line. Only on Taiwan and in Saigon were the raids greeted with almost unmitigated satisfaction. Then, with the bombing halt, came expressions of relief and hope mixed with recrimination. A sampling of reactions:

BEFORE THE BOMBING HALT

The Times of London: "He [Nixon] ordered the most pulverising saturation bombing against the wretched Vietnamese people which even this war has seen...This is not the conduct of a man who wants peace very badly, but of one whose priorities have significantly altered since last October."

The national executive committee of the British Labor Party: "This continued slaughter of the Vietnamese people is a complete contradiction of the statements made by both Mr. Nixon and Dr. Kissinger."

Three Labor M.P.s from Coventry sent a telegram to President Nixon that read: "As Members of Parliament for Coventry, the first British city to be martyred by mass bombing, we urge you to end the mass bombing in Viet Nam."

France's largest weekly, L'Express: "In this poker game of life, Nixon is a master. By means of this nearly blind monster, the B-52, he has discarded forever an assumption. Mr. Nixon is no longer, and will never again be, a respectable man. That is, if he ever was one."

Le Figaro, a centrist French daily not noted for its pro-Americanism, took a more conciliatory tone: "As for throwing the entire responsibility for the failure of the talks solely on the American Government, it is good polemics at most."

Die Zeit, a liberal Hamburg weekly: "Nixon's bombing war taxes the faith of his allies." It is "nothing but terror and torture; torture with a method in order to make the North Vietnamese pliable. The bombs fall on military targets, but they also hit hospitals and schools, women and children...Even allies must call this a crime against humanity...The American credibility has been shattered."

Tass, the Soviet news agency, avoided blaming Nixon and instead said that the Pentagon was responsible: "The list of bloody crimes of the American military has been extended by thousands of new victims. The new monstrous crimes of the American military push further away the possibility of a peaceful settlement."

Indira Gandhi's New Congress Party drafted a resolution condemning the bombing: "It is the most horrible tragedy in man's recorded history. A small country whose valiant people desire nothing more than achieving their national identity are being subjected to indiscriminate bombing of the civilian population in a senseless desire to impose the will of an outside power."

Peking's Foreign Ministry: "Should the U.S. Government disregard the desire of the people of Viet Nam and obdurately persist in its war of aggression, the Chinese people will, as always, resolutely perform their internationalist duty and give all-out support and assistance to the Vietnamese people till complete victory is won." Premier Chou En-lai said that the renewed bombing could endanger the improved Chinese-American relations.

The Saigon daily newspaper Tin Song, regarded as an unofficial government spokesman: "To place Hanoi in a setting of terror and nightmare as to whether [the U.S.] is bombing or not, and when, is indeed the most meritorious reprisal against the equivocal Communist tricks at the [Paris] conference."

The New York Times: "President Nixon has resorted once more to naked force to try to obtain his own larger objectives in Southeast Asia...However much Hanoi may be responsible for disrupting the negotiations--which is a highly disputed point--civilized man will be horrified at the renewed spectacle of the world's mightiest air force mercilessly pounding a small Asian nation in an abuse of national power and disregard of humanitarian principles."

Conservative Columnist William F. Buckley: "Let's get it straight: Richard Nixon's resumption of the bombing is the logical, not the illogical, the honorable not the dishonorable, consequence of the breakdown of the negotiations in Paris as the result of North Vietnamese Mickey Mouse."

The Chicago Tribune: "The decision to resume massive bombing above the 20th parallel may be accounted as the latest in a series of gambles...But it is obvious that the return to massive bombing entails risks, and that if the policy does not produce a change of heart in the enemy soon we are again faced with the disheartening prospect of a lingering war."

The Los Angeles Times: "Of all the errors made in the war, of all the confusions of illusion and reality, of all the willful uses of arbitrary power, this is one of the most shocking, because the means used are so grossly disproportionate to the ends sought."

James Howell, chief economist at the First National Bank of Boston: "There was a new consensus emerging, which of course included getting out of Viet Nam. The President was re-elected by a landslide. But now Nixon is ripping this consensus to pieces. The President is picking and tearing at the most sensitive nerve and the outcome is bound to be an upsurge of the type of dissent that appeared to be dying out."

AFTER THE BOMBING HALT

British Prime Minister Edward Heath, who had been under strong opposition pressure to speak out against the bombing: "It is easy to demand condemnatory statements, but past experience strongly suggests that they are not always the best way of bringing peace nearer."

Hamilton Fish Armstrong, former editor of Foreign Affairs: "The President has a second chance now, but nothing will justify the bombing of the North. Millions of Americans are disgusted by it and feel uneasy about not being given any rationale or explanation."

Historian Theodore Roszak: "The basic line of policy has not changed. Nixon remains in the same league as those who bombed Guernica and he does not get out of that league simply by letting up on the bombing here and there."

French Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann: "Hope is re-born." The French national radio called the bombing halt "the best news of the end of 1972," but scorned Washington's carrot-and-stick tactics.

Former Ambassador Averell Harriman: "I thanked God that he stopped the bombing. The damage done really is a national disgrace. And if anything it has made the negotiations more difficult."

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