December 6, 1965

Viet Nam Agony Begins For Americans

The agony of Viet Nam begins for Americans!

The lists of young U.S. citizens who have been struck down in their prime by half-civilized orientals grow longer. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara tells us now that our boys of 10 and 12 are expected, in time, to take their turn in the Asian jungles.

As I contemplate the future of my young son, whom I love so dearly, I am overwhelmed with a sense of foreboding. Will the years of work and worry by my wife and me, the years of earnest effort by my obedient namesake, be destroyed in a twinkling?

All of a sudden, McNamara’s somber assessment of our commitment in Viet Nam has brought the war into my home-and it IS war regardless of the semantics our president uses. Under these conditions it becomes difficult to view the tragedy objectively.

As a father, I would not hesitate an instant to abandon all of Asia in return for my son’s life.

As an American anxious to protect the lives and freedoms of my daughters, and the children of my friends, I will find the strength to endure what the sense of duty I have taught my son will compel him to do willingly when his time comes.

* * *

Most Americans wonder what we are doing in Viet Nam. The threat to the United States and our way of life seems remote. The necessity of risking the lives of our fine young men is imperfectly understood.

Yet, we must acknowledge that we live in a complex and shrinking world. Jet planes, orbiting satellites and atom bombs make a warlike aggression in the remotest corner of the globe an immediate and present danger.

Red China is comprised of 1 billion people, the majority of whom are illiterate, poor and hungry. To them, war is not a scourge but an opportunity to improve their standard of living.

The Chinese communists turned against their own country, invaded Korea and Viet Nam and have announced they will move against Laos and Cambodia before long.

Their publicly-avowed goal is rule of all the world’s yellow, brown and black men. Anyone who thinks that this ambition can be turned by negotiation and reason is seven kinds of a fool.

South Viet Nam is a large rice-producing country. Its food would provide fuel for the conquest of the still richer Indonesian nations. World communism is a greater threat from desperate Chinese than it is from provincial Russians.

A Russian world victory depends upon a motley group of malcontents. The Chinese need no one but themselves. They are fully capable, if well fed and armed, of attempting world conquest.

Genghis Kahn swept through Siberia to the capital of Russia. Only his death by disease saved the civilized world.

One wonders at what point we will put aside our scruples and unlimber our nuclear weapons to stop a Twentieth Century Genghis.

* * *

The thing that Americans are coming to resent most about our participation in the Viet Nam mess is the fraudulent manner in which McNamara - first in President Kennedy’s administration and now in President Johnson’s - is edging us into a major conflict.

Apparently he has concluded that we are incapable of grasping the abstracts of modern global war. He seems to be afraid that we do not, can not, will not understand the urgency of an aggression on the other side of the world.

This may be so, but some of us see clearly the sly way he has conned us to a point of no return.

Congressman William E. Minshall of Cleveland has not been taken in by McNamara. When the Secretary declared cheerily, “We have stopped losing the war in Viet Nam,” Minshall jumped to his feet in indignation.

“I hope that’s more accurate than those statements made by him following his earlier trips to the war front. After every earlier trip to the Far East, the situation there has gotten worse,” snorted Minshall. The Congressman, a long-time member of the House defense appropriations sub-committee, calls for a stronger military effort-particularly in the air.

* * *

Minshall is on solid ground in rebuking McNamara for his cockeyed rosy reports on Viet Nam.

In May, 1962, McNamara told Congress, “Our progress in the last eight to ten weeks has been great. The Vietnamese government has asked only for logistical support.”

In October, 1963, he said, “The major part of the U.S. military task can be completed by the end of 1965, although there may be a continuing requirement for limited numbers of U.S. training personnel.”

In December, 1963, he predicted, “We have every reason to believe that the U.S. military effort will be successful in 1964.”

In March, 1964, he issued a revised, but still optimistic, estimate. “We’re confident that these plans point the way to victory.”

Either McNamara is incompetent of making an accurate judgment of the military situation in Viet Nam, or he is deliberately misleading us.

* * *

In all fairness to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, who have followed a policy of sacrificing a few American soldiers a month in return for time, it must be admitted that they have bought us some valuable assets.

By giving the Chinese Communists plenty of rope, they have hanged themselves with Russia, India, Indo-China and a score of African nations. A massive U.S. effort against Red China three or four years ago would have driven these nations into a solid bloc of opposition.

I, for one, cannot criticize our official policy of containment, for I know of no better alternate. But I object to the management of information to the end I am duped.

My generation faced up to the great challenge of World War II and Korea. The new fighting generation, I am sure, also is equal to the task.

By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist