For months, responsible opinion in this nation and in others has been calling for the United States to both clarify its objectives in Vietnam and facilitate immediate negotiations. The President of the United States has now done exactly that. His speech on Vietnam has been widely applauded; it has temporarily stolen the thunder from domestic and European critics of U.S. policy; it has restored a sense of openness and of initiative to the American approach to Southeast Asia. But the war goes on. The bombings and the terror continue. Peking and Hanoi and Moscow choose not to de-escalate their verbal violence, and term the President’s speech “noisy propaganda,” “full of lies,” “sheer trickery.” The observer does well to inquire, “Has anything really happened? Has anything really changed?”
The answer is a very qualified “yes.” President Johnson’s speech contained four major elements: a statement of what is at stake in Vietnam; a definition of U.S. war aims; an offer to engage in unconditional negotiations; and a proposal for a massive Southeast Asian development project. None of these elements was entirely new. The President’s analysis of the Vietnam conflict, the weakest part of his address, was standard White Paper fare. U.S. war aims—an independent South Vietnam free to choose its own destiny—have been stated before by Secretary MeNamara. The offer of unconditional negotiations appears as a reversal of policy, but a careful reading of Secretary ttusk’s statement of February 25 and the President’s statements on March 18 and March 25 reveals that unconditional negotiations were never ruled out. Even the proposal of an Asian “Marshall Plan” was aired by the President a few weeks ago.
What was different was the context, the rhetoric of the message. The President made no appeals to national vanity and emotion; he waved no false flags of “glory” and “honor.” Seldom has a leader of a great nation formally pronounced on a war his nation was currently waging with so little pride in its power and so much reluctance about that power’s use. This was not the manifesto style all too current among new nations, nor was it even Churchillian bulldog oratory. It was the language of minimization, and from it sprang the new hope.
President Johnson’s explanation of our commitment in Vietnam travelled at least part of the way toward the truth. The history of our “pledge” to defend Vietnam was rehearsed once more, but the President also clearly related the American commitment to fears for the fate of the rest of Asia and the necessity of encouraging faith in U.S. firmness. This emphasis admits a certain amount of reality into the discussion, where the theory of an irrevocable promise made to Saigon (half a dozen governments ago!) does not.
As for definition of war aims, U.S. goals have clearly been pared to a form of neutralization of South Vietnam, described very rudimentarily in terms of independence, no alliances, and no military bases. The possibility of the Vietnam conflict’s being used for a full-scale confrontation with China seems ruled out. This small step toward defining precisely what we want was perhaps the most important section of the President’s address.
The offer of unconditional negotiations, however, was the most loudly hailed part of the message. Perhaps the negative response this offer received from China, Russia, and North Vietnam is to be expected—the storm before the calm—and time will bring quiet agreement. Perhaps the U.S. should go even further and offer to negotiate with the Vietcong if North Vietnam is simultaneously part of the negotiations. In any ease, the lesson of the President’s offer may be to remind the world that negotiations per se are no panacea unless all parties to them lower their expectations of what realistically can be gained from the bloody conflict still continuing.
And finally, President Johnson’s proposed development plan for all Southeast Asia should be implemented to whatever extent possible, regardless of events in the Vietnamese war. To the degree that the rest of Southeast Asia is strengthened economically and politically, to that degree is the United States freer to come to terms in Vietnam.
