The United States should get out of Vietnam: it should seek whatever safety it can for our allies; it should arrange whatever international face-saving is possible; and, even at the cost of a Communist victory, the United States should withdraw. The war in Vietnam is an unjust one. We mean that in its most profound sense: what is being done there, despite the almost certain good intentions of those doing it, is a crime and a sin. At a moment when claims of military victory are drowning out quiet admissions that the war cannot be settled for years, this conclusion must be affirmed and reaffirmed.
We have not reached this conclusion because we are pacifists. The moral problem of warfare is bound up with the moral problem of the existence of evil. And the almost incredible apparitions of evil mankind has witnessed within the last half-century, in this nation as well as others, convince us there are moments when force must be met with force.
Nor do we believe there is nothing at stake in Southeast Asia. Vietnamese—on both sides—are fighting for their lives and for their right to live unmolested in their homeland. The threat presented by China, swiftly adding nuclear weapons to its chauvinist ideology and cult of the will, is a real one, not the product of anti-Communist imaginations. To measure these stakes against one another, and against the horror of the war, is a miserable and difficult task, but it is not “blasphemy, while the killing goes on,” as a few have maintained. It involves surveying a host of often contradictory political and military reports; it involves numerous subjective judgments; but it remains the only way we know for men to make moral decisions in an ambiguous world.
Measured not by declared intentions but by past performance, a Communist victory in South Vietnam would most likely mean a rigorous dictatorship, bloody liquidation of dissenters, and a certain amount of social and economic reform. By the same standards, a Saigon victory will probably mean a looser form of authoritarian government, suppression of radical dissent rather than its liquidation, and little alteration in the status quo. On the level of world politics, a U.S. withdrawal could lead China to tragically miscalculate American determination in some “eyeball to eyeball” nuclear confrontation of the future. But to be honest, one must admit that any nearly total success of American policy in Vietnam is as likely to lead to a tragic miscalculation on our side. Already some dismiss all too cavalierly China’s willingness to fight beyond its borders. However important the fate of the Vietnamese people and the balance of power in Asia, it seems they are but ambiguously served by American policy.
In brief, the outcome in Southeast Asia will make a difference. But not the decisive difference needed to justify a war which may last longer than any America has ever fought, employ more U.S. troops than in Korea, cost more than all the aid we have ever given to developing nations, drop more bombs than were used against the Japanese in World War II, and kill and maim far more Vietnamese than a Communist regime would have liquidated—and still not promise a definite outcome. The disproportion between ends and means has grown so extreme, the consequent deformation of American foreign and domestic policy so radical, that the Christian cannot consider the Vietnam war merely a mistaken government measure to be amended eventually but tolerated meanwhile. The evil outweighs the good. This is an unjust war. The United States should get out.
But is there not a “third way,” a negotiated compromise which means less than total success and less than total failure for both sides? Indeed over the years numerous “third ways” have been proposed. An independent South Vietnam joined to the North (and to the U.S.) in a great Mekong River development project was one such conception. Today many contemplate a neutralized Vietnam with a coalition government in Saigon including the National Liberation Front—another “third way.” But none of these proposals has become a reality. And none appears likely to do so. More and more doubts surround the expressed willingness of Washington to negotiate a settlement, but there is even less evidence that Hanoi has wanted to talk, at least since 1965 when near-victory slipped out of Vietcong fingertips. To demand a negotiated settlement, supporting the war only in the meantime and only to this end, makes sense if a negotiated settlement is truly in sight. Otherwise, the “meantime” stretches out into five, eight, ten years. One’s moral and political judgment is rendered hostage to the fanaticism of Washington and Hanoi.
This does not mean that opponents of the war should cease to point out and encourage every move toward settlement. They should simply make clear that the basic injustice of this war consists in things other than whether it is the fault of Hanoi or Washington that an attempt at negotiation may break down. There are things that Washington could do, even within the narrow range of its present policy, to bring the Vietnamese war closer to an end:
The holiday cease-fire should be prolonged as long as possible. The bombing of North Vietnam should be halted, and the Russians assured there will be no threat of renewing it if they apply all their influence to bringing Hanoi to the negotiating table.
The Saigon military regime tail must cease to wag the U.S.—or for that matter, Vietnamese—dog here is currently much talk about a “new” war in Vietnam, one in which U.S. troops are winning the day militarily. If only, adds a weak, small voice, social and political reforms can now get under way! That weak, small voice has been repeating the same message for years. And despite the current burst of enthusiasm for retraining and redeploying the South Vietnamese army for “pacification” purposes, there is little hard evidence that this latest effort will be different from past ones. Saigon must dedicate itself to a genuine land reform benefiting the peasants, pledge the maintenance of land distribution carried out by the Vietcong, and develop an honest administration.
At the least, measures such as these will benefit the Vietnamese people; at the most, they might strengthen the Saigon government to the point where the Vietcong would decide it had better negotiate quickly before all is lost, and where Saigon itself would consider a coalition government a possibility.
Saigon need never take such steps, of course, as long as it knows the United States will stay no matter what. Washington should privately warn the Ky administration that it had better produce results soon lest the U.S. re-consider its commitment. Rumors of such a warning might indeed delay negotiations while the Vietcong and Hanoi waited to see whether Saigon could do the job, but at present it looks as if the Vietcong and Hanoi are doing exactly this anyway. Furthermore, such rumors could prepare U.S. public opinion for greeting any eventual withdrawal as justified, not because “our boys” couldn’t win but because the Saigon government didn’t do its share.
Finally, the United States must de-escalate its settlement demands. So must Hanoi. But de-escalation on the American side would mean a frank and open willingness to negotiate with the National Liberation Front. It would mean acceptance of the fact that there must be a recognized role for organized left-wing and Communist forces in the political life of any post-settlement South Vietnam.
These suggestions are not new nor are they at all sure-fire. Should they fail, they do not justify going on with this immoral war. They are simply the very least that can be done.
