I had not intended to write so soon again about Vietnam, but letters from readers accusing me of everything from anti-Christian sentiments to ignorance impel me to return to this subject.
My basic position on Vietnam, as on all the issues between ourselves and the Communist nations, is “ideological.” I see the world caught up in a great, continuing struggle to determine the future and destiny of mankind. I see this as a fundamentally moral struggle between the forces tending toward good and the forces tending toward evil.
There is nothing narrowly nationalistic in my viewpoint. I am not trying to exalt America; I am trying to help save human freedom. America, with all its imperfections, is the mainstay of the cause of freedom. It is the only country that possesses both the material strength and the self-confidence to stand firmly against the aggressions and blandishments of Communism, whether emanating from Moscow or Peking, Havana or Hanoi. Western Europe has the wealth but, exhausted by two major wars, has lost the self-confidence. As for the rest of the world-the so-called “third world”: Latin America, Africa, and India are too weak and too preoccupied with their own problems.
I placed the word “ideological” in quotation marks because I do not equate a philosophical commitment to freedom with the Marxist concept of ideology. It is not the mere intellectual superstructure for one’s economic interests. On the contrary, freedom is a moral end in itself which any person can naturally perceive and cherish, independent of his own interests.
But whether we call it ideology or philosophy, my viewpoint toward foreign affairs is distinctly unfashionable nowadays, at least among most writers on the subject. Hans Morgenthau, much of whose writing I admire, wrote in a recent issue of the New Republic a criticism of Administration policy in Asia in which he stated his well-known conviction that moral concerns have no place in the making of foreign policy. William Pfaff, my friend and fellow contributor to these pages, has co-authored two lively books explaining at length how unsound and outdated views such as mine are. He fails to convince me as, obviously, I fail to persuade him.
The “good Communist” doesn’t exist. The expression is a contradiction in terms. There can only be Communists who are less evil and less obnoxious than other Communists. This is relevant to Vietnam because a remark frequently made in the present controversy is that we should let Ho Chi Minh take over all of Vietnam and hope that he will become another Tito. It may be an exaggeration to say that its proponents offer this as a splendid, shining prospect but they certainly offer it as an agreeable solution.
My reaction to this suggestion always is—what is so great about Tito? He is just another dictator—which is to say another enemy of human freedom—not much better or worse than Kadar in Hungary or Franco in Spain. I disapprove of all of them. Because of my radical commitment to the cause of freedom everywhere, I was particularly astonished by a criticism contained in the closing passage of a letter by Diane Feeley (April 9 issue) commenting on my article, “The Price of Retreat” (March 5). She writes:
“The inhuman (needless to say, un-Christian) words of Mr. Shannon strike terror into the human heart: ‘These small states are not in themselves valuable . . . ’ Are some people really less valuable ? . . . The title of the article (“The Price of Retreat”) suggests a way of thinking that is basically inconsistent with the aims of COMMONWEAL.”
Of course, I do not think some people are less valuable than other people. That is why I carefully used the word “states” rather than “peoples” in an effort to make clear, at least by implication, that I was writing in a military, not a moral context. In a war, a commander often has to surrender one piece of territory in order to concentrate his strength for saving another piece of territory that is easier to defend or, for any number of reasons, may be judged more valuable. It was only in this sense that I made the value judgment which Miss Feeley so drastically misinterpreted.
Majority Would Vote No
If Miss Feeley is so concerned about the people of Vietnam, I am mystified as to why she is so indifferent to the moral issues involved in the war there. After all, several hundred thousand persons fled from North Vietnam at the time of the 1954 partition in order to escape living under Ho Chi Minh’s rule. These individuals must see some differences between the tyranny in the North and the misrule in the South which outsiders so often casually equate. Also the armed forces loyal to the government in the South greatly outnumber the Viet Cong Communists. Admittedly, they do not outnumber them 15-to-1 which guerrilla warfare experts regard as the ideal ratio of government troops to guerrillas. But there is no doubt in my mind that if it were feasible—which it is not—to disarm everyone in the South, seal off the country, and hold a free election, the majority in the South would not vote to live under Ho Chi Minh’s government.
I do not know what prompted Rear Admiral John D. Hayes, USN (Ret.) to write his letter which also appeared in the April 9 issue, since he and I are in agreement on the basic question: he wants this country to stay in Vietnam and so do I. But his criticisms, at least in part, are likewise based upon a misunderstanding of what I wrote. Admiral Hayes disputes my statement that our nuclear umbrella had anything to do with our military position in the Western Pacific in the past sixteen years. On the contrary, he says, the U.S. was able to send fleets through the Pacific, land troops in Asia, and protect Formosa “because we controlled the oceans and they did not.” Of course we controlled the Pacific Ocean. No one is disputing that. Since the Admiral did not read carefully what I wrote, I will repeat it: “Since the Communists came to power in China in 1949, we have been able to hold them at bay at relatively cheap cost to ourselves. It has been cheap because the U.S. has had a nuclear umbrella and the Chinese have not.” (Italics added.) Our fleet controlled the ocean but it was our nuclear strategic mastery vis-a-vis Red China that enabled us to make use of our fleet freely and flexibly. If Red China had possessed nuclear bombs and we did not, we would not have dared fight a war in Korea or Vietnam. Or, alternatively, if both the U.S. and China had possessed the bomb, we would have had to take more elaborate military precautions. By “cheap” and “costly,” I do not, of course, mean money; I am talking about the size and nature of the risks incurred. My essential point is that once China is a nuclear power, that fact will drastically alter the balance of power, narrow our options, and raise the risks on everything we do in Asia.
Why Sit Idly By?
Admiral Hayes wants to know how we can withhold permission from Mao to develop a nuclear arsenal. He suggests that I am urging “preemptive war” which he had never expected to see advocated in Commonweal. (A lot of people seem to be worried that I am spreading heresies in these pages.) I do not want to wage a nuclear war, whether preventive, preemptive, or any other kind with Red China. But I greatly fear that if the Red Chinese are permitted to develop a nuclear arsenal, the probability of such a war between the U.S. and China ten or fifteen years from now will be greatly increased. I do not know why we have to sit idly by and do nothing while the notoriously hostile Chinese Communists develop the capacity to blow up the world.
The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 provides all the moral sanction for prompt action that anyone could desire. It clearly registered the judgment of the overwhelming majority of nations of the world that nuclear arms should not spread further than they have. If the United Nations were what it should be—a world government ruling the world community under a code of law, it would enforce the test ban treaty by sending its air force to bomb the Red Chinese nuclear plants. (It would also send its navy to blockade the area in the Pacific where the French intend to test their hydrogen bomb.) But since the UN does not have its own air force or the executive capacity to act at the present time, I propose that the U.S. send its own planes to bomb—with conventional bombs—the Chinese nuclear plants. By old-fashioned standards, that would be an act of war.
By the new world community standards that the nuclear-and-rocket age require, it would be an act of elementary peacekeeping. It should be no more controversial than the police in any city today disarming underworld gangsters. Notwithstanding all the pro forma protests that would occur, the entire world, including Russia, would experience a profound new sense of security and confidence. China could not retaliate because it is not yet in a position to retaliate. Indeed, China has not responded militarily to our bombing of North Vietnam precisely because it fears U.S. raids on its nuclear plants.
James G. Hart in a letter (March 26) asked how I thought that standing firm in Vietnam could possibly restrain China. One of the several reasons that I am in favor of facing up to the issues in Vietnam is that I hope such a confrontation will help educate the American public about the far more serious problem of China and its future nuclear role. This education might lead to our taking action against China in the next year or two while there is still time, although I am not optimistic on this point. Those who disagree with my call for action now may well ponder Mao’s own dictum: “Law grows from the point of a gun.” Unless someone is prepared to define the law of the world community and enforce it, there will be no law. Without law, there may be no world.
