VIETNAM BOMBING Flexibility Seen In U.S.

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30961, 18 January 1966, Page 11

VIETNAM BOMBING Flexibility Seen In U.S.

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) WASHINGTON, January 17. The peace offensive on Vietnam is more important than the results so far suggest, James Reston, of the “New York Times”, writes.

It may have changed nothing in Hanoi, hut it is the symbol of a subtle and significant change in Washington.

Reston said: There is a little more flexibility in the United States capital among the men at the top who have to decide about bombing and talking. They are experimenting again. They are no longer merely closing ranks and defending the past, but searching for new approaches, concentrating on their problem rather than on their critics, and arguing with one another about how to proceed from here. This is a gain. They have not found the answer, but they are asking fundamental questions. Rigidity Of Mind For months in the last half of 1965 there was a rigidity of mind at the top of the Government, an inflexible grinding away in the rut of a policy that was clearly not achieving its objectives; and worse, a self-righteous, selfpitying resentment against anyone who criticised their policy. Some of this still exists. The official line is that all the men at the top have always agreed and still do with all policies past and present, but the fact is that they have moved toward the critics they have condemned in the past, and are now exploring far more choices than they thought existed only a few weeks ago. For example, they are now grappling with the military and political realities of bombing North Vietnam. There was a theory, at the start of this adventure, that bombing the North might stop or severely limit the flow of arms to the Viet Cong, and terrify the Hanoi Government into suing for peace.

This was called, in the official jargon of Washington, “changing the rules of the game.” After almost a year of this bombing, however, the record is mixed. The bombing did not stop the flow of supplies and the sight of the bombers did not convince the Hanot Government that it should negotiate a compromise. At the same time, the bombing was not a failure. It demonstrated that the Hanoi Government cculd not defend its people from attack if Washington wanted tn use air power against Hanoi and Haiphong; it emphasised that China, for all Peking’s violent promises, could not protect North Vietnam from the American “paper tiger”; and it reassured the South Vietnamese Government that the people of the North, as well as the people of the South, were having to put up with the agony of aerial bombardment. More Realistic As a result, Washington is now at least eying to decide what to do about bombing in the North on a more realistic basis. It no longer believes that the past level of bombing will stop the supplies or force Hanoi to the conference table. It sees the bombing now as a political, rather than a military operation. It has not decided what to do if the peace offensive fails, but at least it will now probably decide the issue on political grounds, rather than on military and psychological theories. I Also, it is clear from the President’s State of the Union message that the Johnson Administration is following a more mature and sophisticated diplomacy than it has [adopted in the past.