The Press SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1966. The Resumption Of Bombing

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30977, 5 February 1966, Page 14

The Press SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1966. The Resumption Of Bombing

Before ordering the resumption of the bombing of North Vietnam, President Johnson had to weigh up the military gains of bombing against the diplomatic losses of a renewal of the offensive: frightening alternatives, each fraught with different but equally daunting possibilities. While the bombers remained grounded, the complaints from Saigon to Washington must have poured in: from the South Vietnamese, who saw their influence in the countryside dwindling daily: and from the American military forces, who saw the build-up of Viet Cong forces and supplies in South Vietnam territory. Now that the bombers are airborne again, the complaints from Saigon will have dwindled—to be replaced by protests from the world’s * diplomatic capitals.

All this was, no doubt, foreseen by the President and his advisers before the bombing pause. Like most dilemmas of this war, it can be traced back to the fundamental question of whether the United States and other supporters of Western democracy were justified in meeting with force the stealthy but determined infiltration of South Vietnam from the North. When the bombing of North Vietnam began, a year ago, the first objective was to disrupt the flow of North Vietnamese troops and supplies to the South. On military grounds alone, that decision was justified. The attacks were continued and increased, to convince Hanoi that a negotiated peace should be sought: that policy has, so far, failed. Hanoi’s resolution stiffened and, in spite of the strain to which the North Vietnamese have been put, Hanoi gave no sign of willingness to negotiate. The Russians, informally, advised the Americans to halt the bombing of the North; released from the duress of air attacks, Moscow said, Hanoi should come to the conference table in three or four weeks. Acting on this hint, the Americans—without consulting the South Vietnamese —grounded their bombers. The ploy failed, and it now seems that those in power in Hanoi who are determined on a military settlement found encouragement in the pause. This is consistent with a classic Chinese doctrine which interprets a truce as a sign of vacillation or of trouble in the enemy camp. The effect of the unheralded pause on South Vietnamese morale was also unfortunate; in Saigon, apparently, the American military authorities had difficulty in persuading the South Vietnamese that the bombing pause signified no weakening in American determination. The apparent failure of the pause in the bombing to bring North (Vietnam to the conference table has also strengthened the hands of American critics of President Johnson—both those who have been opposed, all along, to intervention, and those who advocate more massive intervention. But the political repercussions at home must weigh less heavily with the President than the need to press the Vietnam affair to a satisfactory conclusion as soon as possible. This promises to be a long business. The South Vietnamese and the Americans have four months before the south-west monsoon once again restricts their mobility on the ground and in the air; and this restriction bears more heavily on the mechanised South Vietnamese and American forces than on the Viet Cong. A longer bombing pause would have increased the difficulties of the monsoon period and strengthened the war. An indefinite prolongation of the war in South Vietnam is not a pleasant prospect, but, until diplomacy offers more promise of a settlement, continued military support is the only course consistent with repeated American assurances to South Vietnam.