Vietnam

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31000, 4 March 1966, Page 12

Vietnam

Sir, —One of the justifications for Western involvement in Vietnam is to attempt to contain Asian communism. However, there is little doubt that Cambodia’s siding with the communist bloc is largely the result of Western handling of the Vietnam situation. This suggests that, rather than containing communism, Western involvement is actively helping to spread it. One must excuse the naive for finding this justification somewhat paradoxical.—Yours, etc., G. R. GRESSON. March 2. 1966. Sir, —Comment on Vietnam by Senator Robert Kennedy printed in the Congressional Record reads: “Not only is the military approach deficient in itself. More dangerously it tends to obscure and prevent

essential political action.” If the Viet Cong are fought to a standstill, how can this military victory be transmuted into political stability? A strong, independent, united Vietnam with its traditional distrust of the Chinese would provide a stronger barrier than foreign intervention.— Yours, etc., SETH NEWELL. March 3, 1966. Sir, —It seems that a forthright answer on the question of Vietnam has upset one or two people. Fortunately for New Zealand, they, like the placard holders, are in the minority. Some who have protested on this subject, have failed to see far enough ahead to what lies behind the Southeast Asian trouble. The Communists have been spreading their tentacles since 1945, over Europe, Africa, and Asia, in an effort to disrupt, or take over, weaker countries, but these tentacles are being chopped off one by one, in preference to a world conflict. It is to be hoped their main artery is severed before this happens. The Africans are beginning to wake up to the myth of communism.—Yours, etc., F.W.P.F. March 3, 1966. Sir, —In “The Press” of February 22, commenting upon the Vietnam war, the Under-Secretary of State, Mr George Ball, is reported as saying: We are not going “to deliver” the South Vietnamese to a Communist regime. “That is what this war is all about.” F.W.P.F. apparently didn’t purchase a newspaper on that date.—Yours, etc., DIZZY. March 2, 1966. Sir, —After reading the discordant writings of Seth Newell, 1 would like to suggest that he should write and ask the Communist aggressors of the North Vietnam to retrace their steps back to the demarcation line. As this was drawn up and agreed on in the 1954 Geneva Convention, we could then undo the tangles and become wholesome again. The omission of any mention of demarcation was conspicuous. However, what he did quote of it, made it crystal clear why the Communists from the North had the nerve to over-run the South in the first place.—-Yours, etc., MATURE. March 2, 1966. [This correspondence is now closed.—Ed., “The Press.”]