JOHNSON JUDGES THE U.S. MOOD

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31004, 9 March 1966, Page 13

JOHNSON JUDGES THE U.S. MOOD

CN 7 Z Press Association —Copyright) NEW YORK, March 8. Bird-watching has become the most popular rural sport in Washington, and among local ornithologists Lyndon B. Johnson is famous for his ability to tell a hawk from a dove at impressive distances, says C. L. Sulzberger, of the “New York Times.”

Sulzberger writes: President Johnson professes himself concerned by the American prevalence of hawks.

He is not worried by dovelike opposition to his Vietnam policy emanating from the so-called liberal Left for. according to White House naturalists, this maintains a constant population level little more menacing than the pigeons in the capital’s spacious parks.

What does worry the chief bird-watcher is the hawks, that growing, angry, rapacious family whose warlike utterances and gestures seem to menace what remains of international tranquillity. President Johnson believes that the United States hawk population is rising and he is concerned. The President makes the following calculations.

Before the recent pause in bombing raids on North Vietnam and before the televised hearings of Senator Fulbright's committee, where coos sounded loud among political calls, public opinion polls showed the doves as numbering 10 per cent of the American people. After the bombing pause and after the highly publicised initial hearings there remained, according to Presidential calculations, exactly the same 10 per cent of doves. But the hawkf population had risen sharply. Middle of Road

President Johnson reckons that in January, 1966 about 63 per cent of the United States public endorsed his middle-of-the-road Vietnam policy to which both doves and hawks object, although for opposite reasons.

But by the time the bombing pause and the first Fulbright hearings had ended this endorsement dropped to 49 per cent. According to the President, the shift in support did not. as some people believe, go to the doves, among whom Senator Fulbright is usually enumerated. It went to the hawks. In other words, President Johnson’s own peace offensive plus pleas to Senators for a less bellicose United States policy in South-east Asia have produced precisely the re-

verse effect of what the doves had wished. The President is himself convinced that public pressure to get out of South Vietnam has not been increased. Instead he feels public pressure for a harder line has perceptibly mounted. Today there is less rather than more support for his own policy of what he calls prudence and moderation. There is more support for allout jingoism. He fears the balance may shift, the balance between appeasement and activist extremes, and the consequence could ultimately be to make the moderate position and the central course more difficult. President Johnson believes he knows how to increase the percentage of his public support whenever he so desires. How? Simply by taking some decisive and dramatic action. He has found to his dismay that each time such a decisive

and dramatic action is initiated by the United States in Vietnam—like the 1964 Tonkin gulf riposte—the Administration’s popular backing promptly rises. What deeply concerns the President over the long run is his belief that every time the American people get involved in a war they are hawks. Thus it is unlikely that further concessions to what the doves might consider prudence will improve the positio"’ of those doves—unless America’s adversaries suddenly agree to discuss a rational solution. On the contrary, President Johnson concludes from recent experience in feeding the capital’s own pigeons that the only ones to benefit are the doves’ traditional enemies, the hawks. Hawks are birds of prey and not easily placated once they take wing.