“Why I Cannot isit the U.S.A.°° Vietnam Butchery Denounced HEN Jean-Paul Sartre cancelled a series of meetings in the United States on March 18th, he gave as his reason, “The policy of violence practised in Vietnam by the government of the United States with the approval of the majority of the American people . . . Efforts were made by American radicals to get him to reconsider. The Students for a Democratic Society, for instance, cabled him on March 25th, inviting him to address a rally of 10,000 in Washington that is being organised April 17th to protest against the war in Vietnam. The SDS offered to organise a speaking tour and forwarded invitations to Sartre to speak over several radio stations in New York and California which have a wide audience interested in cultural and political topics. In response to this pressure, Sartre wrote an article in the Paris weekly, Le Nouvel Observateur, of April rst, explaining his position, Sartre holds that the extension of the civil war into an imperialist assault om North Vietnam profoundly altered things. The bombings “represent an irreversible qualitative leap inasmuch as they reveal with brutal clearness the fact that the structures of American society rest on imperialism.” Up to that point, he holds, the American position was becomi more and more untenable and it could be hoped “that the Americans would begin to take account of the absurdity of their position” and would seek to withdraw. But the bombings changed all this. Sartre came to the conclusion that “the Americans understood nothing and there could be no common language between them and us.” He thinks it would be futile for him to go to America and try to make his voice heard. He sees the entire United States caught up in a war fever such as gripped France at the height of the Algerian war; and, the voice of opposition being feeble, it doesn’t count. Nevertheless he expresses alarm about the situation. Effective action against the escalation must take place within “three months,” in his - opinion. “The stirring of American opinion cam be provoked only by
an acute crisis—a military disaster, the grave threat of a world war. The only way we can contribute to arousing this opinion is by indicating brutal, over-all condemnation of American policy in Vietnam by trying to stir up wherever possible— that is in Europe—some protests.’ Sartre condemns Washington’s propaganda in the most cutting way: “What do the Americans say? That’ they are intensifying the war in Vietnam, that they are bombing the North, that they are utilising gas in the South, in order to make negotiations possible. |The enormity of this is sufficiently impressive. Because, if you think it over, what does this mean? War is always made in order to end in peace, obviously. In a certain peace. The one chosen. In certain negotiations. Those to be imposed. But the problem is to determine if an outcome is sought that is considered to be acceptable to the adversary or if the aim is to destroy ithe adversary so ‘that his successors will accept an outcome that constitutes capitulation, The government in Washington is saying: We're waiting for a sign of good faith from North Vietnam. This must be translated: We’re waiting for North Vietnam to admit defeat, entreat us to stop the bombings, and promise to no longer aid the Vietcong. In plain language this means that the Americans are for the extension of the war. It is necessary to grasp this, It is urgent. After grasping it, it is necessary to draw conclusions from it. This is what I have done.” In closing, Sartre describes the U.S. course in Vietnam as “an act af open, cynical, complete aggression, without justification or even a serious alibi.” He agrees that the U.S. is the mightiest military power, but he denies that it is “the centre of the world.” It is even the duty of a European, he contends, to stop considering the U.S. as the centre and “demonstrate his interest, prove his solidarity with all the Vietnamese, the Cubans, the Africans, all his friends in the third world who gain existence and freedom and who prove each day, precisely, that the greatest power in the world is incapable of imposing its laws, that it is
the most vulnerable, and the world
has not chosen it as its centre of
gravity. The United States will
evolve, of course, slowly, very
slowly, but more rapidly if you resist
them than if you address them with
sermons.”
Anti-Nuclear Force
Grows Greater
HE fourth Belgian «anti-nuclear .
march, on March 28th, was a
spectacular event. A record 27,000
people took part. During the three
previous years, the numbers were
i4,000, 10,000 and 15,000 respéc-
tively. The central slogan of this
year’s march was “Hands Off Viet-
nam,” which was linked with the cry
“Leave NATO.” After the march,
hundreds of young people went to
the American Embassy, where they
demonstrated, shouting “Vietnam to