Escalating to Disaster

from a special correspondent A report from Floride on November 29 quoted the former U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam, General Maxwell Taylor, as stating publicly that if North Vietnam sent many more troops into the South, the North would be so short of forces as to lay itself open to a U.S. amphibian invasion. Because the outlines of U.S. military intentions have often been made public in precisely this manner of semi-official kite flying or leakinz, this statement deserves the widest attention. The U.S. aerial destructiv.. of North Vietnem has failed in its declared purpose : it has not prevented the North sending troops to the South. When the bombing started, the North had not intervened militarily to any significant extent, as even U.S, hand-outs proved. Now there is probably considerehle military support for the NLP from the North. The U.S. has failed to destroy the military capability of the North, failed to break the spirit of the Govt and people there, failed to win back the major area of the South held by the NLF, and failed to gain popular support for any regime in Saigon which it cares to finance. The one Success that Johnson has had is to prepare public opinion for the possibility of war with China. The remaining alternative for Johnson is a Korean-scale land war on China's boundaries - and the massive stepping up of U.S. ground forces is an essential preliminary for such a war, It still seems probable that such a conflict must involve both China and nuclear weapons. The situation is far more dangerous than Western socialists and liberals have imagined, because a collision course seems to have been sete Meanwhile the British Govt continues to play the role of innocent apologist for Johnson, in the manner which Chamberlain perfected in 1938 with Hitler. When Nazi Germany withdrew from the League of Nations, Hitler said, "My party comrades will not fail to understand me when they hear me speak of peage, disarmament and mutual security pacts 4" Today Johnson invokes the same language whilst intent on war, "I am told," reported the 'Observer® Saigon correspondent last Sunday, "that S. Vietnamese leaders have been assured by the U.S. that they should not teke Washington's peace overtures at face value." Has Mr. Wilson received such an assurance ?