Friday, February b. we

 

ON THE RIGHT

by WiIIiam F. Buckley, Jr.

The sun having entered Aquarr
ius, the Chinese New Year cannot
be far away. In fact, the date
is February 6. Better known, in
this part of the world, as Tet.

What will the enemy do? For
symbolic reasons, there is great
call on them to do something. The
great Tet offensive of 1968 had
profound political consequences
in America. It is (I believe) iris
conceivable that Eugene Mc-
Carthy would have done so well
in the New Hampshire presided
tial primary but for the general
despair about Vietnam generated
by that kamikaze assault on
American installations and South
Vietnamese cities. We know now
that it was a military disaster
for the enemy, but it looked for
a great, while as though it would
be worth it to them in poliucal
tender, which is the tender they
have mostly dealt in throughout
the course of the bloody war.

The Mekong Delta is the like»
liest area because it was there
that the war, in fact, began, in
part because the enemy coveted
the great rice bowl of the region.
It is useful to remember the
figure that as per cent of Vietnam
is in friendly hands, and that 35
per cent of the area that isn't
in friendly hands lies within the
Mekong Delta to which, however,
the enemy has had for the first
time to send North Vietnamese
regulars because their efforts
there can no longer be sustained
by indigenous revolutionaries.
This causes special problem
because of a historical antipathy
by southerners to the Prussians
from above the 17th parallel.
Still, it remains the likeliest place
for the assault.

It may be that the North
Vietnamese haven’t the military
energy to do something spectac
ular this time around; or it may
be that they Will decide to await
a more propitious season,
perhaps in the spring or early
summer. On the other hand, one
must prepare oneself, and it is
surely important to consider now
what possibly the enemy could
achieve, say in the Mekong Delta
where it continues to be stronger
than in the northern regions.

The answer, of course is that
over a short but melodramatic
period, a Very few people can
achieve a great deal, almost any
where. The analogy is strained
but useful, mat if the Black Stu-
dents Union can occupy Cornell
University, the Viet Cong can
probably take 2 ate town. or

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even a small city, if it chooses
a) to concentrate its power in a
particular area, and b) to assign
soldiers to a suicidal mission.

As ever, the enemy would have
in mind a political rather than
a military objective. The goal
wouldn't be to hold down for a
few days or a week a few towns
and villages, but to suggest to
the world that Vietnamization is
a hallucination and that the mili
tary reserves of the enemy are
infinite.

It would appear to me obvious
that one should anticipate flash
successes by the enemy in the
next weeks or months. The
military effect of them should be
calibrated, and will be. Their
political success should be
studied much more intensely.
Germany never seemed so strong
as during the winter offensive it
waged in December of 1944, and
the great Battle of the Bulge is
said to have prompted even Gen-
eral Patton to muse at a dramatic
meeting of Allied generals diat
the Germans might yet win the
war. Ninety days later. Hitler
had committed suicide,

General Giap is not likely to
commit suicide, although it is not
inconceivable that he will be shot,
even as some of his predecessors
were executed for miscalcur
lations. The General believes that
he knows America, and he has
every reason to excuse the
military casualties he suffered
two years ago at Tet on the
grounds that he came close to
paralyzing the American will.
Mr. Nixon, confident that the
stamina was there, gradually
roused it, and today it carries
us forward, towards Vietnamizas
tion towards an objective which
can truly be called national.

Can we be unbalanced again
by anything that is within the
power of the North Vietnamese
to do? It is a subject of much
political speculation.

The opponents of the Vietnam
war and, derivatively, of the
policy of Vietnamization, are
strangely quiet these days, as if
the conccrtmaster had taken a
leave of absence. They gorge on
bad news from’Vietnam (nothing
brightens their day so much as,
say, news of high American
casualty figures). But like the
VictCong, they are still capable
of spasmodic efforts which, even
like a dying battery, can make
great light, even if it is a terminal
effort,

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block studies program should: 1.
Give students a clear conception
of the complexity of American
life, 2. Acquaint Students with the
problems, successes, and failures
of America's) minority group, 3.

“ Enable students to lead fruitful

lives in a multiracial society, 4,
Help students understand the
nature of contemporary racial
and social turmoil and to guide
them into constructive modes of
though about current issues, and
5. Enable students to see the
black experience in a world
setting,

Mr, Taylor tersely replied:
“The place for black studies is
in black universities. At best,
white universities can turn out
“niggerwatchers.”

. No Com menf

For the past ten years at Ann
tioch College I have been able
to see something of the in-
teractions of young people with
educators and thus to form a very
tentative analysis of the sources
of adolescent unrest.

Over the years i have noticed
the evolution of three distinct
kinds of restless student
behavior. The first might be
translated into a statement: “I
am here." The second might be
characterized as a demand:
“Join my ideology.” The third
might be a request: “Help me
develop a new corporate struc-
tui‘e.H

An early experience with “I am
here” behavior came when we
had just begun , to discuss
modifying parietal rules — rules
about the way in which men and
women live together. i came in
one morning at a reasonable
hour»say nine o’clock and saw a'
girl and a boy in a sleeping bag
on the campus in full view of the
morning traffic. They even
created considerable disturb-

ance. when I talked with the
two students, it seemed clear to

me they were saying that, despite
parietal rules, they were
behaving Within existing com-
munity morels. This they wanted
acknowledged, not because they
were organizing an assualt on
pariental rules. but for very
personal reasons.

Similar behavior manifested
itself in the organization of semis
public nude swimming parties,
and when drugs first appeared,
in the aggressive public use of
pot, I remember a couple of
students who came to see me.
They were quite stoned. They
came to ask me, they said, what
i would do if students did come
andtellmetheyweiestczied,

The Antioch Community has
tried to deal with ideological
questions in a fashion that
enriches its ideological
pluralism. The effect has been
a steady reduction of negative
sanctions against particular
political and soctal behavior.

in the end new structures may
well be inevitable because youth
themselves, I sense, are in-
creasingly taking charge of
building the new structures.
while we are busy describing
thcir unresl, they are already
beyond us into a new sociology.

James P. Dixon, president
Antioch Collcgc

Page Three

 

A WORD EDGEWISE

by John P. Roche

The conservative justification
for isolationism lS coldly realistic
7 the United States In its con-
linental fortress can manage
very nicely no matter what
happens at most places in the
world. The liberal rationale,
while it comcs out roughly in the
same place, is quite different,
resting on a curious amalgam of
paleISm, anti»impcrialism, and
anti-capitalism.

Here is the central theme:
“The destiny of Europe and Asia
has not been committed, under
God, to the keeping of the United
States; and only conceit, dreams
of grandeur, vain imagiiiings,
lust for power, or a desire to
escape from our domestic perils
and obligations couldpossibly
make us suppose that Providence
has appointed us his chosen
people for the pacification of the
earth "

it has a familiar ring. it could
be Senator Eugene McCarthy or
Professor Henry Steele Com-
mager discussing Vietnam at a
hearing of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee. It could be
a resolution by Americans for
Democratic Action or an editorial
in'the Christian Century. It is,
in fact, an excerpt from Charles
A, Board's “Giddy Minds and
Foreign Quarrels” (1939).

The argument further suggests
that this arrogance will destroy
our democratic values: “If we
go in, decency, tolerance. kindiir
ness, truth, democracy and free
dam will be the first victims.”
(Norman Thomas, “Keep Amery
ica Out of War,” 1939.) in other
words, it is our mission to bring
the democratic ideal to fruition
in the United States 7 how can
we spend money to defeat South-
east Asia when there are still
poverty and discrimination at
home?

The appealing reality of
modern totalitarianism muffled
this liberal isolationist theme in
the first decade after World War
ii. The moralists took command
of containing Communist power,
much to the dismay of the chief
tlieoi-etician of containment,
George F, Kennan, who felt that
dealing with the Soviets was a
task for foreign service officers
and other gentlemen, not for im»
passioned crusaders. What
emerged was an alliance between
those who thought that checking
Communist power was a vital

American interest (conservar
tlves,) and others who believed
that the United States had a
moral obligation to oppose totali-
tarianism (libel-315.) This
inherently schizophrenic coalis
tion limped along through the 505,
but disintegrated under the
impact of Vietnam. The young
generation, which has never seen
at first hand the enormities of
totalitarianism, simply defected.
Ironically, Without knowing, it,
they went right back to the
positions that those of us who
opposed World War it had aban-
donedinDecember,1941‘.

There is nothing wicked about
this rejection of moralism (“the
tired cliches of the Cold War,"
etc), but, as 1 pointed out in an
earlier column. if one extracts
moralism as a component of
foreign policy, the conservative
isolationist position is impreg-
nable. What, for example. can a
rational analyst of national in-
terest make of a President who
would say “What do you do when
little lsrael calls on you for assis
tance and help? I’ll tell you what
you do. You do what is right .

. You stand up for freedom,
whatever the price”? Or of a ‘
President who announces that we
are the “watchmen on the walls
of world freedom”? Obviously
these men 7 Lyndon I3. Johnson
and John F. Kennedy 7 were
intoxicated by power.

Under the new realism, then,
a united front of conservatives
and liberals has spurned morale
ism, It turns up everywhere.
Clayton Fritchey, for example,
writes in his column: “It may
be that the United States should
not be in the Middle East at all,
but as long as it is, it has a stake
in Israel’s security.” Freedom,
in short, has become subject to
cost accounting.

1 would be the last person to
deny that moralism can get us
into trouble, or — on the other
hand — to defend indiscriminate
and nonrprudential efforts to
liberate the world. But I am
convinced that a United States
dedicated to isolation and af-
fluence while most of the world
degenerated into squalor and
totalitarianiasm, would be a
moral monstrosity. Perhaps this
is arrogance, though I suspect it
is what the prophet means when
he Said, "where there is no vision,
the people perish.”

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