Before Guam

The war conference the President will hold this week in Guam will probably be a re-run of the ones he attended in Honolulu and Manila. American efforts to help South Vietnam along the road to peace, prosperity, and democracy will be stressed. The new South Vietnamese constitution may receive the Johnson imprimatur. Rural pacification and the economic reconstruction of the countryside will be given top billing. In other words, a few touches will be added to one of the President's favorite pictures--that of a determined and benevolent U.S. trying to rescue a backward, peace-loving people from the clutches of Red aggression.

Understandably, the President is shifting his public outlook from the punitive war against the North to the U.S.'s more diversified efforts in the South. His attempts to get Ho Chi Minh to a conference table during the first two months of the year failed--principally because Washington refused to extend the Tet bombing pause unless it saw evidence that the North had "reciprocally" reduced its aid to the Viet Cong. Nonetheless, this was an extremely frustrating period for Johnson since public feeling that the war might end had soared.

But after Johnson realized that negotiations were not as imminent as press reports suggested, his response was not to continue the bombing pause and try to clear up misunderstandings that may have existed between Washington and Hanoi. Instead, he stepped up the war against the North and probably made fruitful communication between the White House and Hanoi impossible. Despite his comments that Washington remained continuously aware of any peace feelers, the President decided to give the world the impression that a military solution was feasible.

There is little doubt that he was impressed by reports that increasing numbers of Viet Cong were defecting and that the bombing had crippled the North and marginally reduced the infiltration of troops to the South. Yet the American policy of the past few weeks--the decisions to hit the steel mill in the North, to shell the North's coast, to lob artillery shells across the demilitarized zone--will have the effect of making peace more remote than ever. And the military tantrum which resulted from Johnson's recent bout of impatience with Ho will probably convince the North that future talk in Washington about peace and "unconditional discussions" is a lot of pap.

But the conviction that the North can be battered into some kind of submission--as the President apparently believes--is sheer folly. The Soviet Union and a strife-torn Communist China will not permit even the appearance of this to occur. And if Johnson were fortunate enough to force the North Vietnamese to cut drastically their aid to the NLF, there is no reason to believe that the Viet Cong insurrection could be quelled to the point where a civilian regime could effectively govern the South.

Actually, all that American forces can do in the South under the current policy is to give non-revolutionary groups the opportunity to set up some sort of non-military government. Once that is done, however, Washington could again find itself in the uncomfortable position of acting as Saigon's private militia--unless the Viet Cong should suddenly decide to obey American wishes.

The President would be better advised to tamp down hostilities across the board. That could mean quietly seeking to bring Viet Cong representatives into the preparations for the transition from military to civilian government in Saigon. This proposal is unlikely to get very far as long as the United States continues to cultivate Premier Ky's advice on military and pacification policy. More important, the United States should openly demonstrate to Hanoi that it emphatically does not insist on a pro-Western government in the South for the future and does not wish to destroy the North in the name of a vague anti-Red crusade.

The maintenance of the bombing will do little but undermine these goals. Secretary of Defense McNamara has openly doubted its military effectiveness. The argument that it is necessary to bolster the morale of Saigon is a specious one, for Ky is in little danger of being toppled. But to intensify the war in the North as a response to peace feelers that didn't work out is no answer. And to insist, as the President did in Nashville last week, that it "aims to exact a penalty" from the North for its violations of 1954 and 1962 Geneva accords implies a dishonest denial of U.S. violations of the same international agreements, and sounds ominously like a request for a declaration of war.

This comes to the heart of the problem. For all the lip service the President may pay this week to his nonmilitary programs in South Vietnam, he will be unable to dispel the impression that he is preoccupied with military victory over the North. What success in the North specifically means in terms of ending the hostilities in the South is unclear. But as long as the United States maintains a military policy north of the 17th parallel which has become open-ended--and utterly destructive of any prospect for peace talks--the conflict in the South will continue to defy peaceful solution.