Galbraith's Vietnam War Speech Calls For 'Moderate Solution'

(John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics, delivered his first major address on the war in Vietnam last week at "Negotiations Now: A National Citizens Campaign to End the War in Vietnam," in Washington, D.C.

The June 28 speech has prompted columnists to proclaim Galbraith as the new leading spokesman for the critics of the war. In his speech, entitled "Vietnam: The Moderate Solution," the former Ambassador to India and National Chairman of Americans for Democratic Action called for an end of the bombing of North Vietnam as a prelude to negotiations.)

I: View of War

A singular and well-observed feature of war is for the view in retrospect to depart radically from that which attended the beginning. Dangers which at the outset of hostilities seemed to justify the most sanguinary steps in the perspective of years seem slight, sometimes frivolous. And prospects which at the beginning of conflict seemed easy and brilliant come to measure only the depth of the miscalculation. The case of men who in the last 30 years have planned expeditions against Moscow, Pearl Harbor and Pusan--not to mention Jerusalem and Tel Aviv--sufficiently establishes the point.

At the same time war turns reason into stereotype. Acceptance of what in the beginning is an estimate of national interest becomes an article of faith, a test of constancy, a measure of patriotism. At least while it lasts, war has a way of freezing all participants in their original error.

March of History

The war in Vietnam, by various calculations, has now gone on for more than half a decade and with mounting intensity for three years. It has shown these classical tendencies. The march of history has massively undermined the assumptions which attended and justified our original involvement. No part of the original justification--I do not exaggerate--remains intact. More remarkable, perhaps, very few of the assumptions that supported our involvement are any longer asserted by those who defend the conflict. Yet the congealing intellectual processes of war have worked to the full. Action which is not defended is still adhered to as a dogged manifestation of faith.

Let me also be fair. Those who are committed not to support of this venture but to opposition have also shown a tendency to become frozen in fixed positions. For the first time since 1815 we are engaged in a conflict to which a very large part of the population is opposed. The unanimity rule which has previously characterized our national conflicts does not exist. Those who defend and those who attack both lost some of their capacity to accommodate their thoughts to new evidence.

My purpose here is to see if, however slightly, one can rise above these rigidities. I do not wish to pretend to view our situation in Vietnam with any special insight or wisdom. These I do not claim, and even if I did so, I would be cautiously aware of our well-recognized and exceedingly valuable tendency to greet such pretension with something between skepticism and outright vulgarity. I would like merely to inquire how this conflict will look when minds, those of supporters and adversaries alike, are no longer subject to the congealing influences of war. And I would like then to propose the course of action--I venture even to call it the solution--that emerges from such a view.

Many will think that in labeling this a "Moderate Solution" I have made an unhappy choice of words. Moderation in these days is not in high repute. The term itself, in some degree, has come to imply pompous and comfortable and well-padded in-action. Thus, it rightly arouses suspicion. And increasingly men are divided between those who want the catharsis of total violence and those who want the comforts of total escape.

Yet if our national mood opposes moderation, history favors it. It does not vouchsafe us sharp, well-chiselled solutions. It gives us blurrer edges and dull lines. Whatever the ultimate bang or whimper, we can be sure that in between there will be only compromises. Let me begin with the terrible treatment that history has accorded our original justification for this conflict.

II: View of Vietnam as Part of World Struggle

No one can completely rationalize our involvement in Vietnam. We are there partly as a result of a long series of seemingly minor steps. Each of these steps, at the time, seemed more attractive -- less pregnant with domestic political controversy and criticism -- than the alternative which was to call a firm halt on our involvement. The aggregate of these individual steps -- more weapons, more advisers, a combat role for our men, progressive increases in our troop strength, bombing of North Vietnam, a widening choice of targets -- is larger by far than the sum of the individual parts. The resulting involvement of the Asian mainland is not a development that all who asked or acquiesced in the individual actions wished to see or even foresaw.

No Justification

But back of these individual steps, and especially the earlier ones, was a political and military justification that once seemed compelling. And it is a justification which has since dissolved before our eyes. The justification was the assumed existence of a united, homogeneous and militantly evangelical Communism which had chosen South Vietnam as the weak point for a probe. Speaking to the National Press Club some six months after he assumed office, the Secretary of State gave an explicit formulation of the view of the world crisis in which Vietnam played a part. He said:

"The central issue of the crisis is the announced determination to impose a world of coercion upon those not already subject to it ... it is posed between the Sino-Soviet empire and all the rest, whether allied or neutral; and it is posed on every continent..."

This was an accepted view at the time. None thought Mr. Rusk's formulation other than commonplace. He and others repeated the thesis--the doctrine of a centrally controlled and disciplined power guided from Moscow -- dozens of times. Implicit therein was a pattern of policy and of action. This had immediate relevance to Vietnam.

Thus to assume a unitary and evangelical force was inevitably to urge a policy of resistance. And resistance would have to be everywhere on the Communist perimeter. To allow transgression in one place would, most plausibly, be to encourage it elsewhere. And here we have the foundation for the analogy to Munich which for a long time played such a dominant role in the Vietnam discussion. Given the assumptions the analogy was persuasive.

The Sino-Soviet power being imperial and coercive, it was necessary also to assume that it would never be welcomed by those who might be subject to it. It could not reflect national aspiration; this was a flat contradiction in terms. Communist power might seek to exploit social grievance. But this, it was assumed, would only be a tactic designed to win subservience to the ultimate imperial and conspiratorial purpose. And this being so, no nation should yield to such tactics even when the grievance--as might often happen--was real.

Far better that people stay in a less enduring state of exploitation than to pass forever into this all-embracing system of coercion. This means, further, that we could not be particular as to whom we might support; even the most nauseous non-Communist dictator was preferable to the enduring Communist imperialism. And even if the Communists had seduced a majority of the population it was doubtful that we should yield. Rather that we should try to win them back. The liberal strategist in this conflict set great store by ameliorative social action. Conservatives tended to place rather more reliance on a gun.

Given this view of the world struggle -- and none I think will feel it an unfair summary of official attitudes in the early sixties -- our intervention in Vietnam was wholly understandable. Let me go further and say that it was inevitable. It was unfortunate but not decisive that the governments we supported, in their commitment to democracy and humane civilized values, left much to be desired. It was unfortunate but not decisive that our intervention was by something less than the popular demand of the people we aided.

Moreover, we had a right, given this view of the world, to expect two further and vital factors to be associated with our involvement. We had a right to expect that its necessity would be appreciated and supported by the American people -- as our economic and political intervention in Turkey and Greece and Western Europe following World War II were supported or as our military intervention in Korea in 1950 was supported. And it was reasonable to expect that the most effective support would come not from those who automatically rally to the flag when the guns sound but from the more introspective, informed and deliberative community -- those somewhat ambiguously styled the intellectuals -- who would best appreciate the long run consequences of short run weakness and appeasement. People of this inclination had given strong support to the Marshall Plan and to the Korean intervention. A generation earlier they had been in the very forefront of the criticism of Munich, the agreed symbol of surrender. So their support could be expected now.

Finally, given this view of the world, there was every reason to expect that the American initiative in Vietnam would be welcomed by the rest of the non-Communist nations. Previous initiatives had attracted such applause. The closer a nation to the danger, the greater the prospective applause; for one who could tell, after all, who was the next on the list. So the United States would both justify and enhance her claim to moral as well as economic and military leadership by assuming a commanding role in combatting the common menace in Indo-China.

III: Assumptions Have Dissolved

Merely to state the assumptions which lie behind this conflict is to show how completely they, and the resulting expectations, have been dissolved. History may not vouchsafe us sharp edges but, obviously, it can be a very blunt instrument.

We should perhaps remember, in this connection, that the assumptions which lay back of our Vietnam policy, including the concept of a unitary and all-embracing Communist imperialism, were never based on any very close knowledge of the subject. They were a formula, in some measure a theology, adopted by lawyers, businessmen, government officials and military men in the years of the Marshall Plan and NATO. Few of the authors had any first hand knowledge of Communism. Few had much experience of the political left. None had much experience of Asia. All were reacting to the current reality of Josef Stalin. To some extent it was a doctrine recited to justify the political and legislative action -- alliances, military appropriations, economic and military aid -- which the proponents thought necessary. There is nothing especially remarkable in the discovery that a doctrine so contrived failed to stand the test of history. History is respectful of truth but not of official truth.

New Developments

Since the basic decisions were taken to intervene in Vietnam the following has happened.

(1) The Communist world has come to pieces along national lines. The two great centers during the past years have, on occasion, been close to diplomatic breach.

(2) China, which the proponents of the Vietnam conflict for a while bravely pictured as the deus ex machina, is rent within itself. Its assumed puppet in Hanoi, likes its earlier puppet in North Korea, has publicly asserted its independence. Not even the most ardent defender of the war can now believe that Hanoi wants to be part of a Chinese-led empire.

(3) The people we fight in South Vietnam, it is now widely agreed, carry the banners of Vietnamese nationalism. They do this against former colonial officers whom we support. Gone, therewith, is the notion that people will rally to any alternative to Communism.

(4) Those we support, and Marshal Ky in particular, have their burlesque of democratic and constitutional process reduced their American supporters and onetime defenders to an embarrassed silence. Gone is the notion that any alternative will be accepted in the United States. Marshal Ky's recently proclaimed view of the free elections which denies criticism to his opponents and promises military action against unwelcome winners was the coup de grace. I venture to think that he has now lost even his honorary membership in what are often called the forces of freedom.

(5) The assumption that we could count on the applause and support of the other countries has disappeared. No European or American nation has rallied to our side. Few leaders dare speak in our favor. In Asia, propinquity to the assumed danger, the most aggressive arm-twisting has not brought us allies, only a few clients.

But it is not that we have failed to win support that is our misfortune. We have aroused by far the most massive hostility in our national experience. There is an underlying implication, never quite vouchsafed, that much of this opposition has been manufactured by Communists. If this is so, it is the most drastic of all indictments of our Vietnam enterprise for it shows what an unparalleled opportunity our enterprise has accorded the Communists for turning erstwhile friends into hostile critics. However, there is no reason to think that the Communists are this much involved. People have probably reacted in accordance with their own conclusions and their own conscience.

(6) Finally, with all else has gone the assumption that Americans could be rallied, more or less automatically, behind any war, however ill-considered, distant or cruel, provided only that Communists could be identified on the other side. Instead the American people have watched the collapse of the assumptions on which the Vietnam War was launched. In vindication of an intelligence none should mistrust, a very large number have reached the inevitable conclusion. The assumptions that took us there have been shown by the history to be false. Therefore we should not be there. The reasons that took us into the conflict having disappeared, why do we remain?

We remain, as all know, because men are human and do not like to concede, even to themselves, that they were wrong. Those who urged our intervention were associated with what could one day be regarded as the greatest miscalculation in our history. They remain in command. They are naturally reluctant to admit that their view of the world -- the view which counselled this vast effort -- has been shown to be wrong. And so, aided by the military momentum of the event itself, they continue. That is why we are now at war.

It also counsels us on our course. Let us, as moderates, urge that when a change of direction comes as it must, there will be no recrimination. Let us counsel those that are persisting in error that they are far more likely to compound the damage to their recrimination than to retrieve it. For that is what happens to men who persist in the face of fact.

IV: Errors Among the Critics

But there are stereotypes in the attitudes of those who are critics of our involvement in Vietnam. If one is detailing the miscalculations of those with whom he disagrees, it is salutary, also, to look for the errors of those with whom he agrees. It is most salutary of all, and in addition a trifle exceptional, to search for error in one's own past positions and attitudes.

Critics Not So Few

One grave error of those who criticize our involvement in Vietnam is to assume that we are a small and heroic and perilously situated minority. We are nothing of the sort. In times past in the United States popular opinion and official persecution have dealt rather harshly with dissent. Lives have been ruined and men silenced. There has always seemed some special liklihood of this when the primitive emotions of war have been released. But this does not happen and will not happen when vast numbers, including an overwhelming proportion of the young and the articulate, are involved. One wonders, indeed, if under such circumstances one should speak of dissent. Certainly martyrs do not march by the millions. This tendency to appropriate their cloak serves only to give a highly erroneous impression of the weakness of the opposition to our venture in Vietnam.

If anything, reflection should be on the reverse. There is no community concerned with foreign policy in the United States where the critic of our involvement in Vietnam is not accorded a warm and even enthusiastic hearing. There are quite a few where it is not deemed tactful or discreet for an official defender to appear. For the first time in our history this spring the spokesmen for our foreign policy found it necessary, in pursuit of this discretion, to avoid that fine old American folkrite, the commencement ceremony. Either too many students and too many faculty would be present or too many would obtrusively decline to be present. This is the situation on which we should reflect.

I think, also, that those who are critical of our involvement spend too much time worrying about the motives and tactics of those who share their goals. Second only to the fear that criticism will be suppressed is the fear of critics that they will be found in association with someone who, for whatever eccentric reason, has developed a latter day affection for Ho Chi Minh. This is silly. I do confess to wishing that all who are concerned about Vietnam would be more concerned with winning friends and influencing their fellow citizens in effective fashion.

I find myself also more than a little critical of those of my fellow critics who admit to a feeling of frustration and defeat in their efforts to influence the Administration on Vietnam. For one thing they have not been without influence. On the contrary, they have had a great deal.

Even within the Administration there are far more people who share our honest doubts than is commonly imagined. There are more now, I venture to think, than ever before. And one has only to ask, had there been no criticism, no objection, for that matter no demonstrations, where would we be in Asia now? What would have happened had those who are committed to the old stereotypes met with no objection? Where would those reputation lies with a military solution now be? Can anyone doubt that we would be far more deeply and dangerously involved than now?

Next, as is said even of the President of the United States, the critics of our Vietnam involvement have been much too influenced by the polls. These I do not doubt show correctly the reaction of people to the war. They show the national, deeply-conditioned tendency to rally to the flag. But the polls do not show depth of feeling. They do not show ability to articulate feeling -- to persuade. They do not show length of memory. They do not indicate who will write the history and draw the lessons. They do not always show where youth and thus the next generation stand. If those who feel deeply, remember long, can persuade others and who will be the next electorate are opposed, it may not matter too much that they are a minority.

As noted, our wars in the past have been fought on something close to unanimity rule. And they have always had the part of the population that now opposes in full support. That it is wise to act in neglect of the informed, articulate and young -- that they can be ignored as somehow morally as well as numerically inferior -- is far from proven. On the contrary, it is likely to be rembered as one of the cardinal political errors of modern times. In American life, it has long been my observation that the intellectual, so-called, is fashionably dismissed as a serious factor in all the battles except the last.

The critics of our Vietnam involvement have also been too ready to imagine that the opposition in Hanoi is eager to oblige Americans of humane inclination by entering negotiations on whatever terms we believe convenient. This is unduly optimistic and also dangerous. Let me be clear on one thing. There is not the slightest doubt that overtures to negotiate have been made. And these have not involved the precondition of withdrawal. I urge all officials who may be tempted to deny this that credibility is not something lightly to be tossed away.

But it is a mistake to base policy on any particular assumption as to the behavior and intentions of Hanoi or the leaders of the National Liberation Front. We do not know the enemy that well. Certainly it is a mistake to imagine that they are only waiting to oblige Americans of good-will. Such assumptions can be undermined by events. And it is very easy for those who are hostile to the idea of a negotiated settlement, those who want a military solution, so to handle our relations with Hanoi and the NLF and so to gauge and present their responses and non-responses that those who disagree -- you and I and our friends -- are left well out on a limb. If we can have negotiations on equitable terms, that much to be desired. And the hope that this will be possible justifies the emphasis placed upon it in the title of this organization and by all here assembled. But there must be something more.

There must also be a policy that allows of stubborness, suspicion, ill-will, obtuseness, and the waywardness of internal political struggle on the part of those with whom we are involved. No one, after all, would counsel Hanoi to repose high hopes in negotiations with Nguyen Cao Ky. Any policy which relies on negotiation is a policy that is at least partly at the mercy of others. We must also have a course of action which is within the scope of our own authority. We must invite negotiations. We must have a better policy than mindless escalation should negotiations prove not to be possible.

Critics Exaggerate

This brings me to my final point of criticism of my fellow critics. They exaggerate the difficulties in finding an alternative course of action to the one we have been following. This tragedy has continued so long that they have come to believe that the alternatives have now disappeared. "Perhaps something could have been done earlier. Now it is too late." This is wrong -- as well as morally weak. Alternatives to continued and deepening involvement exist. They have even been made somewhat more feasible by the march of events. Let me, as the last step in this lengthy exercise, outline a feasible course of action which reduces our commitment in Vietnam to sensible proportions, protects the larger peace, conserves our national interest and, what could perhaps be more important, reflects the interest of the sadly beset and tortured people of this part of the world. And it is a policy that does not depend on the cooperation of Hanoi and the NLF, although should that be forthcoming all would be much eased.