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At the two attack bases in Thailand, Major General Gilbert L. Meyers, Saigon-headquartered vice-commander of the U.S. Seventh Air Force, showed up personally in the briefing rooms. "We've got one of those targets we've been waiting for," he lectured before a wall map of Hanoi. "Now let's do a good job on it, and we may get the other targets we want. I want all bombs in the target at all costs."
Pet Pipedream. Even the Russians did not claim that the U.S. had bombed innocent civilians. Indeed, though the Administration had dire misgivings in advance about world reaction, most foreign comment was either fairly mild or else cut-and-dried violent, as if the tirades had been spiked for weeks in expectation of the raids.
U.N. Secretary-General U Thant was predictably pious (and for a neutral official, inappropriately political), expressing "deep regret" over the bombing of "heavily populated areas" and plugging his pet pipedream that by halting the air strikes the U.S. could end the war. The Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano viewed with concern, fretting that "news such as this cannot be learned without regret and also without worries." Charles de Gaulle, to nobody's surprise, joined his Moscow hosts in an expression of "alarm" and a warning of the "increasing instability" in Southeast Asia,which—he forbore to note—had been largely foisted on the world by 80 years of resolute French misrule.
Among U.S. allies, reactions ranged from cheers to tears. The British Commonwealth's two Harolds—Britain's Prime Minister Wilson and Australia's Prime Minister Holt—found themselves at opposite ends of the spectrum. Wilson, harried by a flatulent left wing that even deplores Washington's support of the pound sterling, declared that "we must dissociate ourselves from the bombings" but stoutly reiterated his fundamental support for U.S. war aims.
Harold Holt, on his first Washington visit since taking office, had no such problem. Reflecting Australia's awareness of its own stake in Viet Nam in his arrival address, he graciously assured his smiling host: "In the lonelier and perhaps even more disheartening moments which come to any national leader, I hope there will be a corner of your mind and heart which takes cheer from the fact that you have an admiring friend, a staunch friend, that will be all the way with L.B.J."
Save for Britain and France, the only European nations in the alliance, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization was virtually solid in its support of the U.S. "Only those on the side of the aggressors are against this move," said Thailand's Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman. "The sinews of war must be destroyed." Added Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Narciso Ramos: "About time!"