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Another factor in his deliberations is next month's Vietnamese election. Johnson would like to give the newly elected government a chance to get its bearings before undertaking any innovations. General Nguyen Van Thieu, the present chief of state and the military's candidate for President, has announced that if elected (as seems probable), he would be inclined from a position of strength to suspend the bombing for a week and try to instigate peace talks with Hanoi. President Johnson sought peace negotiations before previous military step-ups, and might well try again, however remote the chances of success.
Before making any major policy departure, the Administration may decide to mount another allied summit meeting. After a fact-finding trip through the Pacific, General Maxwell Taylor and Clark Clifford, chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, this month reported to the President that Thailand, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand all favor sterner military action in Viet Nam and have little concern about possible Chinese intervention. They argue that Hanoi and Peking only regard U.S. restraint as a sign of weakness.
Celebrated Trait. Johnson, of course, found no such unanimity at home. Critics of both parties on and off Capitol Hill voiced doubts that the Vietnamese elections would be honest, and demanded assurances against "fraud." (However, congressional leaders turned down Saigon's invitation to send observers.) Johnson has already warned Thieu and his running mate, Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, that a rigged election would be disastrous in terms of U.S. public opinion about the war. Dr. Martin Luther King announced a nationwide campaign to place war referendums on ballots in local and state elections as a "unique and dramatic way for our people to deliver their mandate against the war."
What King and other critics ignore is that the allies have accomplished a great deal in South Viet Nam. The
U.S. has guaranteed the country's independence, stimulated the beginnings of internal reform and pointed the nation toward democratic self-government —a rare thing in Southeast Asia. Yet the positive side of U.S. policy is too often drowned out in the debate. Even the long-sought Vietnamese election may have already, because of a minor boo-boo, been permanently stigmatized as a "farce" by premature condemnation on Capitol Hill.
The most dismaying prospect for Americans and their allies in Viet Nam is that President Johnson must make crucial military decisions in a political atmosphere at home that does not encourage either prudence or perseverance —and at a time when his popularity is at an alltime low. Yet if the decisions are not made or do not work, South Viet Nam's independence and the massive American investment in that country may become swift victims of that celebrated American trait, impatience for quick success.