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ON THE U.S. COMMITMENT. One great myth is that we had a little aid program that grew and grew and grew. You have a nation here that we encouraged to resist, gave assurances to, not in treaty form, but quite precisely. There was no question that we would replace arms one for one. For all sorts of specious reasons we have reneged on every one of these agreements. My only regret is that I did not speak out more openly, to the distaste of the Department of State. The Executive Branch has fallen flat on its face presenting the truth.
ON U.S. STAKES IN VIET NAM. I Still get a twinge from that piece of Japanese shrapnel in my back, and have yet to be persuaded that a hot war is better than a cold war. There's no way we can get into next year's Bicentennial without Viet Nam. It will not go away, as Voltaire said, "to be obscurely hung."
* For a while during the early 1930s, Martin wrote a Washington-based column for a number of newspapers in the South.