Walter Lippmann on a "Limited War" with "Unlimited Aims," (1967)

 As regards credibility about the progress of the war in Vietnam. no one in high place has been more candid and informative than Senator [John] Stennis of Mississippi. About a month ago he made a speech describing how poorly we are succeeding, saying that "under existing circumstances, the American people must be prepared for a long-drawn-out and bloody war of attrition in Vietnam . . . which . . . may result in our being tied down in those steaming jungles for ten years or more.'' This estimate agrees substantially with that of General Westmoreland who, in a TV interview with CBS on Dec. 27, told Charles Collingwood, who had asked how long the war would last, that "it will be several years. I cannot be any more precise than that."

There is, however, a critical difference in their views. Senator Stennis believes the war could and should be shortened by escalating it without limit. General Westmoreland accepts the official doctrine of the Johnson Administration that he must fight a limited war. But he warns us that this will mean an indefinitely long war.

There is now under way a hard debate on whether to go beyond or to hold fast to the official doctrine of a limited war. That means a war in which the civilian population and the civilian economy of North Vietnam are in principle immune from attack. a war in which American troops are not committed to the occupation of the whole of South Vietnam and the suppression of the rebellion.

 These limitations on our military action are the reason, Senator Stennis believes. why-in spite of 6.000 dead, 35.OOO wounded, more than 30 billions spent-the United States is not yet in sight of winning the war. Senator Stennis cites ''as an example. in the area of responsibility of one United States division there are some 131 villages. In April 1966, only ten of those villages were considered to be secure. Today . . . despite intensive efforts, only eighteen are secure.''

Senator Stennis speaks for a growing number when he argues that, if this is the best that can be done with limited war, then the only choice before us is to withdraw dishonorably or to quit using ''half measures.'' and to use any means necessary to compel the enemy to give up the fight. This is the issue which confronts the President and how he deals with it will have enormous consequences.

To hold to the present course will almost certainly mean that in order to appease Senator Stennis and the Chiefs of Staff the President will authorize some escalation, enough to wound but not enough to kill. The war will still be long, hopeless, inconclusive, cruel. And increasingly it will be an offense to the moral conscience of the American people. If, on the other hand, the President goes beyond limited war, and follows Chairman lMendell] Rivers of the House Armed Services Committee who wants to "flatten Hanoi if necessary and let world opinion go fly a kite," there is every reason for thinking that, having adopted genocide as a national policy, the country will find itself isolated in an increasingly angry and hostile world. That would mean more than watching world opinion fly a kite. It would mean that we would be suspected and hated not only in the Communist and neutral world but in very large sections of the nations with which we are most closely allied. We would come to be regarded as the most dangerous nation in the world, and the great powers of the world would align themselves accordingly to contain us.

It would be a comfort to be able to believe that the President is still in control of the war and that he is still able and willing to review and revise his thinking. He wants so much to fight only a limited war. Why does he now find himself confronted with the agonizing fact that limited war has not worked? Because limited war can be effective only for limited objectives. The reason why the President is confronted with the demand for unlimited war is that he has escalated his objectives in Vietnam to an unlimited degree.

The President does not seem to understand that he has done this and that in doing it he has broken with the policy set by President Eisenhower and President Kennedy. The Johnson objectives in Vietnam are radically different from what they were under his two predecessors. Both of them insisted, as President Kennedy put it, "in the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Vietnam.'' President Johnson has made it an American war.

In escalating his objectives he runs the danger of having to authorize unlimited escalation and the unlimited expenditure of American lives and resources to create a new Vietnamese society. one which has never existed before. The objectives which the President has pushed upon the American people are unlimited and no one should be astonished that they cannot be. that they are not being, achieved by limited means.

From Walter Lippmann column, Newsweek, 70, July 16. 1967, pp. 16-17.