Paris, Feb. 8—Chaos in Asia argues at so many points the failure of Lyndon Johnson’s foreign policy, two photographic symbols of which appear on the front page of the Paris edition of the Herald Tribune. On top is the picture of a hasty execution. “Brig. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, Chief of South Vietnam’s National Police, executes a captured Vietcong officer. ‘They killed many Americans and many of my people,’ said General Loan after he had slain the guerrilla with a pistol bullet.” The guerrilla, hands behind his back, wearing a checkered shirt, tilts his head slightly to one side, as if to deflect the bullet that is about to hurl out of a pistol held four inches away from his head. What is the matter with Saigon security that such guerrillas as these should, in the fifth year of war, be able to kill “many Americans and many of my people”?
And then, at the other end of the page, a picture of a desolate soldier, his face lined with grief, carrying the corpse of a little girl with a face like a madonna’s. And the caption: “Warrior’s welcome home. A South Vietnamese officer carries the body of his child, executed with the rest of his family by the Vietcong who over-ran his home in a military compound while he was leading his troops against guerrillas in Saigon street fighting.” We haven’t the strength to secure every little hamlet in South Vietnam from the enemy, but how can we fail military compounds within the suburbs of Saigon in which little girls live?
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