British, and indeed European, opinion on Vietnam seems to run in cycles. During the spring and summer, when protesters can march without getting either cold or very wet, discontent runs high, or seems to. During the winter, however, when the protesters go indoors and marches become teach-ins, the American cause has a better ime of it. Theoretically we should now be on another downward cycle. The Easter and May 1 demonstrations by the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) began the spring protests. But an impersonation of the Queen in Trafalgar Square on May Day has alienated from the CND and the Committee of 100 a large segment of public opinion that cares little about Vietnam, one way or the other, but takes offense at the malicious impersonation of a nonpolitical and much-admired sovereign. And there have been other favorable signs in the battle for public opinion. An appeal in the Sunday Telegraph by Deputy Editor Peregrine Worsthorne for the commitment of British troops to Vietnam received a respectful reading and elicited a sizable number of favorable letters. Worsthorne argues both on moral grounds (see excerpt) and in terms of Realpolitik. Britain would benefit from a commitment of troops to Vietnam, he asserts, both by getting a “most favored nation” trading relationship (possibly with an Atlantic-Pacific free . trade area including Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and by getting a share in the next important series of nuclear weapons. The next step will be the raising of the question by a member of one or the other of the political parties, possibly by a Conservative backbencher. The offensive in the press clearly lies with the supporters of American policy, and opponents are being forced to counter a positive argument (for sending troops) rather than being given the opportunity to battle on their own grounds of stopping the bombing or dissociating Britain from American policy. Worsthorne’s appeal has its origins in a letter to the Times from Kingsley Amis, novelists John Braine and Simon Raven, columnist Bernard Levin, Worsthorne, and others. Designed to counter the spate of newspaper advertisements and _ letters from left-wing intellectuals, the Amis-Braine et al. letter has stirred a hornets’ nest of opposition. It has also indicated the existence of a broad-based and intellectually respectable body of opinion supporting American policy. (Bernard Levin, for example, commonly writes in the left-wing New Statesman and can hardly be called an arch-conservative.) Fortunately, the signatories have kept the struggle up, answering their critics, supporting the sending of British troops, and raising new issues themselves. They seem to have encouraged other hitherto timid supporters of American policy to join the fray. London has recently seen the spectacle of a letter in the Times from a Labor MP (see excerpt) supporting the American position and challeng- . ing critics of the bombing policy. Although Foreign Secretary George Brown has been ardent and more effective than his predecessor Michael Stewart in enunciating government support for the U.S., the Labor rank-and-file has hitherto been either hostile or silent. A solid base of journalistic support for the allied war effort forms an effective background against which the new backers of American policy can operate. The Economist, much respected middle-of-the-road weekly, has supported the American stance consistently and argued its case tellingly. American policy finds much support in the popular press also, the Daily Mail being a good example. The Times says little about Vietnam, but ‘it has made cogent comments about anti-Americanism in Europe (see excerpt). The New Statesman and the Observer remain editorially hostile, the Spectator vacillates (though supplying excellent reviews of books on the Vietnam war by P. J. Honey), and the Daily Telegraph consistently supports American positions. The Guardian’s editorial policy wanders hither and yon, mostly anti-American but sometimes surprisingly sympathetic. The excellent Guardian foreign correspondent Michael Wall has repeatedly found the American involvement to be justified by the facts. On February 20 he wrote from Bangkok: “Thailand will never be free of internal troubles as long as the Americans are there, yet without them could Thailand remain free at all?” All segments of the press acknowledged that Hanoi’s release of carrespondence between President Ho and President Johnson was foolish and provided an impressive aid to American policy. London observers believe that Hanoi’s intention was to embarrass President Johnson during the Guam meeting by releasing a peace feeler of which President Ky knew nothing. But Ky had been informed of the correspondence and Hanoi’s public relations exercise failed dismally,.in Britain and throughout Western Europe. President Ky’s showing in Guam, Vice President Humphrey’s composure under hostile questioning in the House of Commons, and General Westmoreland’s speech to Congress have all helped the American cause. Supporters of the allied Vietnam policy may well greet the summer of 1967 as a particularly auspicious ene. The continuing battle for public opinion seems more promising than it did either in 1965 or 1966. On one turbulent home front, at least, things are going well.
“I’m not going to tell you how I went to Hanoi and had tea for two-and-a-half hours with President Ho © Chi Minh.” Such an opening, familiar as it is on the British teach-in circuit, should not be taken as a statement of fact. Things are seldom as they seem in the swirl of debates, and of course Mrs. Verdun Perl, a Canadian-born supporter of the Vietcong, did tell us how she had been te Hanoi and had tea for two-and-a-half hours with Ho. I had to begin my reply to Mrs. Perl apologetically and to admit that I had never had tea with anyone for two-and-a-half hours. But then Mrs. Perl is a veteran, and I am, compared to her, a novice. The encounter was in March. It was her 127th talk on Vietnam. The collapse of the home front plays a large part in the Mao-Giap theory of warfare, and the battle 686 NATIONAL REVIEW against disintegration engages numerous Americans abroad. In Britain most of the Americans who defend the allied position on South Vietnam are enlisted by the Speakers Bureau of the United States Information Service. For the most part they are unpaid amateurs; embassy officials participate only in carefully selected meetings where the danger of abrasive encounter is slight. The policy is a sensible one. In the heat of debate, the statement by an unaffiliated academic can do no damage; the United States Government is not responsible for what he says. Nor, for that matter, is the speaker bound to agree with every nuance of government policy on Vietnam. Like many British-based supporters of the American position in Vietnam, I had to make a fundamental — decision about participating in debates and teach-ins. For the most part, the confrontations are organized by opponents of American policy and the pro-American speaker must contend with a number of built-in disadvantages. An impartial observer would note a consistent group of difficulties that pro-American speakers encounter in teach-ins and debates. These include the following: 1) a lopsided balance of speakers in favor of those opposing the American involvement, the pretense being that “all shades of opinion” are invited and that the variations on the far Left are legion; 2) a scheduling of speakers so that an anti-American spokesman has _ the last word, a ploy which sometimes takes the form of choosing an elderly, high-ranking academic to sum up the debate, the summary invariably being anti-American and full of generalizations; 3) a hostile chairman, who interrupts pro-American speakers to disagree rather than maintaining impartiality; 4) audiences that are already committed and more interested in demonstration than debate; 5) hostile questioners whose inquiries are so similar across the country that one wonders if there is a set list provided by one or another of the leftist “peace” organizations; 6) a full supply of literature against American involvement in the war, sometimes distributed during the meeting. It is difficult to tell from the terms of reference of a debate whether such difficulties will materialize or whether the debate (or teach-in) will be straightforward. Usually the meetings organized by civic affairs groups in the smaller cities are scrupulously impartial. But university meetings and even some secondary school groups are likely to be more difficult than the letters requesting speakers would indicate. Sometimes, for example, a student union may hold a meeting that is ostensibly fair but in fact heavily unbalanced. At a teach-in in Liverpool the balance against the American position was twelve to three, though the facade of impartiality was maintained. Given varying combinations of disadvantages, should the pro-American speaker participate? The negative argument is strong: to participate is to allow the opponent to choose his — own ground and the sanction of seeming fairness may be given to his meeting. I think the positive argument is stronger. I have chosen to participate and usually I have felt the decision was the right one.
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