The stunning action in the Dominican Republic stirred up no great debate here, because Washington has learned at first hand, in Cuba, the results of Communist expansion in the Caribbean. But the debate continues to sizzle about Vietnam, because many disagree about the gravity of a Communist conquest of Southeast Asia. Those who disagree are Democrats in the main and are divided into three sects. The most vociferous sect has gathered about Senators Gruening (Alaska) and Morse (Ore.). Gruening, puffed up by the cheers of the Students for a Democratic Society, plans to venture even further into his admittedly eloquent peace-mongering. Morse denounces our policies as “immoral and godless,” prophesying that if LBJ continues “to follow the ill advice of McNamara and Rusk he will come out of office the most discredited President in the history of the nation.” A more sophisticated sect is led by Senators Frank Church (Ida.) and George McGovern (S.D.), who reflect the internationalism of the Council for a Livable World, that affluent pacifist lobby founded by the late physicist Leo Szilard. The third and most powerful sect is signing up with Senators Mansfield (Mont.) and Fulbright (Ark.), who have long been in sympathy with a policy of negotiated settlement, but have only recently entered actively into the policy debate.
♦ Sen. John Sparkman (D., Ala.) may be carried into the Vietnam debate, too. After twenty years in the Senate, he faces almost certain defeat next year (Alabama pros think Governor Wallace could do it, or freshman Rep. Jim Martin, the Republican who almost stopped Sen. Lister Hill in 1962). Sparkman (he was Stevenson’s running mate in 1952) might have a chance if he came out strong for either 1) heightened segregationism, or 2) a stronger foreign policy. The foreign policy gambit would be safer. An overt racist ploy would, among other things, jeopardize that seat some think Sparkman has earned on the federal bench. Besides, as ranking majority member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Sparkman commands a strategic height from which to fire upon his fellow committee members Fulbright, Mansfield, and Morse. He might even talk himself into a job at State. Secretary Rusk has been trying to find some mouthpiece other than Everett McKinley Dirksen.
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