New York, Oct. 30—In 1966 I wrote, “It may in fact be that to bring up a particular subject before a particular audience results in a dialectic whose meaning is a function of time and place.” 1 was talking about Goldwater and the use of atom bombs in Indochina. The current example of that kind of problem is Ronald Reagan, who said casually that he “could see” a limited nuclear exchange in Europe.
Goldwater’s experience continues to be wonderfully instructive. At a press conference, early in his campaign for the Presidency in 1964, a reporter asked what might be done in South Vietnam about the Communists’ supply lines, which were moving under cover of the forests and the jungles. Goldwater had answered: “There have been several suggestions made. I don’t think we would use any of them. But the defoliation of the forest by low-yield atomic weapons could well be done. When you remove the foliage, you remove the cover.”
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