Vietnam: After All Is Said And Done

If we abandon Vietnam now won’t we be 1) telling our allies we can’t be trusted and 2) bolstering the more aggressive of the two Communist regimes?

If you abhor suffering and premature dying you will wish to minimize both, as I do. As you are aware, sometimes we must accept the risk, even the certainty, of much pain and of many premature deaths, to prevent, or at least reduce the probability of more pain and of more casualties. Surgeons often must advise operations for such reasons; a patient would be irrational to consider only the pain and the danger of the impending operation and not the greater pain and the greater danger he may have to endure later without it. So would we be irrational were we to direct our thought and our compassion solely to the cruelty, the horror, the casualties and the dangers of the war in Vietnam without paying heed to the anguish, the grief, and the casualties we might invite if we retreat from Vietnam now. Whatever the answer, certainly the main, if not the only, question is: are the dangers to future world peace greater if we continue or if we halt the local war and abandon Vietnam?

EH

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Ernest van den Haag

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If we abandon Vietnam now won’t we be 1) telling our allies we can’t be trusted and 2) bolstering the more aggressive of the two Communist regimes?

If you abhor suffering and premature dying you will wish to minimize both, as I do. As you are aware, sometimes we must accept the risk, even the certainty, of much pain and of many premature deaths, to prevent, or at least reduce the probability of more pain and of more casualties. Surgeons often must advise operations for such reasons; a patient would be irrational to consider only the pain and the danger of the impending operation and not the greater pain and the greater danger he may have to endure later without it. So would we be irrational were we to direct our thought and our compassion solely to the cruelty, the horror, the casualties and the dangers of the war in Vietnam without paying heed to the anguish, the grief, and the casualties we might invite if we retreat from Vietnam now. Whatever the answer, certainly the main, if not the only, question is: are the dangers to future world peace greater if we continue or if we halt the local war and abandon Vietnam?