On the Right

New York, Sept. 8—A letter reaches me from an official of Look Magazine urging me to read an article, “How U.S. Spurned Three Chances for Peace in Vietnam,” written by my old friend Norman Cousins, the peacemaker. The letter has in it an extraordinary sentence. Brace yourself. “Cousins contends,” says Mr. Ralph Feller of Look —who is not to be confused with Radio Hanoi—“Cousins contends that on at least three occasions the Reds made some genuine, generous, altogether wonderful peace gestures which were virtually totally ignored here because of the usual incompetence, stupidity and intransigence and other shortcomings customarily inferred as a result of charges of this sort.”

Now in fact Mr. Cousins is not as bad as Mr. Feller’s letter sounds. But Mr. Cousins does succeed in leaving us with the impression that President Johnson maybe, or maybe the State Department, or maybe the Pentagon, or maybe all three of them, deliberately rebuffed explicit overtures by Ho Chi Minh to come on over to the negotiating tables and let’s settle these differences of ours amicably.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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New York, Sept. 8—A letter reaches me from an official of Look Magazine urging me to read an article, “How U.S. Spurned Three Chances for Peace in Vietnam,” written by my old friend Norman Cousins, the peacemaker. The letter has in it an extraordinary sentence. Brace yourself. “Cousins contends,” says Mr. Ralph Feller of Look —who is not to be confused with Radio Hanoi—“Cousins contends that on at least three occasions the Reds made some genuine, generous, altogether wonderful peace gestures which were virtually totally ignored here because of the usual incompetence, stupidity and intransigence and other shortcomings customarily inferred as a result of charges of this sort.”

Now in fact Mr. Cousins is not as bad as Mr. Feller’s letter sounds. But Mr. Cousins does succeed in leaving us with the impression that President Johnson maybe, or maybe the State Department, or maybe the Pentagon, or maybe all three of them, deliberately rebuffed explicit overtures by Ho Chi Minh to come on over to the negotiating tables and let’s settle these differences of ours amicably.