A Note on Vietnam: Duplicity, Murk, and Blood

There is an essential shoddiness in Richard Nixon’s politics that shines out, like fool’s gold, from every word he speaks and every step he takes. In domestic policy (Southern school desegregation, tax “reform,” Supreme Court appointments, etc.) this is clear enough; and now we can see it in his emerging scheme for Vietnam.

On the one hand, we may expect some withdrawals of troops; steps to decrease the number of battle casualties; reductions of draft quotas; pious statements favoring negotiations. On the other hand: a sustained effort to buttress the Thieu government militarily and politically.

The calculation is simple enough, though not without some cleverness. Nixon’s hope is first to mute and scatter antiwar criticism, or at least to confine it to a small segment of peace and student activists. If the fighting declines, if the casualties drop, if not many sons are drafted, then—the expectation runs—there will not be large-scale po...