Johnson's swindle exposed

tion of hundreds of square miles of forest and incessant napalm bombing of villages on both sides of the I7th parallel, and despite the presence of over 30,000 American and South Korean troops and marines, the Vietnamese people continue to fight undaunted.

And there is little prospect that they will be intimidated either by the presence of the Seventh Fleet or the bellicose threats of capitalist generals and politicians in Saigon or Washington.

In fact, the 'retaliatory' raids of the U.S. and South Vietnamese puppets have proved to be a complete flop.

The Vietnamese people, who single-handedly defeated one of the biggest expeditionary armies at Dien Bien Phu and drove the French out of Tonkin and North Annam, now feel confident that, given time and space to manoeuvre, they can throw the Americans and their allies out of South Vietnam.

Armed liberation is the only way to the eventual unification of the country.

Rejected offer

This obvious fact has now, it seems, begun to penetrate the thick skull of President Johnson.

In a speech at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore, the President intimated that he was ready for 'unconditional discussions' on Vietnam. He also proposed to raise 1,000 million dollars towards an 'aid' programme for Southeast Asia.

But in case any of his listeners thought that he really meant what he said, he then went on to guarantee the independence' of South Vietnam and specifically excluded the Vietcong from any such talks.

Peking and Hanoi have rightly rejected this offer as a formula for carrying out the war while prating about "peace'.

Johnson's economic

'carrot' has been shown up as a swindle.

Disenchanted

A similar plan of aid for Latin America - the Alliance for Progress-has resulted in increasing misery for the people and the installation of military dictatorships in Latin America.

The aid programme envisaged by Johnson will be a double-edged weapon. Not only will it prop up reactionary regimes in South-east Asia, but it will help undermine the positions of rival imperialisms, namely, British and French, in this vitally important region.

Next to the Vietcong, the administration's biggest worry is the American people, significant sections of which are becoming increasingly disenchanted with the cynical lie and the rubbish handed out : Presidential press conference This is why Johnson has produced his 'defoliated' olive branch as a gesture in the same way as he brought forward the Civil Rights Bill in 1964. He couldn't fool the Negroes then, and he can't fool the Asian people now.

At the same time as Johnson was going through his act, Patrick Gordon Walker, fresh from his defeat at Leyton, was skulking in South-east Asia hoping to get an audience with Mao—or at least Ho Chi Minh —in order to do some 'honest brokerage' Disastrous ambassador Whether the Chinese had advance information on Smethwick and Leyton is not known, but Walker's attempt at playing the role of roving ambassador for Britain has proved as disastrous as his attempt -to enter Parliament.

All he got from Peking and Hanoi was a loud diplomatic raspberry.

The Russian and Chinese leaders, while indulging in a war of words and promises, have so far done little or BSS.Gordon Walker: skulking arouni South-east Asia

nothing to obstruct the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.

In Warsaw last week, Mr. Brezhnev, for the fifth time, said that the USSR was ready to help Vietnam 'with all means necessary to repel U.S. aggression'.

Why isn't the help forthcoming?

Do the Soviet leaders hope to bully the Americans into talks with threats of intervention?

If so, they are living in a fool's paradise.

The Soviet bureaucrats are playing the same cynical game as they did in Korea. They want to confine the war without letting it escalate. They want neither side to win.

They supply enough weapons to keep the war going, but not enough to finish it. At the same time, they try to make diplomatic capital out of it.

The Chinese leaders, too, are sticking scrupulously to a policy of 'non-intervention', although they have seven crack armies poised on the YunnanTonkin frontier.

The war against Vietnam is a war against independence and socialism. There can le no neutrality in such a struggle, not even a belligerent neutrality. Beçome a subscriber to THE NEWSLETTEE IN the fight for socialism, The Newsletter is playing a vital role. Do you get it regularly? Don't leave it to the chance encounter, fill in this form and send it to: Subscription Department, The Newsletter, 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. 8s. 6dl. for 12 issues Name Address