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• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200240007-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 17, 1999
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: January 27, 1966
• Content Type: OPEN

oved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200240007F6)IAb3b
FOIAb3b y definition then, the "radical intellec- justice of the Communist cause in Vietnam
teal" must base his opposition to our in- since this and this alone can provide prin-
Why I Oppose Vietnam Critics
EXTENSION OF REMARKS
volvensent in Vietnam on principled rather called grounds to the nonpactfis:, opponent
than expediential grounds. And anyone of U.S. policy. (There are a nnmller of ere-
claiming the status of an intellectual-rad- ped:cntial grounds for opposing I h^ t. c,r and
Ical or otherwise-is under the compelling sal;inq an isolationist posture In but we
obligation to formulate his views with logical are here concerned with the moral bases of
or consistency: he cannot leapfrog his premises opposition.)
UO%J ru 4T:'T F(Z ( T)TrrS iR anytime one of them begins to scent I1-' Prof. Eugene Genovese, of Rutgers Unlvcr-
IN TIlE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVgS
Thursday, January 27, 1966
Mr. DIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I ask coil-'
sent to include in the RECORD the follow-
hlg article by Dr. John P. Roche:
A DISTiNOOISiTEO PROFESSOR EXPLAINS: WHY
I OPPOSE VIETNAM CRITICS
(By Dr. John P. Roche)
(More.-Dr. John J. Roche is Morris lIill
quit, professor of labor and social thought
at Brandeis University In Waltham, Mass.
He was national chairman of Americans for
Democratic Action from 1062 to 1965, and is.
the author of numerous works on American
politics, the most recent being "Shadow and
Substance, Essays on the Theory and Struc-
ture of Politics."
(The article expressing his views on the,
anti-Vletnens movement was written spa-
clally for the Detroit News.)
I have been actively involved in arguments
over American foreign policy since the eve
of World War If. but I confess that never
In my memory has there been such an Intense
outpouring of irrational bitterness as we
are seeing today,
Only the high point of "McCarthyism"
could possibly match the tirades that are
appearing on the subject of Vietnam, and
not since I denounced the John Birch So-
ciety in print some 5 or 6 years ago have
I received the kind of hate mail that has been'
coming in lately: "Drop dead you - baby-;
burner."
What is peculiar about the nn'ti-Vietnam
movement (or movements-there is no mono-
lithic organization) Is that its headquarters,
are found In what is often called the "intel-
lectual" sector of American society, but that
the atmosphere in which it operates 1a remi-
nisccnt not of intellectual argument and
discourse but of the primitive religious camp
meeting complete with hymns, chants, and
apocalyptic visions.
And what passes for argument Is, at least
to one who has made a life's commitment
to rational discourse, appalling beyond belief.
Recentl7, for example, after I had presented
my views in support of the administration's
policy a young man leaped to his feet and
impaled me with "Would Christ have carried
a draft card?" The best I could do was say
It no rejects violence, fie must 00 so On vise reject .the impending Vietcong 'victory in
basis of generic commitments, If he says, Victna'm, I welcome It." From his vantage
"I reject war because innocent people are point as the prophet of the Marxist weltgelst,
killed," ho is forbidden any favorite wars. Genovese Bees the confrontation In Vietnam
Now on what principled grounds can an as one between an historically progressive
intellectual denounce the war In Vietnam? north and a reactionary neocolonialist
It seems to me there are two principled: south.
banes of opposition, . If one shares Professor Genovese's Marxist
The first is an absulute rejection of war as religious convictions, it is patent that the
an inatrunlent of International policy which' United States is the "buttress of reaction,"
should be accompanied by an equivalent re-
jocftun of violence in personal relations.
Tips is, of course, the classical pacifist
potation nobly exemplified In our time by A.
J. Muste and the American Friends Service
Committee. The pacifist, whether religious
or humanist, has made a total dedication to
a world without violence, has adopted what
Max Weber called an ethic of ultimate ends,
and is quits prepared to ? espeak truth to
power" whatever may be the personal con-
that we are trying to derail the locomotive
of history, and that we are fighting a rear-
guard action against the forces of "historical
progress."
By definition a war against socialism
must be immoral-Professor Genovese and
those who agree with him have thus set forth
a consistent case for opposing the war.
Those of his persuasion and the integral
p !cfists are, I submit, the only individuals
who have established their standing as moral
sequences. ce ltics of American Intervention,
I aim unable to accept the final demands of
P^ I clffsm. Yet I am quite prcp^i.d t: r c ":,-' rRACTICALTCY RATIIER THAN MORALITY
n;zs anti ;lo-')v those wild) t^ " t'l.s pouf- Let its now turn to the other types of anti-
tion. They are spokesmen for v,'hr. '. 11 prob- war argument which can be broadly desig-
ably all impossible ideal, but I hops, in the nated as expediential or pragmatic.
interests of my descendants, that Il,o'.r ideal Here we have a broad spectrum ranging
will triumph, from new-fashioned Isolationists on one ex-
However, I must live with my !, nnil..ntions, treme to the "American protection is more
and I am simply not capable of alkalis that hazardous than Communist tyranny" pllal-
the Indians should passively submit to t.he' tint at the other. These objections to our
Chinese, the Israelis to the Arabs, or the' actions run against their practicality or pro-
black Rhodesians to the whites (or for that ductivity rather than their morality,
matter the Negroes of Mississippi to the Ku' An interesting development has been the
Klux Klan) in the Hansa of this ultinsnte conversion of it, number of liberals, and even,.
vision of nonviolence. ? some alleged radicals, to the dogmas . of
Thus, white I cannot accept leis premise, I geopolitics, traditionally a reactionary enter-
have no quarrel with the pacifist who oh- tainment.
jects to our intervention In Vietnam: Ile is, The great expectation among these nco-
In Thoreau's phrase, marching to a different' Machiavellians is that, with the proper bribe,
drum and his dedication to his objective No Chi Minh will become a "Tito" and pre-
transcends the mundane criteria of interna-. sumably rush to contain Red China. The
tional relations as we know them. In the problem with this is that the Red Chinese
Augustinian sense, he is in this work but not have not been leaning on Ho: Tito, after all,
of it-his allegiance is to a city of God did not become a "Tito" for the sheer novelty
which the rest of its can only imagine as a of it. But our geopolitical finaglers may de-
misty, remote apirntion. His witness do visa some way of getting the Chinese Com-
mands our respect. , munists to put the arm on Ho (perhaps with
If one is not a pacifist, he may still find ',n research grant from the CI
it moral basis for condemning American A variation on the geopolitical theme sug-
pollcy In Vietnanr by arguing that-while gests that we should turn the South Viet-
violence per so Is not necessarily evil-the namese over to Ho, make the Russians hap-
goals of public. policy are immoral and cor- py, the Red Chinese mad, and thus stimu-
rupt all the Instruments. It is not that in- late the Sino-Soviet schism. Somebody has,
that one intelligent question deserved nn- 1 that they are dying unnecessarily as a? con-
other and asked him, "Would. Christ have sequence of an evil policy.
carried a social security card?" An individual with this approach could
? ANTIWAR Anr.TM1i.NTe r.xAMINro logically support war in defense of India or
Since the opponents of our intervention in naui, Duty this line of argument requires
Vietnam have refused to carry the logical considerable support. One cannot simply
burden of setting out their premises in CO- say that he is prepared to use violence in
I think, suggested that we could Improve
this scenario by giving the South Vietnamese
to the Russians to give to Ho.
I think this bush league Machiavellianism
is childish nonsense: for one thing, It is
unwise to dabble in the heresies of other
men's churches. Moreover, E. H. Carr's ob-
servation on a similar effort In geopolitical
1,orse tradin
sticks in my mind as a warn-
g
I take to be the different grounds on which grounds of personal taste, bccnuse Ile likes ?~ "The negotiations," Cart' remarked In 1939,
an American can rationally come out against Indians or Israelis, Any charge of immoral-' "which led up to the Munich Agreement of
the Nieman war, ity, in sum, has to be formulated on Some, September 29, 1938, were the nearest ap-
Starting at the simplest level, an individual consistent theoretical Infrastructure. proach in recent years to the settlement of
may oppose the war because he does not want . international Issue b edurc of
to take any time out from his career for THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE ANSWER a major by a Proc
military service, because it would make his What basis Is there for charging that we peaceful change." Unfortunately, the Nazis
mother nervous If he were In the Army, or are enf;aged in an immoral war in Vietnam? refused to stay bought and Carr had to do
tedi riser" can only be n? , some rewriting for the next edition of, this
is inr?mcient Pacifist- exce
-,en because the
a
p
y
p
These are quite rational stands, though 'one answer: that the Communists are right, The most persuasive argument for getting
hardly adequate as a foundation for na- and we are wrong, that we tire engaged in' out of Vietnam rests on what might be called
tional poilcymaking. Nor-It must be em- an "unjust war." The techniques of war-! updated isolationism. Ironically, Isolation-
phaslzed--do they supply much of o base making are Irrelevant-if we are wrong, it, ism is in the 1960's a functional position;
for a radical critique of the "warfare state"-; would be as immoral to fight with crossbows' Le., It Is feasible for the United States to
whatever the content of yradicalism" 'may as with jets and napalm. devote Itself wholeheartedly to effluence in
be, it is certainly not built around the prop- Similarly, the fact that innocent women one country and let the rest of the world slide
osition "I want to survive." and children are dying Is in itself irrelevant- off into chaos.
Everyone has a constitutional right not to if we were right, as we presumably were in Weapons lechhology has ended our need for
be a hero (I have exercised my privileges fighting Nazi Germany, the death of the In- foreign' bases: with ICBM's and naval pow-
under this heading on occasion), but he has ' nocent would be written off as an unfortu- or .we no longer have any military rationale
no right to dress up his human failings in a nate byproduct of necessary and just acts, for involvement outside of the Western
halo of higher morality. Sanitized - Appr~o i ~r~`t 'e~Pet ?s`~eBtf ~f ~' E?0149R%f0G2 -0241@00
Continued
27 January 1966