How to Take Up the Slack

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Though in some ways Lyndon Johnson is a consummate politician, nobody has ever confused him with Disraeli. Somehow, the picture of Smooth Lyndon the Senate Persuader does not carry over into his conduct of foreign affairs. Indeed, during his first 100 days or so, the President sometimes gave the impression that U.S. influence abroad had declined because of some failure in his capacity to deal with crises. And as crises flashed across the map like fireflies on a hot night--as Viet Nam got messier and Charles de Gaulle frostier---that critical impression of Johnson made it seem all the more apparent that his grasp on the reins was too uncertain.

But last week the President began to take up some of the slack. In three separate instances he moved with both sureness and speed, and while he inflicted a few bruises in the process, he also managed to leave the impression that he has begun to get the hang of foreign policy.

In EUROPE, for example, Johnson took a tough line with the Communists, who were holding captive three U.S. Air Force officers. The flyers--1st Lieut. Harold W. Welch, 24, Captain David I. Holland, 35, and Captain Melvin J. Kessler, 30--parachuted into Communist East Germany after their unarmed reconnaissance plane strayed beyond the West German border and was shot down. Day after day, the U.S. lodged protests with Soviet officials in Washington, Berlin and Moscow, but the Russians were not listening. At length Johnson warned Moscow that "further delay in the release and return of the crewmen clearly jeopardizes possibilities for expanding areas of United States--Soviet cooperation and can affect present efforts in cooperation in various fields." Stripped of its diplomatic language, Johnson's message to Moscow bluntly suggested that unless the airmen were released, the Soviets risked losing their much-sought charter for a Moscow-New York air route and the opportunity to open a consulate in the U.S. as well. That was the kind of talk the Soviets understand. At week's end, they released Lieut. Welch, who had been injured after parachuting out of the plane. That move brightened the prospect that his fellow flyers might also be returned home.

In SOUTHEAST ASIA, the President resisted the temptation to veer off on a new tack in the ugly guerrilla war in South Viet Nam. Bolstered by the latest on-the-spot report from Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Johnson decided to ignore both those who would neutralize the country and those who would carry the fight across the 17th parallel into North Viet Nam. Instead, he reaffirmed the slow, painful course that the U.S. has been following for some three years. "We must stay there and help them," he said, "and that is what we are going to do." Equally important was the U.S. decision to increase current aid of $500 million a year by about $40 million to help South Viet Nam's new ruler, General Nguyen Khanh, conduct "clear-and-hold" operations against the Viet Cong guerrillas. If the current course of action proves a flop, Lyndon does not rule out the possibility of stepped-up guerrilla warfare on North Viet Nam's home grounds.

In LATIN AMERICA, the object of Johnson's tough approach was Panama. After a five-man mediation committee of the Organization of American States announced that Panama and the U.S. had agreed to launch "discussions and negotiations" on the 1903 Canal treaty, Panamanian news media billed the agreement as a U.S. backdown, and Lyndon blew his top. Addressing Latin American ambassadors at the Pan American Union, the President declared angrily: "As of this moment, I do not believe that there has been a genuine meeting of the minds between the two Presidents of the two countries involved. Press reports indicate that the government of Panama feels that the language which has been under consideration for many days commits the United States to a rewriting and to a revision of the 1903 treaty. We have made no such commitment."

Inevitably, the President's taut handling of the Latin Americans earned him some criticism. Latin American ambassadors, ever sensitive to signs of Yankee insensitivity, complained that Johnson had spoiled all the good fellowship that supposedly characterizes hemispheric relations, and that, furthermore, he had shown poor taste in lambasting the Panamanians before a distinguished gathering of their neighbors. But the fact was that Panamanian politicos, with an eye on May's presidential elections there, did distort the facts to make it seem as if the U.S. had given in to their demands--and Lyndon Johnson was not about to tolerate that.

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