Dead Duck?

U.S. soldiers in South Viet Nam were still being picked off by Communist guerrillas--and on the home front, Pentagon officials were getting shot at too. In February General Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee. The transcript, released last week, showed Taylor, if not exactly riddled, at least discomfited. Answering some questions, Taylor declared that he was opposed "under all circumstances" to using U.S. forces as a "direct means of suppressing the guerrillas."

That riled Pennsylvania's Democratic Congressman Daniel Flood. "I am concerned," said Flood. "I am not at all satisfied with your answer. I would expect you to have much more to say about that. There is a division of command. The analogy with Malaya is very, very close. There were British combat troops by the thousands in the jungle, and they stayed there. Choppers were used to supply them, and they did not come out. And that is how they beat the guerrillas. There was none of this hit-and-run business. The initiative was British, not guerrilla. In South Viet Nam, it is the diametric opposite. There is no South Vietnamese and no American initiative at all. We command and control nothing."

At that point, General Taylor demurred. Then, demanded Flood, "What do you command there?"

Taylor: "Not a thing."

Flood: "What do you control there?

Taylor: (DELETED BY CENSOR.)

Flood: "You do not command."

Taylor: "We do not. That is correct."

Flood: "That is where you are heading for failure. You command nothing. You have come to the Rubicon. Very, very soon in South Viet Nam you are at the end of the line. You have to make up your mind very soon, General, that you are going to command, or you are not going to command. If you are not going to command, you are a dead duck; you cannot win. If you decide you want to command and they will not let you command, get out. You are a dead duck. You cannot win. Make up your mind."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.