THE WORLD IN OUR LIVING ROOM

In simple, eloquent language, Secretary of State Dean Rusk last week explained on television why Americans are fighting and dying in Asia for the third time in a generation. Though Rusk's remarks had been taped nearly a month earlier, they effectively rebutted Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin's charge that the U.S. is supporting the "oppressors" in Viet Nam.

We have no chance of living at -" peace, or living in prosperity, or getting on with our affairs here at home, if in other parts of the world aggressors are moving from one aggression to the other. The rest of the world is in our living rooms and it's going to be there for as long as we live. We've got to try to join with others to build a decent world system or we'll have no chance to get on with the daily needs of our people and the things we would prefer to give our attention to.

A Universal Stake

We don't have universal commitments, but we have a universal stake in there not being aggression and in the ability of small nations to live alone and not be molested simply because they live near a great power. Otherwise the total fabric of international life collapses and this becomes once again the law of the jungle where the denizens of the jungle have weapons that just must not be used if man is to survive.

The real problem is whether South Viet Nam is going to be left free to live out its own life as the South Vietnamese people themselves determine it to be--free from an attempt by Hanoi to impose a political system on them by force. That would be the end result and the object of any negotiations. There is not going to be a negotiation which surrenders the freedom and the safety of South Viet Nam.

The Long & the Short

We've made it, I think, pretty clear that we are not intent upon destroying the regime in Hanoi or the regime in Peking. Our war aims have to do with peace in the area and the security of South Viet Nam. Now it isn't easy to compromise that. In other words, Hanoi either leaves South Viet Nam alone or it does not. If they do not leave it alone, we're going to support South Viet Nam. If they do leave it alone, peace can come very fast. It's not for me to say what the Communists get out of it. We don't accept the view that the burglar or the robber is entitled to something just because he makes the effort. When they have reached the point where they have decided that [victory in the south] is not a result they can achieve, then perhaps there can be peace in the area.

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