URTHER escalation of the
war in Vietnam can be ex-
pected after United States

Defence Secretary Robert Mc-
Namara’s ninth visit to that
country.

As he left Saigon to see the
U.S. military set-up he said he
would “examine troop require-
ments and look into the future
and work out plans for the
months ahead.”

General Westmoreland, U.S.
Commander-in-Chief in South
Vietnam has already asked for
70,000 more troops this year.
Cao Ky, South Vietnamese
premier has proposed the num-
ber be raised from the present
450,000 to 700,000.

The “U.S. dry season counter-
offensive,” which lasted from
October 1966 to April 1967 re-
sulted in some 70,000 Americans
being put out of action, killed,
wounded or missing. At the same
time the National Liberation
Front has announced, some 1,800
planes and helicopters have been
brought down or destroyed on
the ground with about the same

- number of tanks and armored
vehicles.

Meanwhile reports from North
Vietnam indicate that there have
been over 2,000 U.S. planes shot
down there.

It’s no wonder that the De-
fence Department officials in

July, 21, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 4

Washington are saying that the
war is getting tougher for the
Americans and that their troops
were being harried by increas-
ingly effective artillery and mor-

tare fire by guerrillas and South,

Vietnam liberation forces.

Not only is the fighting get-
ting harder but the fig leaf of
fighting for democracy in South
Vietnam is getting harder to sus-
tain.

Last week Diep Van Hung,
who is regarded as Ky’s: chief
agent in the Constituent Assem-
bly, led, with the electoral com-
mittee, a petition urging that Au
Thuong Thanh be eliminated
from the presidential ballot “be-
cause he is a Communist.”

Thanh, who served as Econo-
mic Minister in the Ky govern-
ment was the man who led the
Cabinet rebellion last fall. in
which six ministers resigned.
They quit in protest of what they
described as police-state tactics
by the Ky government.

Thanh’s program calls for an
immediate cease fire and the
neutralization of South Vietnam.
So this leads to an effort to take
him off the ballot, and, for the
U.S., the impossibility of calling
the coming elections in South
Vietnam an example of democ-
racy.

As more and more the United
States escalates the size of its

forces in Vietnam and the scope
of its activity, so more and more
grow the protests of this action
from all around the world. Deep-
er and deeper grows the dissent
in the USA itself.

As McNamara “studied” the
situation in South Vietnam, and
one has to ask whether his trip
up to the demilitarized zone did
not have something to do with
plans for invasion of the north,
a gigantic Vietnam Summer pro-
gram has been launched by the
peace forces in the U.S.

The ad, part of which is re-
produced on this page, inserted
by the Negotiation Now commit-
tee in the July 9 New York
Times, is but one of the activi-
ties that is taking place.

Sponsors of: the petition
launched by Negotiation Now!
include Harry Belafonte, singer;
Norman Cousins, Editor of Sat-
urday Review; John Kenneth
Galbraith, chairman, Americans
for Democratic Action; Dr. Mar-
tin Luther King; Victor Reuther,
labor leader; William L. Shirer,
author; and a host of church,
university and other spokesmen.

The petition, which already
100,000 have signed says:

“We support the call by U
Thant for new initiatives to bring
about negotiations among all
parties in the conflict leading to
a political settlement of the Viet-

Will McNamara s trip
mean more escalation?

nam war.

“We call upon the United
States, the most powerful na-
tion in the world, to take the first
step and end the bombing of
North Vietnam now and without
conditions. We ask our govern-
ment to take further initiatives
leading to a standstill truce.

“We ask North Vietnam and
the National Liberation Front to
respond affirmatively to any new
United States initiatives and to
join with the U.S. in a standstill
cease-fire.

“We ask South Vietnam to re-
spect and join in these steps.

“This course of action pre-
sents to the United States a-
moral alternative to our stated
policy of bringing about negotia-
tions by force, or to the devas-
tation of all-out war, and a
more realistic alternative than
unilateral withdrawal.

“We believe that such initia-
tive now can break the im-
passe and lead to negotiations
and a political settlement pro-
viding for the removal of all
foreign troops and for genuine-
ly democratic elections in which
all South Vietnamese can par-
ticipate freely.”

The patriotism of their posi-
tion they underline by saying:
“For the sake of the young men
who are fighting now and those
who will be called upon to fight,
we ought to try this new course.
It could be the first step to an

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