Escalation by Trial?
VIETNAM
By MALCOLM RUTHERFORD
Mire case of the American prisoners in North I Vietnam seems to show Johnsonian dip- lomacy at its most cunning—or most devious. As anyone who reads his Washington correspon- dents will have noted, the administration is treat- ing the possibility that some of them may be tried as war criminals with a remarkable degree of concern. A full-scale campaign, indeed, seems to be under way to persuade Hanoi to drop any such plans, even though most people had never heard that it had them until the past few days.
To do this on humanitarian grounds would be understandable, if not entirely convincing, for after all the sentencing to hard labour, or even to death, of a handful of American prisoners would be merely a drop in the ocean. in the con- text of the daily Vietnam casualty lists. But th's
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is hardly the way the Americans have been argu- ing. They are apparently against the idea of the trials on the far more curious ground that for Hanoi so to scorn international conventions of war would thoroughly discredit her in the eyes of the world, and unite the American people more firmly behind the war than ever before.
One would have thought that to an adminis- tration conscious that it does not have all the support it would like, no two objects could be more desirable. Yet first Mrs Gandhi, then Mr Harold Wilson, were asked to do all they could to persuade Hanoi to desist. Mr James Reston has used his column in the New York Times to address a dramatic appeal to the North Viet- namese to see reason, and no less a person than Senator Fulbright has spoken in much the same terms, giving warning that if the trials take place, there will be no holding American demands for the further prosecution of the war. Yet all that has resulted so far is that the North Vietnamese have acknowledged their plans for the trials and in- dicated that they will shortly go ahead.
It is a curious fact that the first reports that the trials were being considered came not from Hanoi, but from Washington. There is, of course, plenty of evidence that the Vietnamese had had them in mind for some time, but they had not much aired the idea publicly. The Americans in fact believed the trials were - to be held last December, but on that occasion they took the' far more orthodox diplomatic course of getting their view passed on to Hanoi privately. Little was heard about this at the time, and it seemed that the private warnings had had their effect.
This time, however, the Americans have chosen to play it altogether differently. Hanoi's indica- tions were leaked assiduously in Washington, even before the North Vietnamese had had much chance to do some leaking themselves. No doubt the Americans believed that this time Hanoi was far more in earnest, and it would be surprising if they did not also believe that Hanoi was prepar- ing to play a diplomatic game of its own by threatening to hold the trials if there was any further escalation of American bombing. They would have calculated, as is their way, that the American critics of the war would then put the blame for the trials on Washington, not Hanoi. Therefore the Americans got in first, and the re- suit has been predictable enough. Hanoi's envoys have been making statements in various capitals this week that the trials are definitely on. For the North Vietnamese could not allow themselves to be appearing to drop their plans under American pressure—as the Am-erican administration must have kriown from the beginning.
So far, it has been an adroit piece of diplomacy on Washington's part. President Johnson wins both ways, whatever happens : if the North Viet- namese decide to desist after all, he will take the credit for sparing American lives and success- fully exercising American influence; if they do not, he has already succeeded in stirring up domestic opinion even further against Hanoi by so effectively publicising the plans for the trials. Mr Reston and Senator Fulbright seem to have fallen in with his plans completely.
As for the North Vietnamese, they would still be wise to swallow their pride and allow Presi- dent Johnson the smaller victory by calling the trials off. The American administration has just gone in for some skilful manipulation of public opinion, but there can be no doubt that the basic premise of both the President and Senator Ful- bright is correct : if the trials are held they will be greeted as a deliberate and brutal escalation on the part of Hanoi and such an event will lessen even further the chance of a negotiated settlement.
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