opinion
Aid to Thieu perpetuates
orally bankrupt policy
By MARK O. HATFIELD
Special to the Los Angeles Times
The request by the Ford administration
for an additional $300 million in military aid
to the government of South Vietnam and
$222 million for Cambodia is the latest at
tempt to perpetuate an Indochina policy
that is morally and politically bankrupt.
It is a policy grounded in the myth that we
can intervene in any nation we choose, and
that we are totally free to shape the world in
our own image. For those who had rightfully
hoped that this myth had ended with Viet
nam, the renewed request for funds comes
as both sad and dangerous news.
Again we are asked to view fiction as
fact. Again we are asked to commit our
selves militarily in the name of creating a
peaceful solution to the conflict. Again, as
when the French were fighting in 1950, we
are told that we are sending in military sup
plies to defeat “communist aggression.’’
Again, as in 1955, we are told that it is the
communist side alone which is responsible
for the breakdown of the international ag
reement reached regarding Indochina
Again we are told that an increase in Ameri
can military arms is necessary to insure the
survival and freedom of South Vietnam.
The truth is that the Vietnamese people
do well simply to survive Thieu's leader
ship; they are not being freed by it. Their
land has been shattered by 25 years of war.
In the years 1965 to 1973 alone, over
three million Vietnamese were killed or
wounded. Over 11 million Vietnamese lost
their original homes. Today, 20 per cent of
Vietnamese children are orphans.
South Vietnam is a country ruled by a
political regime which continually practices
the most basic denial of human rights. The
Thieu government continues to use tactics
of arrest and torture, it continues to hold
thousands of political prisoners, and it re
fuses to allow countless refugees to return
to their homes.
Last week, in pre-dawn raids, some of
Saigon's most influential journalists, pub
lishers and editors were arrested in their
homes and jailed. The press runs of nine
daily newspapers confiscated, and five
more were shut down completely
Yet, we are told by the administration that
we cannot abandon our “moral commit
ment' to the Vietnamese people We are
told, after 55,000 American lives have been
lost, after 300,000 Americans have been
Maimed as casualties, after nearly $200 bill
ion in U.S. treasure has been spent, that an
additional $300 million will insure the ongo
ing business of the Thieu government. We
are told that if the money is not forthcoming,
then Congress, not the administration, will
be responsible for the collapse of the cur
rent Saigon regime
We are told these things, but little else
The administration spokesmen do not exp
lain, for example, why our "moral commit
ment” is directed toward Thieu and his
generals, rather than to the structure of in
ternational law and the achievement of a
political settlement to the conflict
We have no international legal obligation
to support Thieu’s continuing quest for
power. In fact, it is the clear intent of Con
gress, by reducing the administration’s re
quest, to disengage ourselves from a blan
ket underwriting of Thieu's power and en
courage a negotiated end to this war
Administration spokesmen ao not
emphasize the obvious: that any additional
funds granted by Congress in addition to
what has already been appropriated will set
the most dangerous of precedents If Con
gress agrees to any portion of the supple
mental request, it will have committed itself
to aiding the Thieu government beyond
that which we have already deemed neces
sary this year
This is far from the end. The new budget
just presented to the congress requests
another $1.7 billion in military aid to In
dochina ($1.3 billion for South Vietnem, and
$400 million for Cambodia), plus another
billion for other purposes there And what
progress has our military assistance
brought toward establishing a final peace in
Vietnam? Again we are told little
We are not reminded that since
the Paris peace accords were signed
barely two years ago, the United States
has spent over $7 billion in Indochina. We
are not reminded that 149,000 Vietnamese
have lost their lives in those two years. It is
not emphasized that last year the administ
ration vetoed a $550 million bill to aid the
American veterans of Vietnam while simul
taneously asking for $1 billion in additional
military assistance to the Thieu regime.
We are not reminded that the $7 billion
spent since the Paris accords were signed
could have provided $5,000 each to 1.5
million unemployed workers.
We are told that the Thieu government is
the victim of communist aggression, that
Thieu has acted defensively since the Paris
peace accords to maintain his military posi
tion. But this fails to conform to the total
truth.
The facts, documented by both indepen
dent observers and analysts in Saigon,
show clearly that almost from the moment
the Paris agreement was signed, President
Thieu, with U.S. military assistance,
launched a military offensive aimed at
eliminating enemy sanctuaries. As a result
of this drive the enemy lost 15 per cent of
the territory it controlled in January, 1973,
while Saigon gained dominant control of an
additional 6.2 per cent of the pooulation,
which included about 770 hamlets.
We are told by the Department of State
that the North Vietnamese and the Provi
sional Revolutionary Government have
"built up the North Vietnamese main force
army in tne south through the illegal infiltra
tion of over 160,000 troops; tripled the
strength of their armor in the south by send
ing in over 400 new vehicles.”
We are not told that, along with this infilt
ration of troops, the North has reportedly
exfiltrated nearly 115,000 back to North
Vietnam, and that the resulting increase in
men accounts roughly for casualties and
troop replacements. The image of a mas
sive new troop buildup by the North is, then,
largely myth.
Despite the fact that the Thieu govern
ment has received well over twice the milit
ary assistance that the North Vietnamese
have received from China and the Soviet
Union since the Paris accords, despite the
fact that it has fired ten times the ammuni
tion as the opposing side, and despite the
effective imposition of martial law in South
Vietnam, Thieu's political power has
eroded to the point of collapse.
The administration's request at this time
seems to be the waning attempt to save a
Vietnam policy that should have been
abandoned long before the first American
soldiers set foot on Vietnamese soil. It also
seems to be an effort to lay the ultimate
blame of that policy on Congress, which
might no longer choose to further the myth
that has cost us so dearly in lives and honor.
Our intervention in Indochina has been a
moral and diplomatic disaster from the be
ginning. It was wrong when we paid for 78
per cent of the French military intervention
in Indochina 20 years ago. It was wrong
when we installed leaders of our own
choosing and tried to create a sovereign
state out of half of Vietnam. It then was a
moral outrage when we used half a million
Americans, and millions of tons of bombs,
to try to achieve these same ends.
Now, it is no more moral, and no more
diplomatically wise, to pursue these same
ends through financing a war by proxy in that
countrv. The fact that now it is simply our
dollars and bullets rather than U S. sol
diers, which carry out our policies in no way
corrects the fundamental, tragic error we
have made over the past two decades in
Indochina. It is not the means or the
strategy of our intervention in Vietnam
which has been wrong; it has been the in
tervention itself.
The administration's request is not made
in order to bring the final chapter of a long
effort to a dose Rather, it is being made to
perpetuate a policy that has from the outset
been strategically mistaken and morally
disastrous
Our best hope for ending this tragic inter
vention lies in refusing to sign Thieu's blank
checks, and thereby creating the environ
ment where the military conflict can be
shifted to a political one, as intended by the
Paris agreements signed two years ago.
By restraining our aid to the present gov
ernment of South Vietnam, we will make it
clear that this prolonged war must be
brought to an end through a political ac
commodation. Either Thieu will realize this
reality or he will be replaced by a coalition of
South Vietnamese who are prepared to
compete politically with their adversaries
Sen. Hatfield (R-Ore.) is a member of the
Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the
Senate Appropriations Committee
—- opinion -
Things must change in Mac Court
By DAVE BUSHNELL
The time has come for us to step back
and take a good, hard look at the Oregon
basketball program and its fans. The events
of the past weekend represent the dimax of
the problems that many observers have
been forecasting for some time.
As Register-Guard Sports Editor Blaine
Newnham said, McArthur Court has be
come more of a hindrance than a benefit
With fans, and only a small number at that,
who insist on throwing paper and ice on the
floor, running on the court to protest an
official s call, and, in one case, pursuing the
referee after the game is over, it is com
pletely understandable why Oregon didn’t
receive a break when it needed it most.
But under no stretch of the imagination
can the crowd be held totally responsible for
the behavior that, rightly or wrongly, has
become a trademark of the Pit.
When a large number of persons are sub
jected to four to 12 hours of pushing and
shoving while standing in line, it is unrealis
tic to expect them to respond with rational
behavior when the game finally com
mences
The lack of seating has also contributed
to the Mac Court problem The Eugene Fire
Marshal said the fans seated on the
benches must be provided with 18 inches of
space. By game time Friday and Saturday
nights you were lucky if you could claim 12
inches for yourself
And finally, many point to the style of
basketball which Dick Harter brought to this
campus four years ago as the cause of Mac
Court mania But the program is based on
out-hustling, out-defending and out
toughing the opponent, not on inciting riots
and endangering the visiting teams as
some newspapers have claimed
But as last weekend s events showed,
adverse actions by the fans only serve to
hype-up the opposition and make them
tougher to beat. And, if you think harassing
the referees is a way of helping the team,
then you're dead wrong!
The worst name a referee can be called is
a homer So when they work a game in the
Pit, the officials often go to the other ex
treme in order to skirt the offensive label.
The more the crowd baits the referees the
more they resist. In fact, it may have
reached the point where Oregon will be un
No more bullshit
able to oount on receiving any sort of help
from the officials at home
The sad part is that Harter and his staff
have cooperated fully with all programs to
control the crowd But, ironically, they are
now the ones who are suffering at the
hands of a few uncivilized, ill-bred,
emotion-crazed fans. After all, how can
Harter be expected to recruit in Southern
California, when the Los Angeles Times
writes stories about the heathens who at
tend games in Eugene.
The fans, both student and adult alike,
who continually throw paper on the floor
and disrupt play, have all but ruined the Mac
Court experience for ihe other 9,950 These
50 or so “fans," are the same kind of people
who were in the front lines a few years back
when Ohio State was physically attacked
by the Minnesota team and its supporters
These are not the type of supporters
Oregon basketball is looking for. If these 50
or so fans are to be controlled, some meas
ures must be taken by Athletic Director
Norval J. Ritchey and his staff.
—The public address announcer should
be instructed to inform the crowd, before
the game (as is done at all National Basket
ball Association games) that anyone
caught throwing objects on the floor or in
any way disrupting play, wll be ejected from
the game and subject to prosecution
—The police officers on hand should
start ejecting fans who step on the floor, or
in any way threaten the safety of the players
or the officials while the game is in prog
ress
—The Athletic Department must take the
initiative to make sure the number of tickets
sold correspond with the number of seats.
Trying to squeeze 500 extra people into the
student section is only asking for trouble
If these three measures, or some sort of
alternative means of dealing with the un
controllable few are not enacted soon, then
basketball as we have come to know it at
Oregon is in serious danger of extinction
After all, why should Harter and his highly
qualified staff stay at a school where win
ning and recruiting are so difficult
When it comes right down to it, Ritchey
and his staff have not been tough enough
All but a few of the spectators are complying
with the conduct cards, but those who do
not must be dealt with.
Something is going to have to change
and it's up to the crowd whether it will be
them or Harter If it’s the latter, then the
former are going to be left with nothing but a
losing team and their faded yellow and
green pom-poms
Bushnell is the assistant sports editor of the
Emerald