Lamont Criticizes Vietnam Policy, Sees Johnson as Potential FDR

Corliss Lamont '24 called American involvement in Vietnam a "cruel immoral and horrible business," last night. "The only solution to the problem," he said, "is for us to get out as soon as possible."

Lamont, who is chairman of the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, a legal aid organization which provides lawyers for defendents in civil liberties cases, went on to describe the Viet Cong war against the South Vietnamese government as as "popular rebellion against a semifacist state controlled by a foreign power."

Turning to the presidential election, Lamont said, "we can all congratulate ourselves on the election results. I have confidence in my heart that Lyndon Johnson is a real Roosevelt new-dealer who is really sincere about civil rights and world peace."

Criticizes FBI

"Johnson," he continued, "should take advantage of the clear mandate the American people have given him to end abuses of civil liberties of American Citizens." Lamont was especially critical of "gross violations of civil liberties by the FBI." He said that the FBI has for 20 years wasted its efforts on the persecution of communists and alleged communists when "the real danger is not the left, but the extreme right."

In answer to a question after the speech in the Lowell House Junior Common Room, Lamont called the Gulf of Tonkin incident "one of the most improbable tales I've heard in several years." He charged that the affair was really "just a frameup by the military designed to make the United States more involved in Vietnam."