Lodge Urges Stability in Vietnam, Attacks Goldwater and Platform

Former Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge '24 said last night that "an exclusively military solution is not possible in South Vietnam. A political atmosphere must be created in which people will adhere to the government, thus depriving terrorists of their support."

Speaking to an overflow crowd in the Lowell House Junior Common Room, Lodge related tales of his experiences as Ambassador and also commented wryly upon the Republican Party's election year troubles.

Lodge was pessimistic about the status of the Vietnamese conflict at this point. He said that American policy must be "ready for anything" to happen there, including an internal communist takeover. Calling political instability the chief problem, he insisted that the United States was in no way responsible for recent coups in South Vietnam.

Infiltration from the North may become serious enough to force new action by American and South Vietnamese troops Lodge said. But he claimed that "cutting off supply lines would not amount to escalation of the war." He totally rejected the notion of another international neutrality conference as a possible solution.

"We can't look for clear-cut, neat solutions in South Vietnam," he said. "We just have to hang on and see what happens."

The 1960 vice-Presidential nominee had the harshest of words for the conservative wing of the Republican party. He belittled the position that Barry Goldwater's 26 million votes represent an ideological movement. "Any Republican could get 20 million votes, and only about a million this year were really for Goldwater."

Insisting that he is "not available at all" in 1968 ("except that when I'm invited to be on Meet the Press, I'll go"), Lodge asked that the party forget about personalities and "get rid of the 1964 platform."

He called for a strong GOP stand on civil rights, and said Republicans must realize "there is nothing 'me-tooist' in admitting the federal government is needed to solve problems."