Thomas Predicts U.S.-China War

"The policy we are now following in South Vietnam will lead this generation to a great confrontation between the United States and China," Norman Thomas, six-time the Socialist candidate for the Presidency, said last night.

Speaking before the Law Grad Young Democrats, Thomas said, "You will almost certainly face the calamity of a nuclear war in your lifetime, possible even in my own."

Thomas called on President Johnson for a "dramatic step" to establish the credibility of the U.S. desire for negotiations to end the Vietnam war.

In his own program to end the war, Thomas demanded an immediate cease fire by U.S. troops, a stop to the bombing of North and South Vietnam, and negotiations in which "all factions would be represented."

Presidential power

The principal effect of the Vietnam war on U.S. politics, Thomas said, in a vast increase in Presidential power. The President can now involve the U.S. in a war without popular approval, Thomas added.

"The real danger to the individual in our society is the power of the state to make the individual do what is against his conscience." Thomas said.

In deprecating the methods the U.S. is using in Vietnam, Thomas asked for an end to "bacteriological warfare," and the bombing of civilian populations. More people are homeless or in hospitals because of U.S. bombing than because of the Viet Cong, Thomas said.

"We have created a situation in which for a long time to come, when people see the Statute of Liberty, they will not see