America Has No Foreign Policy, Hoffmann Claims

The United States could pull out of Vietnam without precipitating a general collapse in Southeast Asia, Stanley H. Hoffmann, Professor of Government, said last night.

Speaking to the Harvard-Radcliffe International Relations Council, Hoffmann delighted a full house in Harvard Hall from the moment he announced his subject. "Is there an American foreign policy?" he asked, and promptly answered with a firm "No."

Vietnam was in Hoffmann's spotlight as the most "catastrophic" example of the absence of foreign policy.

Among other things, Hoffmann attacked the applications of the "dominotheory" to Southeast Asia . Communism is advancing in Southeast Asia by internal subversion, he said, and its success will depend entirely on the internal social, economic, and political situation--not on external events.

If the internal situation of a country is not ripe for subversion, the fall of a neighboring country--a Vietnam--is not going to topple it, he alleged.

If the United States remains in Vietnam, Hoffmann said, its central problem will be to persuade the political elites in South Vietnam to work harder for peace. The only alternatives to peace, he said, are continuing escalation or quagmire.

Hoffmann's more general analysis of the problems of American foreign policy focused on the conflict between the old post-war assumptions, which still determine our policy, and the new realities of the 1960's.

He said the U.S. must realize it no longer faces a single, centralized enemy in the Soviet Union. It must also accept that its economic and military aid can not make stable, prosperous democracies of all the developing nations--Social politics are too complex for a uniform policy to be effective.