The Vietcong in the United Nations

U.S. Government officials recently admitted that they knew last October that the National Liberation Front wished to send representatives to the United Nations.

When American officials heard this, however, they chose to sit on the proposal. Then, on November 2, in an attempt to regain the initiative, Ambassador Arthur J. Goldberg told Congress that the United States would vote for an invitation to the Vietcong to appear before a meeting of the Security Council. Goldberg's speech was billed as yet another major U.S. diplomatic concession to the enemy. It sought to prove once again that the United States is truly anxious to reach a peace settlement, and that its concerted efforts have failed only because of the intransigence of the North Vietnamese and their N.L.F. allies.

But the U.S. still refuses to allow the Vietcong to attend the General Assembly. The Administration says that it is useless to even talk about discussions since the Vietcong will never drop their earlier objections to formal discussion in any U.N. forum. After all, the U.S. argument continues, if the N.L.F. or North Vietnamese agree to discussions, these would serve no constructive purpose since the Vietcong will never drop their objections to United Nations involvement in Vietnam. William P. Bundy, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, and Robert J. McCloskey, State Department spokesman, have presented long lists of statements by the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong opposing United Nations intervention. Furthermore, the Administration claims that the Vietcong are not really sincere in their desire for peace, that they only seek to use an invitation to the Assembly in order to lobby for their cause among U.N. members.

The Administration claimed the November 2 shift might make a debate before the Security Council meaningful at last. But this maneuver has precisely the opposite effect. Washington knows that a debate in the Security Council would offer this country a better opportunity to answer the Vietcong than in General Assembly discussions. But this U.S. stand merely illuminates the real reason President Johnson has chosen to ignore and stifle the Vietcong initiative to bring the war before the Assembly.

He has good reason to expect that discussions in the Assembly would dramatize world opposition to the American invlovement in the war. Such discussions would obviously put new pressures on the United States to back down from an untenable policy without gaining any matching concessions.