Asian Experts Refute Nixon's War Rhetoric

John K. Fairbank '29, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History, and Benjamin I. Schwartz, professor of History and Government, attacked President Nixon's reasons for continuing the war in Indochina at an informal gathering in the Kirkland House JCR last night.

Without specifically refuting Nixon's most recent speeches on the war, the two noted East Asian scholars criticized his "rationalizing rhetoric."

Fairbank, standing before his audience of more than 60 people, explained in his introductory statement that the ideals of repelling aggression, guaranteeing self-determination, and fighting communism or totalitarianism were part of an inherited American policy of "oyer-blown rhetoric" and that "these three ideals don't fit reality" in the present situation in Vietnam.

Appeasement

Schwartz added that U.S. policy was based too heavily on a desire to avoid another fatal policy of Munich-style appeasement. In order to withdraw from Vietnam. Schwartz noted, "we will be humiliated."

Blame

Schwartz also put some of the blame for American involvement in Vietnam on what he called "a new kind of moral arrogance." He described this attitude as the American mentality of "technocratic infallibility." the belief that we had mastered the "science of knowing how to handle it."

Fairbank, in the question-and-answer period, appeared to agree with the thrust of this new argument. He derided "the general models that usually involve the whole world" and put in a "plug" for the study of limited geographical areas.