Vietnam The Changing Liberal Calculus

THE AMERICAN Left is going through a serious phase of self-pity and doubt. There is talk among some radicals that the "movement" has no choice now but to temporarily ally with anti-war liberals. Their reasoning is that the first priority for American radicals must be the withdrawal of all U. S. forces from Southeast Asia, and that the American social revolution will therefore have to assume a subordinate position to this more immediate (and vital) goal. Ideological purity-the rationale continues-will have to be abandoned to whatever "lowest-common-political-denominator" can succeed in ending the destruction of the people and land of Indochina.

The problem, of course, is that nothing short of a social revolution in this country will end the American presence in Southeast Asia. By doubting this, anti-war radicals are engaging in the polities of despair, and our despair is something which the people of Southeast Asia cannot afford.

That the withdrawal of all American forces from Indochina depends on revolutionary changes within this country should be obvious from the announcement that the Thien-Ky government is planning to award 17 off-shore drilling leases to international petroleum companies. Bidding was supposed to have taken place in Saigon in February. It was postponed 60 days because Gulf and Mobil ostensibly requested further clarification concerning the off shore leases.

A better guess as to why the bidding was postponed is that the major oil companies are trying to get a firm commitment from the Nixon administration to protect these proposed investments. Paul Cowan and David Gelber, in an article in the March 4, 1971 issue of the I'illage I'aice present evidence suggesting that the Nixon administration has in fact already given that commitment to the oil companies.

Radicals simply should not entertain the idea that a temporary coalition with anti-war liberals can force Kissinger Nixon to withdraw all American forces from Indochina. Nor should they expect that anything short of a miracle could induce Congress to cut off appropriations, now that oil seems to be a major factor in prolonging the American military commitment to South Vietnam.

THE AMERICAN economic stake in Vietnam is plainly visible now, but economic stakes have always existed in the determination of U. S. foreign policy. The question now becomes not only the immediate problem of who is going to control the oil deposits off the coast of South Vietnam, but to what extent is the U. S. government going to continue to protect and expand American economic interests abroad.

That the recent expansion of the war and the discovery of oil are related is not too tenuous a connection to make. American industry needs oil, and the increasing demands of U. S. and European economies for larger sources of power mean that new sources of oil must be discovered and developed, since no one is prepared at present to risk investing billions of dollars in developing new sources of industrial energy.

Gulf Oil (two-thirds of whose income is derived from overseas operations) estimates that "Free World demand [for oil] is expected to increase by some 25 billion barrels per day. That means the industry will have to discover about 40 billion barrels of new oil reserves each year.... Since it is estimated that exploration in the U. S. will provide only a small fraction of these requirements, the majority of these oil reserves must be found elsewhere."

Elsewhere seems to mean Southeast Asia. In April 1970 David Rockefeller predicted to an Asian financial forum (sponsored by Chase Manhattan Bank) that oil companies would invest 835 billion in Asia and the Western Pacific over the next 12 years. Most of the money is projected for Southeast Asia and Indonesia, where American oil companies began drilling operations soon after that country's pro-U. S. military overthrew Sukarno.

The eventual size of the oil deposits off the coast of South Vietnam is open to some conjecture. One U. S. geologist speculated that by 1975 the area could be producing 400 billion barrels of oil daily. That amount would be more than the entire oil production in the Western Hemisphere. And a United Nations geological survey team has reported that the Southeast Asian deposits might prove to be many times greater than those in the Middle East.

No oil company, however, would be willing to risk a substantial financial outlay where it could not have some reasonable guarantee that its investment would be protected. An American military presence is one form of protection. A friendly local government is another. A communist Southeast Asia would, of course, preclude major drilling operations by American oil companies. Thus the necessity of establishing and maintaining local governments that would not only provide political stability, but which would be willing to allow massive U. S. economic investments.

THERE is talk in Washington of a "Korean" solution to the Indochina war. Basically this means an American strategy of fighting for a military stalemate in Vietnam, with a reduction of American casualties so that such a stalemate could be acceptable to the American people. This means making South Vietnam safe for 50-100,000 American troops over an indefinite period. More important for Washington, of course, is making Vietnam safe for American investment over that same indefinite period.

The U. S. has acted in the interests of oil before. As long ago as 1893, Grover Cleveland intervened in Brazil at the insistence of Standard Oil. In Iran, in 1953 (when "guess-who" was Vice President), the CIA engineered a coup against the popularly-supported government of Mossadegh, after that nationalist leader began nationalizing Anglo-Iranian Oil, the largest Western firm in that country. The CIA restored the present Shah to the throne, and a year later an Oil Consortium was created through negotiations between the Shah and American companies (the British and Dutch were effectively excluded from those negotiations). The result was that British oil interests were reduced to 40 per cent, American interests increased to 40 per cent, and the Dutch and French shared the remains.

In 1958, when "guess-who" was still Vice President, a military-led and middle-class supported coup overthrew a pro-Western reactionary dictatorship in Iraq. When the new government threatened to nationalize some of the foreign investments in its country, the U. S. responded by landing Marines in Lebanon, while the British landed paratroops in Jordan. As a front-page dispatch in the N. Y. Times said: "Intervention will not be extended to Iraq as long as the revolutionary government in Iraq respects Western oil interests."

If the point is not yet clear, it should be noted that oil is the largest American overseas investor. Jersey Standard derived 80 per cent of its crude oil from overseas production in 1959, and 75 per cent of its net income.

Oil, however, is only one feather on the American Imperial Eagle. The U. S. supports the racist regime in South Africa because of that country's vast gold and uranium deposits. And the story of United Fruit and Guatemala is an oft-told tale (sad but true). The list goes on, but the point should be clear.

THE QUESTION for the anti-war movement, then, is how to defeat the economic forces in this country which generate a major part of American foreign policy.

It should be obvious that opponents of the Indochina war must now also be opponents of the American imperial economy. And I'm afraid there aren't any liberal politicians (we discounted the other kind long ago) who are willing to mount a sustained challenge against the growing presence of American capital throughout Western Europe and parts of the Third World.

Oil changes, or soon will change, the liberal calculus concerning the U. S. and Indochina. Being "against the war" takes on a slightly different dimension with all those millions waiting to be banked. McGeorge Bundy, to take one example. a fine liberal via Harvard, two liberal administrations, and the Ford Foundation, has been against the war because the U. S. is losing, and because in terms of "cost-effectiveness." the cost to the U. S. has been too high. But oil raises the stakes of the game, and raises the American incentive to victory, or at least to prolonging the military stalemate.

And good old "Abe" Muskie is reported to be the favorite of the LBJ-Mayor Daley-John Connally axis of the Democratic Party. Texans Johnson and Connally understand oil-and I'm sure Muskie is willing to learn.

The only bourgeois politicians the radical left could even begin to consider supporting, and only then on a temporary basis, would be those committed to fighting American oil interests in Southeast Asia. Which means not only no guarantees concerning the safety of investments in the area, but a public commitment that the U. S. will under no circumstances intervene should the Thieu-Ky government fall to the communists, as seems likely. The only problem, of course, is that the American people are lied to every day by liberal politicians. Why should we be expected to believe another?

Whether radicals work with liberals or not, it is vitally important to remember one concept-and that is the notion of struggle. We, as social revolutionaries (whether we be Jesuit priests, Puerto Rican nationalists, radical women, or SDS organizers), are not primarily peaceful or legal or cooperative. We are primarily trying to get the U. S. out of Southeast Asia, and beyond that we are trying to build a socialist society in this country. Legality towards a criminal government is a matter of tactics, not philosophy. Relying on liberal politicians to dismantle America's imperial dominance will only result in further disillusionment among those working towards basic structural changes within this country. In the end, it is we who will have to overthrow that structure.