What are you doing, Mr. Nixon?

President Nixon’s latest announcement of American troop withdrawals from Vietnam is gratifying though expected. American forces will be cut in half over the next three months — from 139,000 to 69,000 — and there will be another announcement about withdrawals for the period after May 1.One must hope it all works, and works easily . . .But…the continuing and slightly accelerated withdrawal schedule is not the whole matter, nor the winding down of the war the end of the war.What of the bombing? What of the prisoners? And what of the implications of the current fighting? . . .If, indeed, the President has in mind for this year the total withdrawal he has hinted at, the sooner the better.We have been urging that for a long time.

In the 30 months since the President authorized the secret peace talks to parallel the public peace talks in Paris, he has continued to cut American forces in Vietnam. In the last four months, while waiting in vain for some response to his latest peace initiative, Mr. Nixon has accelerated the withdrawal. This has been a reasonable recognition of the limited, very limited, prospects for negotiating an end to this undeclared war . . .Only Mr. Nixon fully understands his motives for making public the course of the 13 secret sessions between Henry A. Kissinger and North Vietnamese leaders. One immediate result has been the shifting of a heavy burden of responsibility to Hanoi in the eyes of world opinion. The President seemed to justify his disclosure on the grounds that North Vietnam had divided Americans by deceiving them about the talks.There is no assurance that disclosure of the deception will produce the national unity called for by the President.

There is afoot here a crude attempt to make the war a patriotic issue for the political benefit of Mr. Nixon. It is too late for that. The issue in this war is not Us or Them, not the Flag against the Enemy, not “utter surrender” and “total defeat” . . .There is one issue for the United States in Vietnam: how to get out. The President knows that. His Democratic challengers know that. The whole country knows that. Upon that central proposition hang all arguments about ways to do it. The President has made his own proposals. His critics, Democratic and Republican, have made theirs. In content they differ on this point or that point; but they do not differ in intent from his. The aim is the same.To suggest that it isn’t, as the Administration is suggesting, is to throw the national discussion of Vietnam back to the primitive level of the Johnson years; is perhaps to retard the development of negotiations toward which Mr. Nixon opened the way; and is certainly to undo the progress the country has been painfully making toward resolution of the internal conflict about this awful war.

The Indochina war is visible again. The largest offensive by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces in four years is under way . . .For Saigon, this is the first real test of the Vietnamization program under which the United States has turned the ground war over to the South Vietnamese.For Washington, this is a bitter test of real intentions . . .If there is one thing certain in Indochina, it is that “victory” has lost all meaning. And yet it is a word that still haunts governments and policy makers and strategists. And it seems uncomfortably true that it is hope for some sort of “victory” — South Vietnam’s continued control by those now in Saigon — that motivates this new escalation of the American part of Indochina’s war.But victory in Indochina is not the will of the American people. This nation has long since perceived the futility of this war . . . There is only one way out. It includes pilots and bombardiers and airborne electronics technicians as well as infantrymen. If Saigon cannot survive without them, the sooner that is acknowledged the better.

The bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong by the United States is wrong. It is a commitment to a deeper involvement in the Indo-China war long after the necessity for ending the American commitment had become evident. It is an admission of the failure of the Vietnamization program without an acceptance of what that means.We are not impressed with the rationalization of the decision . . .It is not the first time that the United States has bombed the north. Three years of bombing there did not win the war. It did not even frustrate the Tet offensive of 1968. the bombing was halted four years ago as part of a package to get peace talks under way. Now Mr. Nixon appears convinced that the resumption will somehow not only save South Vietnam on the battlefield but also blast way the impasse in the Paris peace talks . . .Mr. Nixon must be clear about this. For any ambiguity leaves the United States open to the ugly charge that American bombers are buying time because of domestic political considerations, because it just might not be convenient for some Americans to wind down the war all the way until a President is elected in November.

If the President of the United States wants to build a flood control project in Missouri or deepen Los Angeles harbor, he must obtain specific authority from Congress. But as the Vietnam conflict so tragically demonstrates, he can send American soldiers into a long, bloody and costly war on his own.This is not satisfactory and it is good that the U.S. Senate has moved to do something about it . . .In dealing with warmaking, as in dealing with just about everything else, the framers of the Constitution sought to provide a balance of powers. The president was made commander-in-chief, but the power to declare war was reserved to Congress.The fact is, though, that declarations of war have gone out of style. In the event of an actual nuclear exchange, there is no time for such niceties. And where limited conflicts are concerned, formal declarations of war can be not only inconvenient but dangerous.In the case of Vietnam, for example, formal declaration of war would have frozen this country into a cold war posture with Russia and China, and might have increased the chances of a perilous big-power confrontation.The trouble is, however, that Presidents have fallen into the habit of citing their powers as commander-in-chief to justify just about anything they want to do. A redressing of the balance is needed.

The President, once again asking for public support of his Vietnam policy, asserts that this is the “final challenge.” But the melancholy truth emerges from his address to the nation. There is no certainty that it is final at all. On the contrary.He continues to withdraw troops, but he cuts the rate to less than half the current rate and sets no date for further cuts. He sets no time limit on the use of American air and naval power, and in fact he talks as if he may want to use them for a long time to come . . .There is, though, one new measure of hope. That is the possibility, however dim, of securing peace through negotiations . . . [I]t is hard to see how either side can talk seriously until the outcome of the current Communist offensive in Vietnam is clear.About that offensive American officials are remarkably sanguine. Vietnamization is declared a success . . . If you believe, as the President does, that what he defines as American failure in Vietnam “Would amount to a renunciation of our morality, an abdication of leadership among nations, and an invitation for the mighty to prey upon the weak all around the world,” then you would have to commit yourself, as he seems to have, to indefinite support of the South Vietnamese government.But there is another view, to which we subscribe. That view sees morality in acknowledging and rectifying the mistake of intervention. That view sees resuming leadership among nations by returning to a rational assessment of the national interest. That view recognizes the limits of power.

President Nixon has called for American unity in support of the extraordinary and dangerous steps he has taken in blockading North Vietnam, but has discouraged that unity by failing to share with the American people crucial information and by affirming his position in terms that seem contradictory . . .We have long advocated withdrawal of American forces, all of them, as the only way to end the horror of Vietnam. If the President is now ready for that kind of bold withdrawal we cannot conceal our bewilderment at the extremity of his aggressive action in imposing a blockade, in jeopardizing so much that is in the national interest for something that is not. The nation cannot unite when it does not know where the President is leading it.

Not since the Civil War have the passions of the American people been so aroused and so divided as they have been by Vietnam; and now the North Vietnamese offensive and the counter-action by President Nixon have transformed the war to a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.Events are unpredictable with unpredictable risks. Apprehension rises steadily and from apprehension flows anger. Demonstrators, mostly students, inevitably take to the streets; some violence predictably occurs . . .The public debate about the blockade seems, fortunately, to be not yet quite so acerbic as it has been in recent years, but it is getting ugly . . .Well, we are all Americans; we are all patriots; and it is our country we are all so passionately concerned about . . . It must not be forgotten that honorable men can disagree and will disagree — will, on this war, disagree sharply.But this is a situation, if there ever was, for responsible Americans, in government and out, to act responsibly, to think responsibly. This is a time when Americans, however they feel about the war, should not call into question the motives of their fellow Americans, from demonstrator to President.

President Nixon has announced another reduction in American forces in Vietnam. Hardly any ground combat forces are left. The American involvement is now largely in providing the most extensive air support in military history, a shift which has enabled the United States to sow more death and destruction than ever before at a minimal price in American casualties.In the 42 months since he moved into the White House, Mr. Nixon has cut American forces in Vietnam by 93%. He will keep his target of no more than 49,000 men on July 1 and will cut another 10,000 in the succeeding two months. But he is continuing to build American forces elsewhere in Southeast Asia. There are now more than 85,000 in Thailand and the Seventh Fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin, compared with 47,000 at the time the North Vietnamese launched their invasion at the end of March . . .Each day brings new evidence that the North Vietnamese invasion has been blunted, if not defeated . . .America’s air action has been the key to frustrating the invasion . . .In the first five months of this year, Americans have dropped on Southeast Asia the explosive equivalent of 20 of the nuclear bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

No American can feel easy about the terror of one sort or another that may very well follow American withdrawal. And yet it is a measure of the whole tragedy that no American President will or can be deterred from the withdrawal because of this.It is clear that the United States cannot control the killing that the Vietnamese themselves do to each other. It must, however, use every power at its disposal to encourage moderation, to discourage a spread of mass executions. And the United States can control the killing done by its own soldiers and its own instruments of war.There is urgent need for an explanation from Mr. Nixon to justify his continuation of the extraordinary aerial bombardment of North Vietnam. The blockade and the bombing of North Vietnam have attained the “sole purpose” announced by the President on May 8, and yet they continue. And we are not told why.Most Americans stopped long ago believing that the nation could shoot out a peace in Indochina. If the President knows otherwise, he should explain.

Americans have been reassured that the back of the North Vietnamese offensive has been broken. But the second most active day of air operations against North Vietnam this year was Sunday. Deactivation of an American air unit in South Vietnam has been postponed. The level of American forces in Thailand and off the Vietnamese coast in the Gulf of Tonkin is 84,000, unchanged for three months, almost double the number when the offensive began at the end of March.By actions, if not words, the American people have learned how little their billions have bought. South Vietnamese forces are helpless without enormous American air, sea and logistical support, even against an enemy that has no planes, no helicopters in action in South Vietnam. And now, six months after the latest Communist offensive brought the latest disillusionment, the American people are learning that only the cruelest wholesale bombing of North Vietnam — in fact, of all four nations of Indochina — will sustain the Saigon government.Or are we missing the point? There is that nagging suspicion that Hanoi, after talking to Henry Kissinger, knows more than do the American people, after listening to President Nixon . . .But what will be left among the craters to be negotiated? And what will be left of the credibility of this nation, which so absurdly perceives its priorities, so wantonly unleashes its power?

President Nixon has reduced the American military forces in Vietnam from almost 600,000 in the first months of his Presidency to 25,200. The number now is frozen pending clarification . . . But the remaining troops are organized for withdrawal on a 57-day schedule . . .At the same time, the United States is quietly and slowly building up its civilian forces in South Vietnam . . .There is no official explanation because, officially, there is only a denial of such a buildup. But it is clear from some of the categories being recruited that the new band of Americans . . . will be doing in the future some of the things that Americans in uniform are doing now . . .To put it bluntly, there is evidence that the American government has no intention of ending American involvement in Indochina . . .If this is the intention, it is time for Mr. Nixon to be very clear about it. It must be explained. It must be debated. The ultimate decision must represent the will of Congress, a national consensus.[Americans] want to get out not just because they are weary of the war, not just because they now recognize the madness of the war. They want to get out because they now know that this is not and never was their business. It is not for the Americans, it is for the Vietnamese to decide the future of Vietnam — the Vietnamese by themselves, not through the mask of a new and clandestine army of Americans.

If there is anything new in the extension of American bombing in Vietnam, it is the desperation that President Nixon has revealed . . .The world shares the bitter disappointment of the impasse in the Paris negotiations. But the reversion to brutality is not leadership to peace. It is evasion of reality.If charades are what the White House fears, how in conscience can this absurdity be prolonged, and at such cruel cost in lives.