Evening star., 1961-12-11
The Menace in Asia

neWS-conference remarks on the subject,
the State Departments documented ac-
count Of Red guerrilla operations in
South Wet Nam constitutes damning
indictment of North Wet Mans Com
muniSt regime and of its masters in
Moscow and Peiping.
More than that, this altogether i'm
preSSive white paper" adds up to
strong and timely warning that the
Reds bad faith and marauding activities
must be regarded as "clear and present
danger" to the whole of free Asia, in
cluding India and Indonesia, whose
'neutralism" often seems deliberately
designed to help the liberty destroying
Sino-Soviet bloc achieve global domina-
tion.
In any case, what Mr.. Rusk and his
department have presented to the Ma
ton and the world is plain, shocking
and interchangeable evidence of per-
Sistent and ever-increaSing Communist
violation of the 1854 Geneva agreements
that partitioned former French Indo-
China into Laos, Cambodia, and North
and South Wet Nam. What the evidence
makes clear is that the North Wet
Namese tyranny in Hanoi, at the
instigation and with the support of the
Moscow-Peiping Axis, has greatly in
tensified It's drive to take over South
Wet Man, And why? The answer is
this: Because the latter has made
such great progress, economically and
otherwise, that the Reds cannot hope to
become masters of it through peaceful
persuasion or relatively non-violent sub
version.
Accordingly, with the Sino-Soviet
bloc calling the signals, Hanoi's Wet
Cong Communist guerrillas, with the
help of a corridor through Laos and the
support of Russian airlift, have stepped
up their activities to such an extent as
to amount virtually to full-scale war
fare. AS for the nature of certain aspects
OF that warfare, the State Departments
white paper" grimly declares as follows:
Assassination, often after the most brutal
torture. is favored Wet Cong tactic. Govern
ment officials. school-teachers, even wives
and children have been the victims. Literally
hundreds of village chiefs have been murdered
in order to E. inStill fear in the populace
The list of atrocities is long. E. =. . They make
gruesome reading even for a generation that
is jaded with accounts of mans in
humanity -.
For the people of South Wet Nam, the
meaning Of Communist victory is obvious
For Wet Mans neighbors the conse-
quenceS would be far-reaching. . The
present balance Of forces between independent
and Communist states in Asia would be tipped
perllously II Wet Nam, Cambodia and Laos
fell under Communist domination. What then
would be the prospects for Thaland and
Burma, for Pakistan and India, for Malaga
and 1ndoneSia?
The question answers itself. As both
Mr.. RuSk and the white paper" have
emphasized, the free nations of Asia, and
not just the Western powers, have COM
pelling reasons to join the United States
in extending whatever help they can to
South Wet Nam as it struggles to main
tain its independence Apparently the
aid that is needed calls not for the dis
patch of combat troops, but for political,
economic and technical support on a
markedly expanded scale.
Given that, or so our own Govern
ment has intimated, then the Red tide
in that part of the world can be held in
check, If not actually rolled back. One
can only hope that this is not wishful
view Of what is obviously rather bleak
and dangerous situation.