NICK THIMMESCH
Eye on the Presidency

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MC CARTHY URGES MILITARY SOLUTION -- IN PARIS

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY

MAY 19

BY NICK THIMMESCH

(C) 1970, Newsday, Inc.

Washington -- The Cambodian ruckus and the Kent State tragedy smoked out that apostle of common sense mysticism, Eugene J. McCarthy. His blue and white peace flowers are a bit faded, but his wit is intact, as he again speaks out on "the war," a term getting so old that it almost belongs in the dictionary by itself.

"I wouldn't say Nixon invaded Cambodia," McCarthy told me in an interview. "He just moved the violence sideways out of Vietnam. Cambodia looks worse than it is. What's really wrong is the notion that extending a military action helps end the war.

"There is no aim in what he is doing, because there is no clear policy. We have had a succession of screwy guys like Kissinger (the President's national security advisor) who think that the nuclear balance and whether Henry Ford puts a truck factory in Russia are all related to the war. Dulles, Rusk and Rostow thought that way.

"Kissinger makes me think of the biblical line that not a sparrow falls without the knowledge of the Father. It says, 'But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.' Only a genius like Kissinger thinks that everything in the world is numbered that way, and if he sees you lose one

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MAY 19

"The way to do it by negotiation. Johnson or Nixon didn't send our people to negotiate in Paris. Johnson and Rusk sent them to get the North Vietnamese to surrender.

"There must be a military settlement in Paris. We'd be better off if we had a purely military team there. The military wants out of Vietnam.

"Eisenhower went to Korea in 1953 to negotiate a settlement, not plan new military moves. Harry Truman said that if he had done that, he would have been impeached. But Ike did it. He got us out because he had a clear policy."

McCarthy, the guru from Minnesota's Main Street, is partly right. The protestors and liberals are blind to the truth that American generals don't like the war at all. It discredits their profession and a good soldier hates needless killing as much as the most whining dove. Many military men vowed "never again" after the Korean mess. They agonized over the bloodshed of Old Baldy, Pork Chop Hill and Heartbreak Ridge.

It's also true that American military dominated the Korean armistice talks which dragged on as history's longest --- two years and 17 days (the Paris Peace Talks are nearing the Korean record). And Eisenhower rammed home the truce over the screaming objections of South Korea's President Syngman Rhee.

But there is good reason that our bogged down "U.S. Delegation to Paris Meetings on Vietnam" has been headed by civilian negotiators (presidentially appointed). In Korea, both sides were interested in a cease-fire in the conventional war, a line to be agreed on, and prisoners exchanged. In Paris, the North Vietnamese voice no such interests,

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JORDANIAN LAMENT: "OUR GUTS ARE HANGING DOWN"

FOR RELEASE SATURDAY/SUNDAY

SEPTEMBER 26/27

BY NICK THIMMESCH

(C) 1970, Newsday, Inc.

WASHINGTON--At Bailey's Crossroads Shopping Center in nearby Virginia there's an eatery named Steak in a Sack which advertises "Arabian Food" where Jordanians hang out and commiserate over their poor, beleaguered, and now war-torn, homeland.

The other night I drank coffee there with an official of the Embassy of Jordan who just had a bad, bad week at the office. He unloaded bitterly on both the U. S. and Israel, and if he reflects the feeling of the most moderate of Arab countries, I wonder how hated we are in the others. Jordan is the friendliest to the U. S., and King Hussein joined Israel in accepting our peace initiative while some other Arab leaders denounced it with characteristic vehemence.

Anyway, the Jordanian Embassy here was marched on this week by angry, radical Arab students, and that wound up with a fist-fight on the lawn. The Embassy has had no telephone contact with Amman in nearly two weeks. The telex doesn't answer. Payroll authorization (meaning paychecks) didn't come in. Newsmen rang the phone off the hook demanding a blow-by-blow description of the war, a narrative Embassy officials mostly got from the newspapers and television themselves.

"You only phone," the Jordanian official said, "when it is all bad for us. You talk of intervention. This war is a problem between our sons and our fathers. Our young admire the revolutionaries who stood up to the imperialist powers. We have a credibility gap between the Arab establishment and the guerrillas. Our king is in trouble because he is friendly to you, and your Mr. Nixon does not press the Israelis on the Palestinian refugees. The neck of Israel is in the hands of the United States.

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SEPTEMBER 26/27

"What good is American sympathy if it does no good? Kennedy and Johnson pledged to respect our sovereignty and integrity. Yet the Israelis occupy the West Bank of the Jordan where 40 per cent of our economy is located. Our balance of trade was $200 million before the 1967 war. Now it is down to $120 million. Our program to develop industry and tourism and build roads and schools was stopped after 1967.

"The Israelis are the cause of all these troubles. How can we ever associate with them when they turn the Middle East into a battleground? Right now, Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan are clinking champagne glasses together, they are so happy with our war. Thousands of our people lie dead and rot in the streets. Whoever of us wins is a loser, and the loser loses too.

"People talk about the suffering of the Jews. That was not our fault. We suffered massacres too--from the Mongols, the Turks and the Jews as well--but we don't take it out on our neighbors.

"We cannot hold big press conferences here like Golda Meir. We do not have a United Jewish Appeal. We do not have Arabs who dominate your finance and your press. There are not millions of Arabs here for your politicians to appeal to. It is a sad, sad situation. I lie awake at night, and listen to short wave radio from Cairo.

"It is getting harder for Jordan to remain friendly to the United States. Your country has so many liberal hypocrites like (Senators) McGovern, Muskie and Kennedy, doves on Vietnam, but hawks for Israel. We always suspect the Soviets. They help Arabs not for nothing. We know the Soviets are friendly to the Arabs as a marriage of convenience. These are sad days for us."

King Hussein's Jordan has been pro-American, did urge fellow Arab leaders to accept a political settlement with Israel, and is suffering an enormous erosion of authority by the Fedayeen. His country's gross national product is so small, that the per capita share is $250 (American dollars) a year. The 600,000 Palestinian refugees who live within his territory represent nearly one-third of the Jordanian population, and live on about $20 a year.

His popularity, in the face of hatred and violence by Palestinian guerrillas, survives because of his youth, (34), his moderation, and his efforts to modernize his retarded land. King Hussein's ability to escape assassination (by bullets, poison and bombs), and his bravado as a jet-fighter pilot have given him some heroic dimension.

King Hussein's plight, and Jordan's tragic position in the impossible relationship between Israel and the Arab world underlines the difficulty the Nixon administration has in pursuing an "even handed" policy in the Middle East. The U. S. must support Israel, yet Israel is fiercely hated and imperiled by the Arab nations who get increasing encouragement from the Soviets.

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SEPTEMBER 26/27

It is hard to see a way out for the United States. How do you respond to the bitterness reflected in the Jordanian official's recitation of an Arabic story. "You see a man's guts hanging down," the official told me, "and his enemy says 'these will be good to feed my cat.' That's how Israel views us today when our guts are hanging down--as something to enrich themselves by."

(C) 1970, Newsday, Inc.