The United States must also give some indication that, if it ever does get to the negotiations table, it will be a sincere bargainer. And the first step here is to make it clear that the National Liberation Front would be accepted as a major bargaining agent. The constant refusal to do so seems based only on the rhetoric of our own inflexible position -- the rhetoric that insists that this is simply and purely an "aggressive" war from the North.

Whither Now?

Where this inflexible policy leads is grimly clear: Prolonged fighting -- how long no one knows. More intense fighting. More destruction of the villages and the social structure of South and North Vietnam. More anger and frustration at home. Less attention to domestic problems, and a siphoning of funds away from these problems.

And for what? No one has yet defined what victory in South Vietnam really means. If the President is bound to play a game of persistence with the Viet Cong -- a "we can fight longer than you can" policy -- he may find that the enemy is simply better prepared for this sort of tact than the United States. After all, the Viet Cong has been fighting, in one form of another, for almost two decades.

Only Lyndon Johnson can change the direction of U.S. policy. He can alter it from one that stresses military means to one that emphasizes diplomacy -- from one that relies on destruction to one that does not demand the "defeat" of the Viet Cong before negotiations. This policy, undertaken systematically, balances both foreign and domestic considerations; it can be made persuasive to both Americans and North Vietnamese.

The alternative is extended fighting. Peace in Vietnam is not a prize someone will simply give the President. If he seriously wants it, he will have to make a commitment to get it.