The fourth man who has been arrested, Au Truong Thanh, a former finance minister in the government of Premiere Diem, a former finance minister again in the civilian government of Dr. Quaht, probably the single most respected non-government civilian leader in the country, a man who was barred from running for the presidency probably because of the fear that he would have been elected.

What seems to be happening is what Professor Galbraith predicted. The government of President Thieu and Marshall Ky is very near colapse. What they are doing is rounding up and threatening all the possible forces who can oppose them. They're making sure if they can that there will be no possible civilian government to follow them.

Now the embassy supposedly, according to the papers, has shown some disturbance. But let's be absolutely blunt and clear. The American forces in Vietnam can do what they want to do. And when they're interested enough in getting something done they get it done. If these men remain in prison or are shot, it's with the complicity of American forces.

What is the outlook now in South Vietnam?

A few weeks ago I would have said that was real hope that a civilian leadership could be brought into power and could reach a modus operandi with the National Liberation Front; that they could set upadministrative procedures whereby the country could be shared until such time as a full South Vietnam government could be elected.

In light of the recent attacks and in light of the severity and the inhumanity of the response of the South Vietnamese government and the United States--of calling in bombing attacks on their own cities and their own civilian population--in light of this, I'm not sure it is any longer a viable solution.

Perhaps the Viet Cong spokesman in Cambodia was right and the U.S. must be handed a stunning military defeat. Then I become terribly frightened as to what our response will be. Here is where the people in Saigon began wondering: If Khe Sanh falls, if another city or two is badly struck, if there are civilian uprisings--which I would not be surprised to see in the next few months because of what we are doing to defend the cities now--if this did happen, what would the response of the United States be? If Thieu and Ky fall, as Professor Galbraith suggests, what can we do?

I'm terribly afraid, as some of our Vietnamese friends over there were afraid, that we'll resort to even the greater fire power that we have. We'll lay rubble to everything, including perhaps using nuclear weapons. It's in this context that people get very worried. They have no confidence at all in restraint on the part of the United States.

We could be driven out by a Viet Cong victory, and I'm not sure that America would ever face that without going to all-out nuclear war. The only other thing you can hope for is that somehow the present American government is brought down, and that a government be brought into power which will arrange for America's withdrawal.

At this stage the one real answer is for the United States to recognize that the war it has tried to fight has been lost. It is neither winning militarily nor is it coming anywhere close to winning the hearts and minds of the people of Vietnam. Facing this, America has to be tough enough to withdraw from Vietnam as speedily as possible, leaving behind the civilian population of that country to work out their own destiny