Can you make any kind of estimate of how many people have died in Southeast Asia?

Well over a million at least. How can you even count the casualties? I went to a refugee camp in April and counted about 400 people. A Dispatch correspondent went back in June, and in those months two months ten people had died of malnutrition and disease.

They're not even counted as war casualties. But they had all been wealthy peasants in the Plain of Jars.

If the U.S. withdrew very soon, what kind of economy would be possible in South Vietnam?

Well, I suppose they have some sort of chance. In North Korea, for example, which was incredibly devastated- and which incidentally didn't get a lot of aid from China and the Soviet Union, they've paid off all aid they got- there isn't a lot of information, but it seems that there was a very substantial and very successful economic reconstruction in a very short period.

Won't it make a difference that we are using so many more powerful chemical weapons in Vietnam?

That's really unknown. Nobody knows what the effect of the chemical warfare will be in the long run. I guess you know the statistics. The area of heavy defoliation is now about 8000 square miles. That's about the size of Massachusetts. Nobody really knows what the effect will be.

Professor Meselson at Harvard is working on a study of this now.

What the effects on population may be is unclear. The chemical warfare does appear to have serious genetic effects. One thing that is clear is that the destruction of forests may be irreversible.

The mangrove forests are valuable lumber and the areas where they have been destroyed have been taken over by bamboo which is very hard to get rid of and useless.

But it may be much more severe. There's this problem of laterization- the turning of the soil into a sort of brick-like substance. I don't know what Meselson discovered- he couldn't do much work on the ground really because they can't land in these places, it's dangerous.

Do they have no more conscience than it appears?

There are some people who may be concerned about the real issues- I assume McGovern or Goodell or Hatfield. But as far as I can see the major response seems to be that it was a blunder and we ought to fix it up as best as possible and that's the whole issue.

In fact most of the commentators, even the liberal commentators on the subject say quite clearly that if the United States were to win they will support it. Take somebody like Arthur Schlesinger. He's been absolutely explicit. He says, if, contrary to my judgment, the government proves to have been successful, then we will all be applauding the wisdom an statesmanship of the government. And I don't think that statement is in any sense outlandish. I think it does reflect the almost automatic opinion of liberal America on the subject. Which isn't terribly surprising. The Germans were perfectly civilized people. Would they have opposed the war if they had won?

Then how does it come about that a large part of the country understands that these people are nuts?