WITH an almost manic abruptness, the nation seemed, as Yeats once wrote,
“all changed, changed utterly.” With the killing of four Kent State
University students by Ohio National Guardsmen last week, dissent
against the U.S. venture into Cambodia suddenly coalesced into a
nationwide student strike. Across the country 441 colleges and
universities were affected, many of them shut down entirely. Antiwar
fever, which President Richard Nixon had skillfully reduced to a
tolerable level last fall, surged upward again to a point unequaled
since Lyndon Johnson was driven from the White House. The military
advantage to be gained in Cambodia seemed more and more dubious , and Nixon found that he had probably sacrificed what he
himself once claimed was crucial to achieving an acceptable settlement:
wide domestic support, or at least acquiescence, for his policies. Now
it is the opposition that has gained strength. Both the eruption of protest and the reaction to it mocked Nixon’s still
unfulfilled promise to lead the nation “forward together.” Not only
were there rending, sometimes bloody clashes between peace
demonstrators and peace officers, but a scattering of vicious brawls
set citizen against citizen as well. Morale Destroyed Not long ago, the Administration was considered an artful, managerial
mechanism, oiled with serenity, unanimity and self-confidence. Now it
showed symptoms of severe internal distress. Interior Secretary Walter
Hickel’s letter of criticism to the President and
the abrupt resignation of two young Administration staffers were among
the most tangible signs of strain.
There were also hints of basic disagreement in the Cabinet over the
Cambodian decision—hints that Nixon declined to deny at a hastily
called press conference.
On Capitol Hill dissension increased daily. The President had carefully calculated the diplomatic and military
hazards of invading the Cambodian sanctuaries. But the more important
risk involved the response at home—and in that crucial area he has
proved to be dangerously wrong. Nixon, to be sure, could not have
foreseen the Kent State shootings. But he was sadly slow in recognizing their impact. After the four
students were gunned down, he found no reason to censure the
Guardsmen. All he could bring himself to say was: “When dissent turns
to violence, it invites tragedy.” That much was obvious. It seemed
equally clear that even if the Cambodian expedition should accomplish
more than now appears likely, it has already destroyed far more
American resources of morale and cohesion than any North Vietnamese
supplies could be worth. Conciliation
