Peter Jenkins, Journalist, Guardian Bernard Levin, Journalist. London Times, Newsweek Peter Jay, Economics Editor

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London Times Subj ect: "AMERICAN PRESTIGE IN EUROPE?" SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION SECA PRESENTS ® FIRinG Line HOST: WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR. Guests: Peter Jenkins, journalist, Guardian Bernard Levin, journalist, London Times, Newsweek Peter Jay, economics editor, London Times Subject: "AMERICAN PRESTIGE IN EUROPE?" The FIR ING LI NE television series is a production of the Southern Educational Communications Association, 928 Woodrow St., P.O. Box 5966, Columbia, S.C., 29250 and is transmitted through the facilities of the Public Broadcasting Service. Production of these programs is made possible through a grant from the Corporation for PubIic Broadcasting. FIR ING LI NE can be seen and heard each FIRING LINE is produced and directed by WARREN STEIBEL week through public television and radio stations throughout the country. Check your local newspapers for channel and time in your area. This is a transcript of the FIRING LINE program taped in London on April 28, 1975, and originally telecast on PBS on May 4, 1975. SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION © Board of Trustees of the L land Stanford Jr. University. MR. BUCKLEY: In Europe as, of course, elsewhere much of the talk is of the image of the United States after the collapse of our policy in Indochina. There are, of course, other things crowding the minds of Englishmen, for instance, their own problems, mostly unrelated to the loss of South Vietnamese independence. But America's word is important, not only because it is Amer ica's word but because, for a generation, America has provided the umbrella under the protection of which sovereign European nations have felt free to act wisely or foolishly without, at any rate, risking the conclusive retaliation against foolishness which only superpowers are in a position to inflict. Accordingly, the standing of America is a voluble concern these days, occu pying significant sections of all the major newspapers in Europe. On the whole, journalists are more interesting than politicians on such subjects as this as on most others. We have here a dense collection of talent. Peter Jay is the economics editor of the Times. He is a Labourite, very well known to British television audiences as an anchorman of a highly successful series. He was educated at Winchester College and Christ Church, Oxford, where he achieved first-class honors and became president of the Oxford Union. Peter Jenkins, who was educated at Culford and Cambridge, is a tough minded and tough-talking critic of American foreign policy, especially under Mr. Kissinger, who has written for the Guardian for 15 years, perhaps the premier liberal English daily, and served as Washington correspondent during 1972 and 1973, and is back now in London calling for Mr. Kissinger's resigna tion. Bernard Levin, who appeared on this program a year ago, is generally regarded as among the most spectacular polemicists in England, which one would not have projected from his background as a theater and music critic. He is a graduate of London University and a regular columnist for the London Times and Newsweek, whose work is often reprinted in the United States. He has a very low threshhold of impatience for cant of any sort, particularly if it is squishy-soft, to quote a felicitous phrase, on communism. I should like to begin by asking Mr. Jenkins: Are there any obvious 1975 SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL parallels between what we did to South Vietnam just now, and what you all © did to Poland a generation ago? COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION MR. JENKINS: No, I don't think there are. I think what you have just done to South Vietnam is the sad, delayed outcome of the policy which began with good intention, a policy which I am prepared to say-- MR. BUCKLEY: So far there is a parallel then? Your policies toward Poland began with good intention. MR. JENKINS: Yes, but our policies--Which aspect of our policies toward Po land are you talking about? MR. BUCKLEY: The betrayal of it. MR. JENKINS: The betrayal of Poland ... MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. MR. JENKINS: The betrayal of Poland how and when? MR. BUCKLEY: By failure to achieve that freedom and sovereignty for Poland which was the proximate cause of your going to war. MR. JENKINS: Oh, I see. But we, the British, alone betrayed Poland after the war. I MR. BUCKLEY: Oh, no, no, we had a good hand in it, yes. We were very pro Br1tish. MR. JENKINS: Yes. You seemed as if you were pinning it on us because, I mean, here is the first and very important difference, that Poland, after the war, and the other countries of eastern Europe were the victim of policies which were being pursued jointly among allies. Vietnam was the victim of a policy which was being pursued with some allies but not jointly by the Western all ies. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, that's not completely true. New Zealand had troops there, Australia had troops there. We had your support in both parties. MR. JENKINS: Well, I said with some. © Board of Trustees of the L Iland Stanford Jr. University. MR. BUCKLEY: With the exception of France, I should think it was a collective saying. endeavor even as South Korea was, though we were unquestionably the leaders of MR. JENKINS: Well, I'll stick by my second statement. that policy, but it does seem to me that in 1945 it was generally assume that M~. BUCKL~Y: Ok~y, okay. So, therefore, tracing your progress or the evo1u England was the spokesman historically and in virtue of its precedent and tlon, let s put lt that way, of your ~os~tion, do I understand you to say that sort of ex officio interest for Polish independence. Now, something along the when you.conc1~ded that ~he cost of wlnnlng the war was too high, you assumed way happened and England didn't sort of relapse into historical ob1iquy. Will that an lntel1lgent forelgn policy in the United States would correspond with we? the evolution of that-- MR. JENKINS: No, I don't think so at all, because what I was going on to say MR. JENKINS: No, I wouldn't accept that characterization because I think that to you was that I'm quite willing to admit that until, I suppose, about 1967, af~er ~he elec~ion of 1968--President Nixon and Dr. Henry Kissinger--that their I, on the whoJe, supported United States policy in South Vietnam. It seemed obJectl~e was In.some w~y to end the war, was to disengage, and my criticisms to me that, at least from 1968 onwards, that policy had become insupportable of Amerlcan forelgn P011CY from that point on are concerned with what I would if only because the people of the United States were not going to support it. contend was the unnecessary prolongation of the agony, the unnecessary killing MR. BUCKLEY: How did you get those figures, by the way? of hundreds upon thousands of people, for what? For what was proclaimed at MR. JENKINS: Those years? the time as peace with honor, and what we now all see not to have been either MR. BUCKLEY: No, no. What is it--I noticed you said in a very impressive peace or very honorable. column that you wrote that the American people turned against our policies ~R. BUCKLE:: Co~rect, but you yourself said in that ringing denunciation and in Vietnam in 1967. I'm a minor student of the subject, and I don't know ln your relteratlon of the important way stations on the way to catastrophe what figures you're referring to. that as late as 1969, when Mr. Nixon declared Vietnamization, on over to the MR. JENKINS: It began to fall apart, didn't it, in 1968; the peace movement 27th of Janua~y, 1973, he.said, "We have achieved it." So your brief, it got very big-- seems to me, lS over the lnterna1 betrayal of South Vietnam rather than over MR. BUCKLEY: That's different from saying that the American people rejected any objective prosecution of the war. it. The American people wholeheartedly voted for Nixon in 1968 and whole MR. JENKINS: No, first of all, I wouldn't accept your word catastrophe. heartedly backed Humphrey against McCarthy in 1968, when Humphrey firmly said I mean, catastrophe for whom? Not-- that he was not in favor of pulling out of South Vietnam unless we had first MR. BUCKLEY: For the South Vietnamese. of all guaranteed its independence. MR: JENKINS: Oh,.catastrophe for the Vietnamese people, certainly; not, I MR. JENKINS: Your President Johnson took the view that he would not be thlnk, for the Unlted States. But, no, the Vietnamization was the delusion reelected in 1968 over Vietnam; his judgment at that time of a political runn~ng throughou~ this affair; but, certainly, the Paris accords represented, situation appeared to be that ·pub1ic support had been withdrawn to the point I thlnk, the pu11lng of the rug from under the South Vietnamese regime from that he was not prepared to seek reelection.

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