SOVIET UNION STEPS UP OFFENSIVE IN VIETNAM

"Hanoi today received with rejoicing the news from Moscow of more massive, free military aid for North Vietnam. It has stiffened Hanoi's will to prosecute the war..... The arms agreement, made in Moscow yesterday, gives this detailed description of Russian aid: Planes, anti-aircraft and rocket equipment, and also complete auxiliary equipment, means of transport, oil products, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, foodstuffs, chemical fertilisers, medicines, and other materials necessary for further increase of the defensive capacity and for the development of the North Vietnamese national economy.... It is known that the agreement includes more SAM ground-to-air missiles and MiG-21 fighters." - The Australian, September 25.

In the face of the latest news that it is the "moderate" Soviet leaders who are the principal accessories to Communist crime in Vietnam it will be instructive to note how the apologists for the Soviet Union react in Washington - and Canberra.
Press reports on September 25 stated that the American State Department reacted to the news of continued massive Soviet military aid for North Vietnam by saying that it "regretted" that Russia had not helped with a peace settlement with Hanoi. The Australian reported,
"In Canberra, Australian Government officials echoed the State Department announcement. One official said the allies had been hoping for positive Russian steps to get the North Vietnamese to negotiate peace. This hope had been dashed...

It is a frightening truth that in face of all the evidence to the contrary, there are policy makers in Western countries who persist in believing that the policy makers in Moscow have given up their drive for world conquest. So far from "mellowing", the Soviet leaders have made it crystal clear that they are just as militant as the Peking Communists.

In his speech at the signing of the latest Soviet-North Vietnamese agreement, the Soviet Premier, Mr. Kosygin, pledged continued Soviet support for North Vietnam "until total victory." Mr. Kosygin brushed aside all the recent talk about a peace settlement, stating that the only possible path to peace was for the United States to stop the bombing of North Vietnam.
"Sooner or later the United States will have to realise this," said Mr. Kosygin, who then went on to make the significant point that "The war is leading to the increasing international isolation of the US."
And to drive home the point being made by Mr. Kosygin, at the same time in the U.S.A. the Soviet Foreign Minister Mr. Gromyko, rejected American proposals for reconvening the Geneva Conference to discuss ways to end the war.

Another significant statement by Soviet Premier Kosygin was that "The mighty forces of the socialist camp which support Vietnamese communists will continue to support it until total victory... All the socialist countries are contributing aid."

This is true. A month ago North Vietnam signed an agreement with Red China similar to the one signed with the Soviet. Prior to the Soviet agreement, the North Vietnamese foreign aid negotiator Le Than Nghi had signed a military aid agreement in Bucharest with Rumania, and a special co-operation agreement with Cuba in Havana.
In spite of "splits" and differences inside the Communist Empire, there is complete unity on the necessity of inflicting a major psychological defeat on the Americans and their allies in Vietnam. There is no such unity amongst the Western nations, who are criticising one another for supplying vital economic aid to different parts of the Communist Empire while at the same time vigorously competing to increase the aid. And on top of all this the American policy makers make no real effort to prevent the Communist Empire from flooding economic and military aid into Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese Port of Haiphong still remains open to Soviet and other shipping, which brings the Viet Cong the support it requires to continue the war. There is a dreadful day of reckoning not so far ahead unless the truth is faced that the main enemy in Vietnam is the Soviet Union and Red China, and that appropriate methods have to be taken to deal with them firmly.

"PEACE" CAMPAIGN INTENSIFIED

"A new body with the objective the 'cessation of Australian involvement in Vietnam and the working towards cessation of general hostilities there' has been formed in Adelaide. Its executive includes Professor B. Medlin, Professor D. Healy, Dr. N. Blewett, Dr. Harcourt, Sylvia Duckhouse, Alexander Fricker and Mr. L.S. Piddington.... Its first activity was a public meeting at the Australian Hall on August 30 with a visiting United States speaker." - The Communist Weekly, Tribune, September 20.

The formation of yet another "peace" group is another manifestation of the intensified campaign to confuse Australian public opinion on the Vietnam issue and so weaken the national will. A major feature of the "peace" campaign on Vietnam is the growing co-operation between American and Australian opponents of the military stand in Vietnam. The "peace" campaigners believe that any success they have in one country can then be exploited to assist the campaign in the other country. For example, a substantial swing to the Australian Labor Party at the coming Senate Elections would be used in the U.S.A. to convince the Americans that their major ally was turning against them.

Influencing the Senate Elections is one of the major objectives of the recent "peace" campaigners visiting Australia. One of the most important of these has been Professor Jonathan Mirsky, co-director of the East Asian Language and Area Centre, Dartmouth, New Hampshire, U.S.A. The Communist Tribune of September 20 featured Professor Mirsky's views on South Vietnam, which he recently visited during the South Vietnamese Elections.

Reporting an address Professor Mirsky gave to a meeting of 500 people in the Wesley Centre, Pitt Street, Sydney, the Tribune states that "Professor Mirsky said that he had a warning for nations which wanted to go all the way with the U.S.A. American actions would be determined by political expediency, not by moral considerations or a desire to stop communism.
The latest public opinion poll showed 52 per cent for a US withdrawal from Vietnam. America, said Professor Mirsky, could not be beaten but might give up. The Vietnamese, on the other hand neither could be beaten, nor would they give up. The Professor's "line" obviously is to try to help persuade Australians that the time has come for them to start having doubts about American policy.

He is, of course, quite right when he says that American public opinion will determine what happens in Vietnam. But he has not explained how American public opinion, like Australian public opinion, has been confused and frustrated by the continued no-win policy in Vietnam, and the constant propaganda offensive by the Communists, their dupes, and many sincere but wishful and unrealistic people.

It is complete nonsense for Professor Mirsky to claim that the Viet Cong could not be beaten. If the strongest single military power of the West, assisted by Australians, New Zealanders and South Koreans, cannot defeat the Viet Cong and their backers, then the only conclusion is that the West lacks the will and the ability to defeat a major Communist challenge. And this is the very conclusion the Communists are working to brainwash the peoples of the non-Communist world to accept.

Once this conclusion is accepted, then it becomes progressively easier to persuade the peoples of the non-Communist nations that it is impossible to resist the Communist offensive anywhere and that every effort should be made to make the best terms possible - and to live comfortably without any further resistance.

The real problem concerning Vietnam is not to be found in the paddy fields and the jungles of Vietnam, but back in America, Australia and New Zealand. The main battle is being fought in the schools, the Universities, through the news media, in the Churches. Unless this battle is fought, and won, not only will Vietnam be lost but also, with it will be lost more of the declining will to resist in the West.

COMMUNISTS GAINING IN FRANCE

"Communist candidates scored gains while the Gaullists barely held their ground in the French local elections yesterday... The returns for more than 1000 of the 1772 seats at stake in the local councils showed that the communists improved their position at the expense of conservative candidates, including the Gaullists." - The Australian, September 26.

A recent survey published and circulated in France by a group of anonymous French army officers claimed that as a result of President de Gaulle's policies, French army morale was at an all-time low. Evidence was also given of the pitifully weak state of all the French armed services. It is against this background that the steady progress of the Communists in France must be considered.

Ever since he returned to power after betraying the very French officers in Algeria who thought that he would ensure that the Communist-inspired terrorists did not win in Algeria, President de Gaulle has systematically liquidated all conservative leadership within the French armed services, and attempted to neutralise all conservatives political groups. The result of de Gaulle's policies will be a great vacuum in France when the President dies. There is only one major organised political force left to fill that vacuum: the Communists.

A thought provoking question is why does Fabian Socialist Harold Wilson, so desperately seek to join a European Economic Community in which one of the major members could be quietly submerged under the red tide of Communism. Only the superficial will reply by asking what about de Gaulle's opposition to the United Kingdom joining the E.E.C. The truth is President de Gaulle is not opposed to the United Kingdom joining. He simply insists that the British must capitulate completely to his demands.
Fortunately for the British, and for the rest of the world, Mr. Harold Wilson is finding it increasingly difficult to meet the de Gaulle demands for a complete surrender.

If Britain were to capitulate completely, and sever all her international alliances, she might well go down with France if the Communists achieve their objective after de Gaulle disappears. Every effort should be made by peoples of the English-speaking world to encourage the British to resist the policy of surrender, which de Gaulle seeks to impose upon them.

ANOTHER AFRICAN BLOODBATH

"Scores of people of the Ibo tribe have been killed in this mid-west capital (Benin, Nigeria) since Biafran forces lost control of it to Federal Nigerian troops last week, according to inhabitants of the city. One foreigner living here estimated that Ibo deaths had run into several hundred over the past few days. Another source estimated that at least 500 had been killed." - The Age (Melbourne) September 26.

The attempt by the tribes of Biafra to practise self-determination by freeing themselves from the Nigerian Federation has demonstrated once again the basic reality of Africa tribalism, not nationalism.

The Soviet Union lost no time in exploiting the situation by flying in massive assistance to the Federal Government in Lagos. The tide turned against the Biafrans when Soviet MiGs and Czechoslovakian fighters arrived. The Nigerian Federal air force is an all-white one, recruited partly in Britain. Although there are also Russian flyers in Nigeria, it is not certain whether they are actually engaged in combat against the Biafrans. But it is a striking commentary on Mr. Harold Wilson's policies that apparently he has no objection to permitting the Soviet to establish itself in another part of Africa, and to join with them to support the Nigerian Federal Government to crush tribes who do not wish to remain in the Federation.

The growing bloodbath in Nigeria is yet a more tragic result of the premature retreat from European colonialism in Africa. Once again the Communist stand ready to gain.