Word: walzer
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MICHAEL L. WALZER, associate professor of Government: I want to say first that we all welcome the bombing pause, if that's what it is, and hope, in the absence of all information, for the best. But many of us, I'm afraid, don't expect the best, and doubt the sincerity of the United State's moves towards negotiations. Because the war aims of our government seem to us incompatible with any genuine political settlement, we are afraid of another so-called peace offensive, like that of a year ago. And so I want to ask you some questions...
...WALZER: But there is a civil war going on. Whatever else is going on, there is civil war. At least on one side most of the fighters are Vietnamese, and I wonder if your proposals don't amount to a laying down of arms by the Viet Cong. I have never heard the U.S. propose a laying down of arms by the army of the government of South Vietnam. Now the one thing that could rejuvenate and reinvigorate the army of South Vietnam is if the Viet Cong lay down their arms. I don't see how any guarantees after...
...WALZER: I would just remind you that the American civil war ended by a military victory of the North...
...WALZER: Let me suggest then that one way of ending the war, or at any rate of moving toward an end of the war, is to propose a coalition, an interim government in which the Viet Cong would be represented at the cabinet level. In the face of a government of that sort in which they participated they could conceivably submit to being disarmed. But in the face of the present government or any government formed on the basis of arrangements presently being made in Saigon, it seems to me to be not entirely in good faith...
...WALZER: I want to make this one brief point and then my time will be up for now. After your speech at the U.N. on the 22nd of September last year in which you proposed this withdrawal of all foreign troops, about a month later the defense department issued a statement in a letter to a Congressman dated October 24, 1966, in which they said that your speech "includes the intent that the Viet Cong military units would also be deactivated in any proposed withdrawal of external forces from North Vietnam," and I submit once again that that means...