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HISTORY OF UNITED STATES INVOLVEMENT IN VIETNAM 9. “yf. increased to 30 per cent by January of 1965. The disintegrating position of the Saigon administration coincided with a perceptible growth in war-weariness among the South Vietnamese. Demands . : for a peaceful settlement multiplied. In Saigon itself, as well as in such Buddhist strongholds as Hué, students and monks publicly advocated an end to the fighting and called for negotiations with Hanoi. Tt was at this juncture that the Johnson Administration, fearing that the Saigon army and government would fall apart, undertook to stiffen their morale with direct American military intervention and the bombing of North Vietnam, Increasing the direct Amer- ican military involvement, to a point where the United States has assumed the major burden of offensive military operations against the Vietcong, has undoubtedly reduced the disposition of the South Vietnamese military leaders, and other members of that minonty that has a vested interest in the present regime, to come to any negotiated settlement with the Vietcong. Tt is claimed that increased American involvement has had a similar effect on most of the civilian population, but such an effect is difficult to demonstrate because the present junta led by General Ky has out- lawed as traitors all those who urge negotiations with the Vietcong or even discuss the possibility of a peaceful settlement. The history of these two decades of increasing American in- volvement in Vietnam shows the danger of ignoring the underlying ground swell of nationalism with its strong. accent on anti-colonial- ism. Having reviewed this history, pethaps we can understand why the school teacher in Hué said that the Americans are making * CNOO! tlac Wat Te Valls tS Communists of the Vietnamese men. Starting from a wrong as- ' , , . sumption, the United States has piled one error on another, maving deeper and deeper into a deteriorating situation. In the midst of a full-scale war, the choices are limited to desperate alternatives. Constructive solutions are hard to find. What has happened to the attempts to find a formula for negotiations? What kind of a settlement may be possible? ase) wae