March 11, 1970
Page 7019
MUSKIE MOVES AHEAD
HON. PETER N. KYROS OF MAINE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Wednesday, March 11, 1970
Mr. KYROS. Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to be present at the National Press Club luncheon last Thursday, March 5, when Senator EDMUND MUSKIE delivered a most thoughtful address concerning our policies in Vietnam. This address, which was placed in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD of March 5, 1970, by the majority leader of the other body, was typical of the careful reasoning which Maine residents have long admired in ED MUSKIE, and which has won ED MUSKIE the respect of millions of Americans in recent months and years.
I was pleased to note that National columnist Joseph Kraft has found considerable significance to Senator MUSKIE's recent Vietnam speech, as related in Mr. Kraft's column appearing in the March 8, 1970, Washington Post. I would like to bring this column to the attention of my colleagues, by inserting it in the RECORD:
MUSKIE MOVES AHEAD; VIETNAM SPEECH SEEN PUTTING HIM IN LEAD FOR PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION IN 1972
(By Joseph Kraft)
The only serious doubt anybody has ever had about Ed Muskie concerned his determination to get out front and lead the way. And that doubt was considerably deflated at the National Press Club Thursday when the Senator emerged as a critic of the administration's Vietnam policy.
Sen. Muskie comes off his Vietnam speech way ahead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972. He is more and more showing the qualities necessary to fill the Democratic leadership vacuum.
That vacuum, it should be understood, is not simply the by-product of two tragic assassinations.
The underlying fact is a change in circumstance begetting a shift in national mood. A kind of cultural revolution encompassing blacks, kids, drugs, pornography, long hair and sloppy clothes has got most of us confused and worried. The country seeks leadership against the cultural revolution – leadership that is competent not controversial, articulate not shrill, modern but not unsettling.
Very few Democrats are in good position to offer that kind of leadership. For during the heady years up to 1968, most politicians in power became identified with evangelical stances and minority groups that have since gone out of fashion.
That is why nobody, not even the Democratic National Committee when it comes to picking a new chairman, pays much attention to Hubert Humphrey. That is why Chappaquiddick casts such a long, dark shadow over Edward Kennedy. That is why George McGovern, after basing a bid for the presidency on the support of blacks and kids, drops back saying: "I'm starting a policy of benign neglect."
But Edmund Muskie is something else again. Personally, he is a slow-speaking giant of simple ways, transparent honesty and much humor who exudes calm and reassurance. Politically, he has advanced in Maine by making the Democratic party seem safe to persons disposed to vote Republican. And thus by no mere accident, but because Maine afforded a preview of the present national mood, Sen. Muskie has for years been a recognized expert in what is now shaping up as a big issue of the 1970s – the issue of the environment.
But Sen. Muskie has been slow to step out on his own. On Vietnam, in particular, he has been exceedingly cautious. His views were for many years the views of the Johnson administration.
While growing obliquely critical of the Nixon policy, the senator previously called for such safe nonstarters as a cease-fire on the ground and political mediation by Secretary General U Thant of the United Nations. One Muskie watcher predicted of the Thursday speech that the senator would "probably come out for land reform."
In fact, he positioned himself in direct confrontation with administration policy. He expressly committed himself to a proposition Mr. Nixon has sedulously avoided – namely, "that an end to the war and an end to our involvement in the war can be brought about only through a negotiated settlement." He flatly denied Henry Kissinger's claim that the threat of Vietnamization would cause the other side to move toward negotiations. He stigmatized Vietnamization as a "formula for perpetuating the war."
In order to promote a settlement, he proposed two major steps that are central to the negotiations.
First, he called on the Nixon administration to name a senior representative to the Paris talks to take the place left vacant months ago by Henry Cabot Lodge. It is hard to see how the administration can avoid this step.
Next, Muskie asserted the critical importance of trying to negotiate with the other side a timetable for American withdrawal. Hints that such a procedure makes sense have been dropped by a number of North Vietnamese officials, including Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh. That Sen. Muskis has focused on the point is a tribute to his mastery of a hard subject.
As an added fillip, there is the call on the press to be more active in reporting and commenting on Vietnam. Whatever the justice of the senator's analysis, it puts him in head-to-head combat with Vice President Spiro Agnew. And nobody prepared to tangle with that kind of antagonist is short on courage.
Thus the Muskie speech marks a turning point in Democratic fortunes. For the first time since the 1968 elections, there has come solidly into the political fray a Democrat who can hold the whip hand over Mr. Nixon on the central issues before the country.