Page:Ford, Kissinger, Ambassador Graham Martin (South Vietnam) - September 13, 1974(Gerald Ford Library)(1552785).pdf/5

Wash Post 9-9-74 R. EARL RAVENAL'S article elsewhere on this page meets square the issue which, as we have argued in several recent editorials, the Congress should be meeting—but doesn't—in its consideration of aid for Vietnam. Does it matter to the United States what happens to South Vietnam? That Americans are sick of Vietnam is not the issue, unless one holds that only enterprises promising success deserve support. Nor should it be controlling that President Thieu's regime is undemocratic and corrupt; a great power concerned with the world balance of power cannot avoid getting stuck with some questionable clients. Nor is it central, though it is distressing, that Moscow and Peking seem to get more mileage out of their military aid to Hanoi than Washington does out of its greater aid to Saigon. These matters affect the political atmosphere in which aid is debated, but the real issue remains the American interest in the outcome.

It is Mr. Ravenal's view that