here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. for from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.
so, too, with hanoi. in the north, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. to speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in western words, and especially their distrust of american intentions now. in hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the japanese and the french, the men who sought membership in the french commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. it was they who led a second struggle against french domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the thirteenth and seventeenth parallel as a temporary measure at geneva. after 1954 they watched us conspire with diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought ho chi minh to power over a united vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. when we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered.
also, it must be clear that the leaders of hanoi considered the presence of american troops in support of the diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the geneva agreement concerning foreign troops. they remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the south until american forces had moved into the tens of thousands.
hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier north vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. ho chi minh has watched as america has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of american plans for an invasion of the north. he knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than *eight hundred, or rather,* eight thousand miles away from its shores.