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U.S. Withdrawal From Vietnam War Times Political Writer “Critics of US. policy in Vietnam 7 assailed President Johnson at a day- long conference Saturday at the Beverly Hilton and, to - varying degrees, called for disengagement from the war. The ‘session, sponsored by the liberal magazine, The Nation, con- cerned itself primarily with the - problems of "redirecting American power." But the Vietnam war— and what to do about it—dominated the talks. Featured speakers were Sens. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.), Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.), George McGovern (D-S.D.) and Ernest Gruening (D- Alaska), together with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Pulitzer, Prize-winning newsman Malcolm. Browne and Columbia University's» Prof. Seymour Melman. co Intervention Called legal Sen. Gruening charged that U.S. intervention in South Vietnam is- "iNegal, unconstitutional and im-— moral—and no good can come from it.” He said the United States should stop air attacks, negotiate directly. with the Viet Cong and agree to withdraw American troops when a. peace treaty is signed. Equally outspoken in his criticism of U.S. war policy in Victnam was Dr. King. , a The Negro Nobcl laureate claimed that “American planes are bombing the territory of another country, and we are conimitting atrocities equal to any perpetrated by the Vict Cong. *All of this reveals that we are in an untenable position morally and politically. . "We are left standing before the world glutted by our barbarity. "We are engaged in a war that. ‘seeks to turn the clock of history back and perpetuate colonialism. - rar | oy . . eo, - "Sees Shift in U.S. Role — - whe greatest irony and tragedy of it all.is that our nation, which ini- tiated so much of the revolutiona- ry spirit of the modern world, now is cast in the mold of being an arch _anti-revolutionary.” . A result of the Vietnam war is the ‘ Jessening attention in this country to urgent domestic needs, Dr. King , said. ot - "The security we profess to seck in ‘foreign adventures we will lose in our decaying cities," he said. _ What concerns added, is that a "frightful" war. is _ being waged in the:name of peace. . "When I see our-country today intervening in what is basically a civil. war, destroying hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese children with napalm, leaving broken bodies _ jn countless fields and sending home half-men, mutilated, mentally and - physically; when I see the recalci- trant unwillingness of our govern- ment to create the atmosphere for a negotiated scttlement of this awful conflict by halting bombings in the north and agrecing to talk with the Viet Cong—and all of this in the name of pursuing the goal of peace —I tremble for our world." Talks of Red China _ McGovern concerned himself pri- marily with U.S. relations with Red China and called for. efforts to relax tensions between the two nations. The South Dakota senator called for a cultural exchange with Red China, relaxation of State Depart- ment restrictions on U.S. citizens’ travel in Red China, an invitation to the Communists to join in disarama- ment and nuclear nonproliferation talks at Geneva and a policy decision py the United States to "abide by the judgment of the United Nations as to a possible solution to the For- mosan problem." Sen. McCarthy said, "We do not have (in the Vietnam war) the ” support of what is generally accept- ed as a decent opinion of mankind. "Our objectives and purposes are not clear, not precise," he said. And napalm and bombing attacks on ’ civilians "are much more difficult to. defend than they were when we bombed civilians in retaliation" or in seeking out military targets in World War II, and used napalm as "a sophisticated weapon against an , enemy using sophisticated weapons," him most, hes -~"Browne,.a veteran Vietnam war : correspondent, charged that “Amer- ica is a nation. of ignoramuses with ’ respect to Asia," that U.S. policy has -been misguided and wrong. "When America as a nation seeks to do battle with some of the wiliést politico-military foxes history has ° yet brought forward, it goes ‘out hopelessly unarmed from an intel- Tectual and psychologi * point of view," he. said# _ tt "Short of World War : We are not, under p : circumstances, likejpg-to- ‘ achieve much by Wartin: * Asia," Browne said, ad- : ding that “in those cireum- complete s stances, a TAmerican withdrawal - * from the Western Pacific ’ might, in the long run, be the least of various evils." Priorities Needed -Sen. Hatfield concen- trated more on what he termed the need to rede- termine the order of na- tional prioritics. "Most important and ba- : gic of our national goals is - liberty—for ourselves and ‘for other people," he said. "We have narrowly de- 2 fined this threat to liberty * in terms of Communist - aggression, and have failed to recognize that _ poverty and hunger can enslave a man as com- . pletely as the tyranny of . - communism." : Hatfield called for 3 greater U.S. effort to solve © - problems of hunger and housing and education. He ‘: also repeated his demand : that the. draft be replaced > by a form of voluntary -military service, bolstered ‘by increased 3financial in- centives, => ‘ Melman, too, called for a redirection of American efforts to fulfill domestic needs. ! James Storrow Jr., pub- lisher of The Nation, said the conference was de- liberately set up to include essentially one main point of view on the Vietnam war. No defenders of President Johnson's poli- . cies or advocates of war escalation were invited, he said. ae te ~ ee