MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Isaac Asimov

“The American embassy has just been bombed and now everyone is calling for raids on Hanoi in reprisal. I fail to see the difference. We are both bombing; the Viet Cong does it on a small scale because they must use hands and trucks as the transporting medium, and we do it on a large scale because we use airplanes. The Viet Cong’s attack is ‘cowardly’ but since our planes are not resisted, our attacks are ‘cowardly’ too. We take ‘reprisals’ but when the Nazis shot hostages during World War II in the same kind of ‘reprisals’ we were horrified. I don’t know; if one looks at war with a kind of logic, one is sickened. That is why people prefer to look at it through slogans. It is a form of retention of mental stability. One thing is certain. If the Vietnamese people could take a vote, we would be asked to leave. We ought to get out of Vietnam for the same reason that the Russians ought to get out of East Germany. If Vietnam is essential to our security, we ought to quit chivvying the Russians who undoubtedly consider East Germany essential to their security. I’m sorry; this isn’t a proper patriotic viewpoint, but darn it, I don’t feel patriotic about Vietnam.” –Isaac Asimov