Final Curtain in Indochina?

The swift and total collapse of South Vietnam's military forces, the consequent political upheaval in Saigon and the departure of Lon Nol as head of government in neighboring Cambodia are brutal reminders, if any are needed, that an era in U. S. foreign relations has ended. It is ending with a massive defeat for the policy pursued in Indochina over 15 years, under four Administrations and several styles of political rhetoric, from the brave summons to a New Frontier with which John F. Kennedy sent his Green Berets to fight a new kind of war to Richard M. Nixon's doctrine of Vietnamization that claimed to have accomplished a "peace with honor." Peace, of course, never really came for the people of Indochina, and there was little honor in the rout of the South Vietnamese military. In Washington, even Administration spokesmen found it hard to continue their criticism of Congressional refusal to fund increased military aid to Saigon when South Vietnamese soldiers were reported to be abandoning weapons and other expensive hardware in their headlong flight from the enemy.

Principles, once internalized, lead to something. They prompt activity, impel motion, direct choices. A principled person always has a place to stand, knows where he or she is coming from and likely to end up. Principles always lead the person who possesses them some­where, for some purpose, to do something, or choose not to.