And you.
Oh, I do think we can start.
As you probably know, about six or eight months ago,
a group of poets began giving readings, readings
by the press from what they were reading,
poetry readings against the Vietnam War.
And this is only natural, too, since that whole area
surrounds us like a cloud.
Pretend the cloud is not there would
be as stupid as living in nature and pretending
there were no trees there.
So the strange thing is that the poets themselves were aware
that readings against the war are not
going to change the United States policy.
I think Johnson has decided to go for a military victory
at any cost.
But the problem has something to do with the self-respect
not only of the force but of the people in the colleges.
And there's something bad about having to listen on the radio
all the time to lies about the war.
We know countries who have had to do that.
France is one at the time of the Algerian war.
All the news media of France said, we
had a statement from Algeria.
They really want us there.
They do.
They're out producing there.
They produce in Algerian.
And say, do you want us to be in Algeria?
Yes, yes, we do.
Please help us.
But of course, it was all lies.
And when the French boys were there fighting,
they knew it were a lie.
They knew that they were fighting against the Holy
Algerian nation, which was sick of the Westerners
and wanted them out of there.
So I was in Paris last year, and something very sad
had happened to the French men.
There's this feeling of nothingness there,
this feeling of having fought and killed
men and tortured men for nothing, absolutely nothing.
Because what happened?
Of course, they need to get out.
And it only took one strong man, de Gaulle,
who came along and say, look, it's all a mistake,
this is all stupid, and we're pulling out of Algeria.
And you mustn't be angry at de Gaulle
when he keeps bugging the United States
and saying France is the greatest
power in the world, et cetera.
He knows France is not the greatest power in the world.
He knows that France is nothing grandeur.
All he's trying to do is to bring back a little self
respect to the French man.
He knows perfectly well what he's doing, for his country,
he's a noble and thoughtful statesman who
knows that a lot has been lost.
And it's possible to retrieve some
by talking about France's past glory
and possible future glory.
But it's the same kind of thing in Vietnam.
We're fighting in Vietnam for various prosaic reasons.
Eisenhower at a governor's conference in 1953
was asked about the French fighting in Indochina
by the governors, what do you think about this?
And Eisenhower, with his usual frankness,
and the way the truth just flopped out of his mouth
before he could stop it, he said, well,
if we lose in Indochina it's a bad thing,
because a third of the world's tungsten and tin
is in South Vietnam, and we've got to save that for the West.
Now, that's not [bullshit?] by our leader.
And we're also there because, from Johnson's point of view,
the white men have always had a right
which we have to preserve of telling the yellow nations what
to do.
He is fighting for rights, but that's
the right to be fighting for.
That's another right that's overseen.
The yellow people are going to decide for themselves
what they want to do.
We're also there because we want to preserve some part of Asia
as a field for investment of American capital
when it's all over.
That's another [INAUDIBLE].
But there are also psychic reasons
which we don't understand.
And this is what is scary about this war as
compared to the last war.
When we knew exactly what we were doing,
and people would work overtime in the factories.
They would gladly sacrifice themselves,
because they knew perfectly well.
There weren't any under, psychic undercurrents of doubt.
But the whole war is shot through with these doubts.
And the New York Times recently was the only newspaper
who printed the fact when they were
talking about the shortage of pilots in Vietnam.
The New York Times was the only one
that published the fact that a contributoring factors of many
of the pilots that are brought there turn in their wings
rather than fly in the war.
Once they fly there, they're taught to run these $3 million
machines.
And they're said, now you're going to do something noble.
You're going to do this, and you're going to do that.
And what are they, sent over with a bunch of napalm
to bomb a village of women and children.
And they go home, they say, look,
this isn't the way that I thought about it when
I went into the military, and they turn in the wings
and say, OK, forget it, I'll be a commercial pilot somewhere.
So believe me, it isn't only the poets.
It isn't only [INAUDIBLE] that has doubts.
Everyone has doubts.
And the problem is that there's something invisible
about the war.
So here's a little poem touching on that, called
"As the Asian War Begins."
There are things that cannot be seen,
or are seen only by a minister who no longer believes in God,
living in his parish like a crow in its nest.
There are flowers with murky centers, impenetrable ebony
banners.
There are Conestoga wagons, the contents
hidden from us by canvas, murderers
riding under the canvas.
Give us this day a glimpse of what
is hidden of our enemy, the soldiers, and the poor.