Dec. 2, 1964 - Richard M. Nixon reiterated yesterday a call for an extension of the war in South Vietnam through bombing of the Communist guerrillas’ supply lines from North Vietnam.
In a speech at the Diamond Jubilee Dinner of the Brooklyn Bar Association in the St. George Hotel, the former Vice President said that if the United States did not cut these lines, it would suffer a defeat in South Vietnam “within a matter of months.”
Last April, in the course of a sweeping attack on the Johnson Administration’s foreign policy, Nixon advocated military strikes against Communist bases in North Vietnam and Laos.
Yesterday he warned that if South Vietnam fell to the Communists, most of the other countries in Southeast Asia would also fall, and a “major war” would be necessary to save the Philippines.
With most of Southeast Asia in their hands, he said, the Communists would be able to exert “tremendous pressure on Japan — the big prize in Asia.”
Nixon acknowledged that an extension of the war in South Vietnam ran the risk of Chinese Communist or even Soviet intervention. But he said the United States must take the necessary risks to win “so that we won’t have to fight a major war three or four years later.”
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