close windowclose window
1966 Debate--Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Great Debate of 1966Source: United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Supplemental Foreign Assistance, Fiscal Year 1966 -- Vietnam. Hearings . . . January 28, February 4, 8, 10, 17, 18, 1966 [Washington, D.C., 1966]
Reprinted in: Williams, William Appleman; Thomas McCormick, Lloyd Gardner and Walter LaFeber, editors. America in Vietnam: A Documentary History. New York: W.W. Norton, 1985. pp. 253 - 259.
SECRETARY RUSK. To put it in its simplest terms, Mr. Chairman, we believe that the South Vietnamese are entitled to a chance to make their own decisions about their own affairs and their own future course of policy: that they are entitled to make these decisions without having them imposed on them by force from North Vietnam or elsewhere from the outside. We are perfectly prepared to rely upon the South Vietnamese themselves to make that judgment by elections, through their own Government, by whatever way is suitable for them to make that decision. Now, we have indicated a good many points which have a bearing on this matter. We are not, for example, trying to acquire a new ally. If South Vietnam and the South Vietnamese people wish to pursue a nonaligned course by their own option, that is an option which is open to them. If they wish to join in the regional activities in the area, such as Mekong River development and projects of that sort, that is open to them. But we do believe they are entitled not to have these answers decided for them on the basis of military force organized from Hanoi through an aggression initiated from Hanoi, in the leadership of a front which was organized in Hanoi in 1960 for the purpose of taking over South Vietnam by force.
THE CHAIRMAN. Do you think they can be a completely free agent with our occupation of the land with 200,000 or 400,000 men?
SECRETARY RUSK. If the infiltration of men and arms from the north were not in the picture, these troops of ours could come home. We have said that repeatedly. They went in there, the combat troops went in there, because of infiltration of men and arms from the north. That is the simple and elementary basis for the presence of American combat forces.
THE CHAIRMAN. May I ask what is the explanation of why in 1956, contrary to the terms of the Geneva accords, elections were not held2 You have stated several times that the aggression started in 1960. But the events between 1954 when the agreement was signed and 1960 were not without significance. We backed Diem, did we not? Didn't we have much to do with putting him in power?
SECRETARY RUSK. Well, we supported him.
THE CHAIRMAN. That is what I mean.
SECRETARY RUSK. That is correct.
THE CHAIRMAN. And he was, to an extent had, a certain dependence upon us, did he not?
SECRETARY RUSK. We were giving him very considerable aid, Mr. Chairman.
THE CHAIRMAN. I am informed that in 1955, in accordance with the treaty provisions, he was requested by the north to consult about elections, and that he refused to do so. Is that correct?
SECRETARY RUSK. Well, neither his government nor the Government of the United States signed that agreement. . . .
THE CHAIRMAN. Not having signed it, what business was it of ours for intervening and encouraging one of the participants not to follow it, specifically Diem?
SECRETARY RUSK. Well, the prospect of free elections in North and South Vietnam was very poor at that time.
THE CHAIRMAN. Now, they have always been poor, and will be for a hundred years, won't they? That was not news to you. I mean, this was a device to get around the settlement, was it not?
SECRETARY RUSK. No, no, Mr. Chairman. I do not believe the prospects of Free elections, in South Vietnam anyhow, are all that dim.
THE CHAIRMAN. Have they ever had them in 2,000 years of history?
SECRETARY RUSK. They have had some free elections in the provinces and municipalities in May of last year.
THE CHAIRMAN. Under our control and direction.
SECRETARY RUSK. Not under our control and direction; no, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN. Who supervised them?
SECRETARY RUSK. Multiple candidates, with 70 percent of the registered voters voting, and with results which indicate that people in these local communities elected the people that you would expect them to elect in terms of the natural leaders of the community. . . .
SENATOR AIKEN. Are the successful candidates all living?
SECRETARY RUSK. I beg your pardon?
SENATOR AIKEN. Are the successful candidates still living now?
SECRETARY RUSK. Well, they are as far as the Government is concerned. The Vietcong continue to kill them, assassinate, kidnap them.
SENATOR AIKEN. Knock them off.
SECRETARY RUSK. I am sure that not all those who were elected are still in office.
SENATOR AIKEN. That discourages candidacies.
SECRETARY RUSK. Yes, it does.
THE CHAIRMAN. Well, there are a lot of things here that discourage candidacies, too. It is not a very easy life any way you take it. But all I am really trying to say is I do not think that this dispute is worthy of an escalation that would result in a confrontation with China in a world war. I do not believe that there is much evidence that this is the kind of a test in which it would follow that, if we should make a compromise, then all the world will collapse because we have been defeated. This country is much too strong, in my opinion, that it would suffer any great setback. We are much stronger than the Russians were when they withdrew from Cuba. For a week maybe people said they had had a rebuff and within a month everyone was complimenting them for having contributed to the maintenance of peace. . . .
SECRETARY RUSK. Yes. I do not understand though, Mr. Chairman, just what the substance of the compromise would be.
THE CHAIRMAN. Well, it strikes me that the essence-
SECRETARY RUSK. I mean some of the things you said suggested that we should abandon the effort in South Vietnam.
THE CHAIRMAN. No. I am not suggesting that we should abandon it, but that we should have a conference. I do not think you will get it until you propose reasonable terms that would allow the Vietnamese, even the liberation front, to have an opportunity to participate in an election. After all, Vietnam is their country. It is not our country. We do not even have the right that the French did. We have no historical right. We are obviously intruders from their point of view. We represent the old Western imperialism in their eyes. I am not questioning our motives. I think our motives are very good, as has been testified on numerous occasions. But I still think from their point of view it is their country, however bad the people have acted. Other countries have had civil wars; we had one. In my part of the country we resented it for a long time. So did yours. You can remember the feelings that were there. . . .
SENATOR MCCARTHY. Mr. Secretary, I have one question. I think we accepted for 5 or 6 years the ideas expressed by General [Douglas] MacArthur, General Eisenhower, General [James] Gavin, General [Matthew] Ridgway, and others that a land war in Asia was unthinkable. Is that theoretical position still held or do we have among the military figures in America today a changed point of view?
SECRETARY RUSK. Senator, the nature of a struggle of this sort, where the initiative is not ours, where we did not start it, and where we didn't want it to begin with, and where the aggression comes from the other side is, of course, substantially determined by the other side. At the present time the situation in South Vietnam does not take the form of armies, land armies, locked in combat with each other. It continues to be basically a guerrilla operation. The overwhelming part of the problem is terror and sabotage. The fixed units that the other side has -- battalions or regiments-- occasionally engage in combat. . . .
SENATOR MCCARTHY. I know that to be the case.
SECRETARY RUSK. The fire power that is available to the government and allied forces out there is very large indeed, and the other side has found it very difficult to sustain battalions or regiments in action for any protracted period.
SENATOR MCCARTHY. Well, I don't think that quite answers my question.
SECRETARY RUSK. I know it didn't, sir. . . .
SENATOR AIKEN. I have a couple for Mr. Bell to answer. Are we insuring any type of private enterprise in South Vietnam?
MR. BELL. There is an agreement between the Vietnamese Government and ours which authorizes the normal kind of investments guarantees for American investments. But none have been issued over the past 12 months. There were some previously. . . .
SENATOR AIKEN. Has any private investment from the United States been made in the last 12 months?. . . .
MR. BELL. I would be glad to check the point for the record.
During calendar year 1965, the United States issued two specific risk guarantees to Caltex for investments totaling $722,000. In addition, there is underway an expansion of a paper and pulp manufacturing company in which Parsons & Whittmore are equity participants. The value of the equipment required for the expansion is estimated al $2 million. Discussions are being held between the Government of Vietnam and a number of banking institutions regarding Ihe possible establishment of an American branch bank in Saigon. . . .
SENATOR CHURCH. It seems to me that there is a difference between guerrilla war or revolution and the kind of aggression that we faced in Korea and in Europe, and, further, that the underdeveloped world is going to be beset with guerrilla wars, regardless of the outcome in Vietnam, and that we will have to live in a world afflicted with such revolutions for a long time to come.
That is why it is so important to try to determine what our basic foreign policy attitude is going to be in dealing with these revolutionary wars in many parts of the underdeveloped world in the future; and, as I have listened to your explanations this morning, I gather that wherever a revolution occurs against an established government, and that revolution, as most will doubtlessly be, is infiltrated by Communists, that the United States will intervene, if necessary, to prevent a Communist success.
This, at least, has been the policy we followed in the Dominican Republic and in Vietnam. I wonder whether this is going to continue to be the policy as we face new guerrilla wars in the future?
SECRETARY RUSK. Senator, I think it is very important that the different kinds of revolutions be distinguished. We are in no sense committed against change. As a matter of fact, we are stimulating, ourselves, very sweeping revolutions in a good many places. The whole weight and effort of the Alliance for Progress is to bring about far-reaching social, economic changes.
SENATOR CHURCH. That is change sought, Mr. Secretary, without violence. History shows that the most significant change has been accompanied by violence.
Do you think that with our foreign aid program we are going to be able, with our money, to avert serious uprisings in all of these destitute countries in future years?
SECRETARY RUSK. Not necessarily avert all of them, but I do believe there is a fundamental difference between the kind of revolution which the Communists call their wars of national liberation, and the kind of revolution which is congenial to our own experience, and fits into the aspirations of ordinary men and women right around the world. There is nothing liberal about that revolution that they are trying to push from Peiping. This is a harsh, totalitarian regime. It has nothing in common with the great American revolutionary tradition, nothing in common with it.
SENATOR CHURCH. The objectives of Communist revolution are clearly very different indeed from the earlier objectives of our own. But objectives of revolutions have varied through the centuries. The question that I think faces this country is how we can best cope with the likelihood of revolt in the underdeveloped world in the years ahead, and I have very serious doubts that American military intervention will often be the proper decision. I think too much intervention on our part may well spread communism throughout the ex-colonial world rather than thwart it. Now, the distinction you draw between the Communist type of guerrilla war and other kinds of revolution, if I have understood it correctly, has been based upon the premise that in Vietnam the North Vietnamese have been meddling in the revolution in the south and, therefore, it is a form of aggression on the part of the north against the south. But I cannot remember many revolutions that have been fought in splendid isolation. There were as many Frenchmen at Yorktown when Cornwallis surrendered as there were American Continentals. Senator Pell tells me more. I accept the correction. In any case, it seems to me that the Communists have not changed the rules of revolution by meddling in them, regardless of how much we disapprove of their goals. When we were an infant nation we stood up for the right of revolution, and I am afraid--
SECRETARY RUSK. Senator, I just cannot--
SENATOR CHURCH. I am afraid, what I am worried about, Mr. Secretary, is this: That if we intervene too much in wars of this type, our policy may well turn out to be self-defeating. . . .