TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF FRANCE'S DISASTER IN SOUTHEAST ASIA-DIENBIENPHU: A LESSON FOR THE UNITED STATES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP66B00403R000200140042-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 2, 2005
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: May 7, 1964
• Content Type: OPEN

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1964 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE
pand the Commilnity Relations Service
to provide mediation and conciliation fa-
cilities for disputes-arising,. under_ this
title.
Fourth, provides for a speedy remedy
for any aggrieved person. - -
The Median lag time from the filing of
_ a charge to the issuance of a complaint
was 49- days_ in 1963, which included a
1.5-day 'period reSeived to let the parties
settle their -differences Voluntarily. I un-
derstand that the Median time from the
Issuing 'Of a complaint to the entry of an
order by the Board ranges around 90
days or a total median lag time of about
5 months.
Since the Board's Order is not sell-en-
forcing, but Must be enforced by a court
of appeals, the-api3eaI time must be in-
chided. The median time interval for
,
case in the court of appeals is 7.3
months to final disposition. Hence, for
this apprOach we are talking about a ?1-
year proposition.
--Ender title VII enforcement comes
through the district courts where the
dockets are Inordinately crowded. The
median timelag is almost 21/2 years with
' close tO '10"percent of all civil cases" tak-
,ing more than 3 years to settle. Add to
that the time in the court of appeals,
'and the -early cases will surely be ap-
pealed, and relief under title VII can
be expected to take almost 3 years with-
out reference to the- trine it takes the
hecrOortimisSion to make its investiga-
tion.
Fifth, eliminates the need for the rec-
ordkeeping requirements of title VII.
The Boardhas always operated on the
proposition that the investigative powers
granted it Under NLRA, which, inci-
dentally, are in some respects less potent
than the powers to be granted the new
Commission by title VII, were sufficient
to make a full and fair determination
of the question of discrimination:
Bixth, keeps the same 4-year period
for phasing in the effective date of the
provisions as Is done by title VII.
Seventh,- Provides that the States with
effective FEP laws shall have jurisdiction
over cases arising there unless the NLRB
determines that the State law is being
aclininistered inconsistent with the Fed-
eral act._ The 'legislative branch could
veto this administrative determination.
Again, let me state that this offering
ould not be construed as a request that
all parties recede from their divergent
_thinking of title VII and meet at this
cointnon gyutind. My solehope at this
time a4c inFerested parties to con-
sider the Potential of the approach and
keep its availability in inind in case
negotiations on title VII become -bogged
down
WHAT THE" FEDER L" VEt EN't
PROPOSES .'_tV TALAwic
IN THE tAnTilcgrAlch
Mr. THIIRIVIOND obtained the floor.
Mr. Tx-MmoND. Mr. President, I
ask unanimous consent that I may yield
to the able and distinguished Senator
from Alaska, under the same conditions
under which I yielded to the Senator
from Texas.
No. 91-10
The PRESIDING OFFICER. With-
out objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GRUENING. I thank the Sena-
tor from South Carolina for his custom-
ary courtesy.
Mr. President, the Alaskan citizen
whose home was damaged or destroyed
as a result of the March 27 earthquake
and subsequent tidal waves has been
awaiting news as to what action the Fed-
eral Government would take to ?relieve
his distressing plight.
On May 6, following my request that
the interest rate on new rural housing
loans to Alaskans be lowered, Secretary
Freeman responded affirmatively, by
lowering the interest rate from 4 per-
cent to 3 percent, effective immediately.
The loans may be repaid over a period of
up to 33 years.
I am. pleased to have this opportunity
to applaud the action of Secretary
Freeman. It is a heartening and a posi-
tive step in what I trust will be continu-
ing action in the important area of the
interest rates charged on domestic loans.
Secretary Freeman has the authority
to lower interest rates further. I hope
he will; and I urge him to do so.
The Federal Government makes loans
to the private sector of the foreign
countries at three-fourths of 1 percent
interest, and allows a 10-year morato-
rium on capital payments. Double
standards ought to join other extinct
animals. We must move ahead, and we
must do at least as much for our own
as we do for people of other lands.
Secretary Freeman's action of yester-
day is commendable. So are other re-
cent actions, following my requests, by
the Administrator of the Small Busi-
ness Administration, in liberalizing cer-
tain loan procedures. So, too, are the
actions of the Administrator of the
Housing and Home Finance Agency, Dr.
Robert Weaver, and those .of the Com-
missioner of the Federal Housing Ad-
ministration, Mr. Philip N. Brownstein,
in coming to the assistance of homeown-
ers in Alaska who have FHA mortgages
on homes which have been destroyed.
We are moving slowly in the right di-
rection.
I ask unanimous consent that the text
of press releases issued by the Depart-
ment of Agriculture and the Housing and
Home Finance Agency, concerning new
loan procedures, be printed in the
RECORD.
There being no objection, the releases
were ordered to be printed in the RECORD,
as follows:
INTEREST RATE LOWERED ON HOUSING AID TO
ALASKA QUAKE VICTIMS
(Press release by U.S. Department of Agricul-
ture, May 6, 1964)
Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Free-
Mari today announced a cut in the interest
rate on new rural housing loans to Alaskans
Whose homes were damaged or destroyed by
the March 27 earthquake.
The interest Tate on loans made by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farmers
Home Administration is being lowered from 4
to 3 percent, effective immediately. Loans
may be repaid over a period up to 33 years.
The Department's move is being taken as
a further step to soften the financial distress
suffered by farm and other rural families in
the earthquake-torn area.
On April 8, the Department announced
10629
that an additional $2 million in housing loan
funds was being allocated to Alaskan
families.
Alaskan farm families and rural residents
in towns and small villages up to 2,500 popu-
lation May use the Farmers Home Admin-
istration credit to build a new house or to
repair a home damaged by the quake.
In addition to helping families obtain the
housing, construction financed by these loans
will provide employment to local residents
While their regular job opportunities are
being restored, according to Secretary Free-
man. The Secretary also pointed out that
the Farmers Home Administration has taken
steps to insure that adequate funds are avail-
able for farm loans to assist eligible farmers
in continuing their farming operations.
To be eligible for a Farmers Home Admin-
istration loan, an applicant must be unable
to obtain the needed credit from other
sources.
County offices in Alaska where Farmers
Home Administration loan applications may
be filed are at Palmer, Fairbanks, and Sol-
datna.
PRESS RELEASE BY HOUSING AND HOME
FINANCE AGENCY, MAY 6, 1964
The Federal National Mortgage Associa-
tion, the Small Business Administration, the
Federal Housing Administration, and the
Veterans' Administration announced today
an agreement to assist Alaskan owners of
homes destroyed or irreparably damaged as
a result of the earthquake on March 27. It
was stated that "the actions are aimed prin-
cipally at disposing of the overhanging
mortgage debt on the destroyed property not
covered by earthquake insurance. This is
essential in order to qualify the owners for
a loan to rebuild."
Two Federal agencies holding mortgages on
properties in Alaska have agreed to afford
relief to borrowers. J. Stanley Baughman,
President of Federal National Mortgage Asso-
ciation, and John S. Gleason, Jr., Adminis-
trator of Veterans' Administration, will ac-
cept payment of $1,000 in return for a re-
lease of the borrower from personal liability
on the indebtedness covering the property
destroyed. In order to enable the lender
to recover any amount salvageable from
the damaged property, the lender will also
acquire title, ordinarily through a deed in
lieu of foreclosure.
The Federal Housing Commissioner, Philip
N. Brownstein, said that where an FHA in-
sured loan is involved the lender can turn
the property over to FHA for debentures.
However, FHA will reduce the mortgage
amount by the estimated cost of restoring
the property.
Eugene Foley, Administrator of the Small
Business Administration, agreed to make up
to 30-year, 3-percent loans to finance new
homes, physically equivalent to those that
had been destroyed for owners who wished
to rebuild. In addition, these SBA loans will
include the $1,000 to settle the outstanding
mortgage debt. SBA is prepared to offer the
same terms to homeowners where private
mortgage lenders make similar settlements
on totally destroyed or irreparably darriaged
properties.
Senator CLINTON P. ANDERSON, Chairman of
the Federal Reconstruction and Development
Planning Commission for Alaska, stated: "I
hope this action may lead to settlements of
other mortgage claims on a favorable basis.
If this is done, the families who lost their
homes as a result of the earthquake can
acquire new homes without unbearable fi-
nancial burden."
Methods are also being formulated by the
Federal agencies for helping homeowners
whose properties were seriously damaged but
are still repairable.
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD ? SENATE
11.1.IISTRATIVE EXAMPLE or Homes COMPLEMY
DESERVE= OR LOREPAaABLY DAMAGED
1. A homeowner who, prior to the earth-
quake, had a 30-year, 5%-percent interest
rate mortgage with an outstanding balance
of $35,000: The monthly payments for In-
terest and principal on this loan would be
$146. Assuming that a new home comparable
to the one destroyed could be built for $35.-
600 (including land) and that the homeowner
would obtain from Small Business Adminis-
tration a new $36,000, 30-year mortgage loan
at a 8-percent interest rate, the monthly
payment would be $152, The $36,000 new
mortgage loan would finance the $35,000 new
home plus $1,000 of the outstanding debt on
the old mortgage.
2. A homeowner who, prior to the earth-
quake, had a 25-year, 7-percent interest rate
mortgage with an outstanding balance of
$25,000: The monthly payment for interest
and principal on this loan would be $177.
Assuming that a new home comparable to the
one destroyed could be built for $35.000 (in-
cluding land) and that the homeowner
would obtain from Small Business Adminis-
tration a new $36,000, 25-year mortgage loan
at a 3-percent interest rate, the monthly
payment would be $171, The $36,000 new
mortgage loan would finance the $35,000 new
home plus $1,000 of the outmtidIng debt on
the old mortgage.
TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF FRANCE'S
DISASTER IN SOUTHEAST ASIA?
DIENBIENPHU: A LESSON FOR
THE UNITED STATES
Mr. GRUENING. Mr. President, 10
years ago, Dienbieriphu, in what was
then known as Indochina, fell. That
marked the end of an epoch in southeast
Asia. It ended French dominion in that
part of the world. The war to keep Indo-
china had cost France the lives of tens
of thousands of her young men. It had
cost a fortune, to which the United States
had contributed.
? Unfortunately, the United States
picked up the tattered remains of
France's banner. That was a tragic er-
ror; and it has now resulted in the sac-
rifice of the lives of several hundred
young Americans. Unless President
Johnson reverses the mistaken Policy
which he inherited, it will cost the lives
of many more young Americans.
Mr. President, the United States of
America is now waging war in South
Vietnam?an undeclared war. Quite
wrongly, our country is participating in
a civil war there. The war there is not
our war. n is a war which can be won
or decided only by the Vietnamese peo-
ple. It is a war which the United States
cannot win. It is a war in which we
should never have engaged.
I repeat what I have said before: All
South Vietnam is not worth the life of
one American boy.
Our SEATO allies have "run out" on
us. Perhaps they are wiser than we.
Neverthele,ss, we do not see any British
boys on the firing line in the steaming
jungles of South Vietnam. We do not
see any French boys lighting there. We
do not see any Australian boys being
killed there. Neighboring Thailand has
not sent a single Thai boy to the South
Vietnamese front. We do not see any
New Zealand boys being sacrificed there.
Only a week ago the Pakistan Govern-
ment made plain that?far from being
willing to participate in the war?it
would strengthen its relations with Red
China.
I repeat. Mr. President, that all South
Vietnam is not worth the life of one
American boy. Far too many lives of our
young men have already been sacrificed
there.
Again I ask the following quesiton of
my colleagues; If your son were drafted
Into the U.S. military forces, and sent
to South Vietnam, and if he lost his life
In the fighting there, would you feel that
he had died for his country?
For myself, I answer that question by
saying that I would not feel that he
would have died for his country. I
would feel that he was being sacrificed
In pursuit of a tragic folly, an inherit-
ance of past mistakes.
Mr. President, many persons have for-
gotten, or are unaware of, the fate that
befell France in that tropical southeast
Asian trap. Our country is falling into
the same trap. It is well that we be re-
minded of what happend to France, lest
It happen to us; and it will happen to
the United States if we do not have
enough sense to call in the United Na-
tions and to work with other nations for
a negotiated peace.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous con-
sent to have printed in the RECORD an
article entitled "Dienbienphu: Battle To
Remember." The article was written by
Bernard B. Fall, an historian who Is an
expert on that region of the world, and
has written a definitive book about it.
There being no objection, the article
was ordered to be printed in the RECORD.
as follows:
DrarREEMPittr: BATTLE To REMEPADER
(By Bernard B. Fall)
On May 7, 1954, the end of the battle for
the jungle fortress of Dienbienphu marked
the end of French military influence in Asia,
just as the sieges of Port Arthur, Corregidor.
and Singapore had, to a certain extent, brok-
en the spell of Russian. American, ard Brit-
ish hegemony in Aga. The Asians, after
centuries of subjugation, had beaten the
white man at his own game. And today, 10
years after Dienbienphu, Vietcong guerrillas
In South Vietnam again challenge the West's
ability to withstand a potent combination of
political and military pressure in a totally
alien en*ronment.
On that day In May 1954 it had become
apparent by 10 am. that Dienbienphu's posi-
tion was hopeless. French artillery and mor-
tars had been progressively silenced by tutu-
deir',usly accurate Communist Vietminh ar-
tillery fire; and the monsoon rains had
slowed down supply drops to a trickle and
transformed the French trenches and dug-
outs into bottomless quagmires. The sur-
%flying officers and men, many of whom had
lived for 54 days on a steady diet of instant
coffee and cigarettes, were In a catatonic
state of exhaustion.
As their commander. Brig. Gen. Christian
de in Croix de Castries, reported the linne-
t over the radiotelephone to Gen. Rene
Cogny, his theater commander, 220 miles
away in Hanoi in a high-pitched but curi-
ously Impersonal voice, the end obviously
had come for the fortress. be Castries ticked
off a long list of 800-man battalions which
had been reduced to companies of 50 men
and of companies that were reduced to the
sire of weak platoons. All he could hope
for was to hold out until nightfall in order
to give the surviving members of his com-
mand a chance to break out into the jungle
May 7
under the cover of darkness, while he him-
self would stay with the more than 5,000
severely wounded (out of a total of 15,094
men inside the valley) and face the enemy.
By 3 p.m., however, it had become obvious
that the fortress would not last until night-
fall. Communist forces, in human-wave at-
tacks, were swarming over the last remaining
defenses. be Castries polled the surviving
unit commanders within reach, and the con-
sensus was that a breakout would only lead
to a senseless piecemeal massacre In the
Jungle. The decision was made then to fight
on to the end, as long as the ammunition
lasted, and let individual units be overrun
after destruction of their heavy weapons.
That course of action was approved by the
senior commander in Hanoi at about 5 p.m.,
but with the proviso that "Isabelle," the
southernmost strongpoint closest to the jun-
gle, and to friendly forces In Laos, should be
given a chance to make a break for it.
Cogny's last conversation with be Castries
dealt with the dramatic problem of what to
do with the wounded piled up under incred-
ible conditions in the various strongpoints
and In the fortress' central hospital?origi-
nally built to contain 42 wounded. There
had been suggestions that an orderly sur-
render should be arranged in order to save
the wounded the added anguish of falling
into enemy hands as isolated individuals.
But Cogny was adamant on that point:
"Mon vieux, of course you have to finish
the whole thing now. But what you have
done until now surely is magnificent. Don't
spoil it by hoisting the white flag. You are
going to be submerged (by the enemy], but
no surrender, no white flag,"
"All right, mon general, I only wanted to
preserve the wounded."
"Yes, I know. Well, do as best you can,
leaving it to your (static: subordinate
units?) to act for themselves. What you
have done is too magnificent to do such a
thing. You understand, mon vieux?
There was a silence. Then be Castries
said his final words:
"Bien, mon general."
goodby, mon vieux," said Cogny.
"I'll see you soon."
A few minutes later, be Castries' radio
operator methodically smashed his set with
the butt of his Colt .45, and thus the last
word to come out of the main fortress, as it
was being overrun, came at 5:30 p.m. from
the radio operator of the 31st Combat Engi-
neer Battalion, using his regulation code
name:
"This is 'Yankee Metro.' We're blowing up
everything around here. Au revoir."
Strongpoint "Isabelle" never had a chance.
While the main defenses of Dienbienphu
were being mopped up, strong Vietminh
forces already had tightened their grip
around the thousand legionnaires, Algerians,
and Frenchmen preparing their breakout.
At 9:40 p.m., a French surveillance aircraft
reported to Hanoi that it saw the strong-
point's depots blowing up and that heavy
artillery fire was visible close by. The break-
out had been detected. At 1:50 am. on
May 8, 1954, came the last message from the
doomed garrison, relayed by the watchdog
aircraft to Hanoi:
"Sortie failed?Stop?Can no longer com-
municate with you?Stop and end."
The great battle in the valley of Dien-
bienphu was over. Close to 10,000 captured
troops were to begin the grim death march
to the Vietminh prison camps 300 miles to
the east. Few would survive. About 2,000
lay dead all over the battlefield in graves left
unmarked to this day. Only 73 made good
their escape from the various shattered
strongpointa, to be rescued by the pro-
French guerrilla units awaiting them in the
Laotian jungle. Eight thousand miles away,
in Geneva, the North Vietnamese and Red
Chinese delegations attending the nine-
power conference which was supposed to
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1964, CONGRESSIONAL RECORD StA11
. _
Settle both the Korean and theIndochinese
conflicts toasted the event in pink Chinese
champagne. - - -
What had happened at Dienbienphu was
simply that a inoinehtotis gamble had been
attempted by the French High Command
and had backfired badly. The Indochina
WM', Which had broken out in December,
1946, after' Ho Chi Mink's Vietminh forces
felt that France watild not agree to Viet-
nam's eVelituai independence, had slowly
hogged down into a hopeless seesaw.
Until Red China's victorious forces arrived
on Vietnam's -b-orders in December 1949,
there had been at least a small hope that
the French-supported Vietnamese National-
ist Government, headed by ex-Emperor Bao-
Del, could weaffaWay from the Communist-
led Vietminh the allegiance of much of
Vietnam's ' population. But with the exist-
arkee of a Red-Chinese "sanctuary" for the
Vietminh forces, that became militarily
impossible. By October 1950, 23 regular
Vietminh battalions, equipped with excel-
lent Atherican artillery coming from Chinese
Nationalist stocks "left on the mainland,
smashed the French defense lines along the
Chinese border and inflicted on France its
biggest Colonial defeat' since Montcalm died
before Quebec. Within a few weeks, the
French poSition in North Vietnam had
shrunk tO-a fortified perimeter around the
Red River delta; a contintous belt of Corn-_
rnunist-held territory Stretched from the
Chinese border to within 100 miles of Saigon.
POI` all practical purposes the Indochina war
Wee ldst then and there.
What chanted the aspect of the war for
- a time was the influx of American aid, which
began teith the onset of the Korean war.
.With communism now a menace at both
ends of the 'Par Eastern arc, the Indochina
War; -from a 'colonial war, became a cru-
sade--7-but a Crusade without a real cause.
Independence; given too grudgingly to the
Vietnamese nationalist regime, remained the
catchword of the adversary. -
But, militarily at least, disaster had tem-
porarily been averted. The key Red River
delta was more or less held by the French?
at least during the daytime, for at night
the enemy as eVeryWhere?and the rice-
rich Mekong delta in South Vietnam, where
anti-Communist Buddhist sects were fight-
ing oil the French- side, was held more solidly
by Western forces in 1953-54 than in 1963-
(34. -
In Laos, the situation was just as grim
then as it is now: the Laotian and French
foroes held the Mekong valley and the air-
fields of the Plain of jars; and the enemy
held the rest. Only Cambodia, then as now,
was almost at peace: Prince Sihanouk?then
King?had received independence from
-11`rance in -1953 and galvanized his people
iiito fighting against the guerrillas. They
Were #0,. EnicceSsful that, at the ensuing Ge-,
neva pease-fire conference, Cambodia did
not have. to 'surrender a province as a re-
. groupfnent area for Communist forces.
TIgi 'totally stalemated situation left the
Preneb With but one choice: to create a mil-
itary situation' of the kind that would permit
cep:Se-fire negotiations on a basis of equality
with the -effeniY;'fo achieve this, the French
conaniandirin-ahief;"Gerieral Henri Navarre,
had to Win a "Vietery over the hard core of
Communist regula 'divisions, whose contin-
ued existence posed a constant threat of in-
vasion to the Laotian kingdom and to the
vitalAed-ltiter delta with its capital city of
Hanoi" and the "thriving port Of Haiphong.
And to destroy' those divisions and prevent
their invasions into Laos, one had to, in
Anierican;nfAitarjr_parIanoe, "find 'ere and fix
aneyea. 'Navarre felt "tha'S r the way to
? achieve this was by offering the Communists
S. target sufficientljtempting for their reg-
War divisions to ponnoe at, but sufficiently
Strong to 'resist the onslaught Once it came.
,
That was the rationale for the creation of
Dienbienphu and for the battle that took
place there.
There were other considerations also.
Laos had signed a treaty with France in
which the latter promised to defend it.
Dienbienphu was to be the lock on the back-
door leading into Laos. Dienbienphu was
also to be the test for a new theory of
Navarre's. Rather than defend immobile
lines, he wanted to create throughout Indo-
china "land-air bases" from which highly
mobile units would sally forth and decimate
the enemy in his own rear areas, just as the
Vietminh guerrillas were doing in French
rear areas. All that rode on Dienbienphu;
the freedom of Laos, a senior commander's
reputation, the survival of some of France's
best troops and?above all?a last chance of
coming out of that 8-year-long frustrating
jungle war with something else than a total
defeat.
But Navarre, an armor officer formed on
the European battlefields, apparently (this
was the judgment of the French Government
committee which later investigated the dis-
aster) had failed to realize that "there are
no blocking positions in country lacking
European-type roads." Since the Vietminh
relied largely on human porters for their
frontline units, they could easily bypass such
bottlenecks as Dienbienphu or the Plain of
Jars while bottling up the forces contained
in those strongholds at little expense to
themselves.
The results were evident: soon after
French forces arrived at Dienbienphu on
Nov. 20, 1953, two of General Vo Nguyen
Giap's regular I0,000-man divisions blocked
the Dienbienphu garrison, while a third by-
passed Dienbienphu and smashed deeply in-
to Laos. On Christmas Day, 1953, Indochina,
for the first time in the 8-year war, was
literally cut in two. The offensive stabs for
which Dienbienphu had been specifically
planned became little else but desperate
sorties against an invisible enemy. By the
time the battle started for good on March
13, 1954, the garrison already had suffered
1,037 casualties without any tangible result.
Inside the fortress, the charming tribal
village by the Nam Yum had soon dis-
appeared along with all the bushes and
trees in the valley, to be used either as
firewood or as construction materials for the
bunkers. Even the residence of the French
Governor was dismantled in order to make
use of the bricks, for engineering materials
were desperately short from the beginning.
Major Andr?udrat, the chief engineer at
Dienbienphu, was faced with a problem that
he knew to be mathematically unsolvable:
By normal military engineering standards,
the materials necessary to protect a battalion
against the fire of the 105-millimeter how-
itzers the Vietminh now possessed amounted
to 2,550 tons, plus 500 tons of barbed wire.
He estimated that to protect the 12 bat-
talions there initially (5 others ' were para-
chuted in during the battle) he would need
36,000 tons of engineering materials?which
would mean using all available transport
aircraft for a period of 5 months.
When he was told that he was allocated a
total of about 3,300 tons of airlifted materi-
als, Sudrat simply shrugged his shoulders.
"In that case, I'll fortify the command post,
the signal center, and the X-ray room in the
hospital; and let's hope that the Viet has no
artillery."
As it turned out, the Vietminh had more
than 200 artillery pieces, reinforced during
the last week of the siege by Russian "Kat-
yusha" multitube rocket launchers. Soon,
the combination of monsoon rains, which
Set in around mid-April, and Vietminh ar-
tillery fire smashed to rubble the neatly ar-
ranged dugouts and trenches shown to emi-
nent visitors and journalists during the early
days of the siege. Essentially, the battle of
Dienbienphu degenerated into a brutal artil-
lery duel, which the enemy would have won
sooner or later. The French guncrews and
artillery pieces, working entirely in the open
so as to allow the pieces Ill-around fields
of fire, were destroyed one by one; replaced,
they were destroyed once more, and at last
fell silent.
The artillery duel became the great tragedy
of the battle. Colonel Piroth, the jovial one-
armed commander of the French artillery
inside the fortress had guaranteed that his
24 105-millimeter howitzers could match any-
thing the Communists had and that his
battery of 4 155-millimeter heavy field
howitzers would definitely muzzle whatever
would not be destroyed by the lighter pieces
and the fighter-bombers. As it turned out,
the Vietminh artillery was so superbly cam-
ouflaged that to this day it is doubtful
whether French counterbattery fire silenced
more than a handful of the enemy's field-
pieces.
When on March 13, 1954, at 5:10 p.m.,
Communist artillery completely smothered
strongpoint "Beatrice" without noticeable
damage from French counterbattery fire,
Piroth knew with deadly certitude that the
fortress was doomed. And as deputy to Gen-
eral de Castries, he felt that he had con-
tributed to the air of overconfidence and
even cockiness?had not De Castries, in the
manner of his ducal forebears, sent a written
challenge to enemy commander Giap??
which had prevailed in the valley prior to the
attack.
"I am responsible. I am responsible," he
was heard to murmur as he went about his
duties. During the night of March 14-16,
he committed suicide by blowing himself
up with a hand grenade, since he could not
arm his pistol with one hand.
Originally, the fortress had been designed
to protect its main airstrip against maraud-
ing Vietminh units, not to withstand the on-
slaught of four Communist divisions. There
never was, as press maps of the time errone-
ously showed, a continuous battleline cover-
ing the whole valley. Four of the eight
strongpoints were from 1 to 3 miles
away from the center of the position. The
interlocking fire of their artillery and mor-
tars, supplemented by a squadron of 10
tanks (flown in piecemeal and reassembled
on the spot), was to prevent them from being
picked off one by one.
This also proved to be an illusion. Gen.
Vo Nguyen Giap decided to take Dienbien-
phu by an extremely efficient mixture of
18th-century siege techniques (sinking TNT-
laden mine shafts under French bunkers, for
example) and modern artillery patterns plus
human-wave attacks. The outlying posts
which protected the key airfield were cap-
tured within the first few days of the battle.
French losses proved so great that the rein-
forcements parachuted in after the airfield
was destroyed for good on March 27 never
sufficed to mount the counterattacks nec-
essary to reconquer them.
From then onward the struggle for Dien-
bienphu became a battle of attrition. The
only hope of the garrison lay in the break-
through of a relief column from Laos or
Hanoi (a hopeless concept in view of the
terrain and distances involved) or in the
destruction of the siege force through aerial
bombardment of the most massive kind. For
a time a U.S. Air Force strike was under con-
sideration but the idea was dropped for about
the same reasons that make a similar attack
against North Vietnam today a rather risky
affair.
Like Stalingrad, Dienbienphu slowly
starved on its airlift tonnage. When the
siege began, it had about 8 days' worth of
supplies on hand and required 200 tons a
day to maintain minimum levels. The sheer
magnitude of preparing that mass of sup-
plies for parachuting was solved only by
superhuman feats of the airborne supply
units on the outside--efforts more than
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10032 cOrsT,CRESSIONAL RE, cP8D4-7-4f.NAJT.,
',latched _by the heroliiM of the soldiers in-
side the valley, who had to crawl into the
open, under fire, to collect the containers.
But as the position shrunk every clay (it
finally was the size of a ball park), the bulk
Of the supplies fell into Communist bands.
Even De Castries' general's stars, dropped to
him by General Cogny with a bottle of
champagne, landed in enemy territory.
The airdrops were a harrowing experience
In that narrow valley which permitted only
straight approaches. Communist antiair-
craft artillery played havoc among the lum-
bering transport planes as they slowly dis-
gorged their loads. A few figures tell how
murderous the air war around Dienblen-
phu war: Of a total of 420 aircraft avail-
able in all of Indochina then, 62 were lost
In connection with Dienblenpliu and 167 sus-
tatned hits. Some of .the American civil-
ian pilots who flew the run said that Viet-
Minh flak was as dense as anything en-
countered during World War II over the
Ruhr.
When the battle ended, the 82,926 para-
chutes expended in supplying the fortress
covered the battlefield like freshly fallen
snow. Or like a bUrialeh,roud.
The net effect of Dienbienphu on France's
Military posture in Indochina could not be
Measiired in losses alone. It was to little
avail to say that France had lost only 5 per-
cent of its battle force; that the equipment
losses had already been more than made good
by American supplies funneled in while the
battle was raging; and that even the man-
power losses had been made up by rein-
forcements from France and new drafts of
Vietnamese. Even the fact, which the un-
fortunate French commander in chief,
Navarre, was to invoke later, that the at-
tack on Dienbienphu cost the enemy close to
25,000 casualties and delayed his attack on
the vital Red River delta by 4 months, held
little water in the face of the wave of de-
featism that not only swept French public
opinion at home but also that of her al-
lies.
Historioally, Dienbienphu was, as one
French senior Coker masterfully understated
It, never more than an "unfortunate acci-
Ont." It proved little else but that an en-
circled force, no matter how valiant, will
succumb if its support system fails. But as
other revolutionary wars?from Algeria to the
British defeats in Cyprus and Palestine?
have conclusively shown, it does not take
pitched "setpiece" battles to lose such wars.
They can be lost just as conclusively through
a series of very small engagements, such as
those now foUght in South Vietnam, if the
local government and its population loses
confidence in the eventual outcome of the
contest and that was the case of both the
French and of their Vietnamese allies after
Dienbienphu.
But as the French themselves demon-
strated in Algeria, where they never again
allowed themselves to be maneuvered into
such desperate military straits, revolutionary
wars are fought for political objectives and
big showdown battles are necessary neither
for victory nor for defeat In that case. This
now seems finally to have been understood
In the South Vietnam war, as well, and Sec-
retary of Defense McNamara may well have
thought of Dienbienphu when he stated in
his major Vietnam policy speech of March
26 that "we have learned that in Vietnam,
political and economic progress are the sine
qua non of military success. ? ? ? " One
may only hope that the lesson has been
learned in time.
But on May 7, 1954, the struggle for Indo-
china was almost over for France. As a
French colonel looked out over the battlefield
from a slit trench near his command post,
a small white flag. probably a handkerchief.
appeared on top of a rifle hardly 50 feet away
from him, followed by the flat-helmeted head
of a Vietminh soldier.
'You're not going to shoot any rooter
said the Vietminh in French.
"No, I'm not going to shoot any more,"
said the colonel.
"C'est MU?" said the Vietminh.
"Out, c'eat fad," said the colonel.
And all around them, as on some gruesome
judgment day, soldiers, French and enemy
alike, began to crawl out of their trenches
and stand erect for the first time In 54 days,
as firing ceased everywhere.
The sudden silence was deafening.
Mr. GRUENING. Mr. President, I also
ask unanimous consent to have printed
in the Ftzcorto an article entitled "The
Road From Dienbienphu?A Decade
Later, No One Is Certain Where It Will
End." The article was published on May
3 in the Washington Post and was writ-
ten by its able staff reporter, Chalmers
M. Roberts.
There being no objection, the article
was ordered to be printed in the RECORD,
as follows:
[Prom the Washington Post, May 8, 1984]
Tax ROAD FROM Dricasixiveno?A Dream
LAM, No ONE Is CIDLTAIN WHIM: IT WILL
END
(By Chalmers M. Roberts)
Ten years ago this week the French fortress
of Dienblenphu in Indochina fell to the
Communists In what was a resounding blow
to American prestige.
The fortress, in what is now Communist
North Vietnam, fell on May 7, shortly after
the collapse of a massive effort by the late
John Foster Dulles to save its besieged de-
fenders by use of American Navy and Air
Force planes.
Though Dulles went close to the brink and
though President Eisenhower was prepared
to ask Congress for a joint resolution au-
thorising such action, it never came off. As
General Eisenhower has since indicated in
his memoirs, it was chiefly British opposition
that killed American military intervention.
Because the United States had come so
close to intervention, because it had paid
much of the coat of the French war effort
and because President Eisenhower had ap-
plied the falling-dominoes thesis to Indo-
china. the French defeat rubbed off on this
country.
But the domino thesis did not prove cor-
rect?or has not thus far, to be more precise.
Indochina was divided into four nations,
world attention turned elsewhere, and the
United States survived the damage of the
debacle at Dienbienphu.
We now know, however, that what occurred
a decade ago was but one phase of the story.
Today some 15,000 Americans in uniform are
in South Vietnam, one of the four fragments
of French Indochina. They may not be di-
rectly fighting the war but they, and the
American Government, are deeply involved
in it.
It is indeed something of an oddity that
the United States is so involved in an area
so far on the other side of the globe. Until
1940, few Americans had ever heard of Indo-
china and fewer still eared about it, the U.S.
Government Included. It was simply a far-
off lotus land.
American involvement began in 1940, on
about August 30, when the Vichy govern-
ment of Prance (set up after Hitler had over-
run Paris and Marshal Petain had organized
a collaborating regime in that southern
town) made its first deal with Japan. France
recognized Japan's "preeminent position" in
the Far East and granted the then aggressive
Japanese certain rights in the north of Indo-
china.
That was 14 months before the attack on
Pearl Harbor. Japan's entry into Indochina
was part of a movement to the south which
so misled American leaders that they could
.1or,
May 7.
not believe that an attack on Hawaii might
be in the Japanese mind.
When the French on the scene in Indo-
china stalled over implementing the accord
with Vichy, the impatient Japanese, then the
occupiers of much of the Chinese mainland.
launched an attack from Kwangtung and
Kwanpi across the border on the French
forts at Lang-Son and Dong-Dang.
In the end the French gave in and the
Japanese moved in. A widely quoted Amer-
ican newspaper editorial warning against
U.S. involvement was captioned: "Who Wants
To Die for Dear Old Dong-Dang?" The
answer then in still isolationist America was
clear: no one.
The Japanese held the country throughout
the war. In early 1944, in discussing post-
war arrangements, President Roosevelt told
the British Ambassador, Lord Halifax, that he
felt that Indochina should not go back to
France but should be administered by an in-
ternational trusteeship. To this and other
anti-French talk by F.D.R. Churchill ob-
jected. He could not visualize "a civilized
world without a flourishing and lively
France"?without a French Empire as well
as a British Empire.
Henry Wallace. then Vice President, has
recorded that sometime later he, at F.D.R.'s
request, personally told Chiang Kai-shek
that F.D.R. was offering Chiang all of Indo-
china ( what is now two Vietnams Laos, and
Cambodia) as an outright grant. In a dis-
play of wisdom, Chiang turned down the
offer, saying rightly that the Indochinese
were "not Chinese. They would not assimi-
late into the Chinese people."
At the wartime Teheran and Postdam Con-
ferences with Stalin, the West agreed that
Indochina would be occupied by Chinese Na-
tionalist troops down to the 16th parallel
with British Commonwealth forces occupy-
ing the southern half of the peninsula.
That was in tact done, but before long these
forces withdrew as the French, who badfirst
come in 1884, now returned to reassert au-
thority in their old colony.
The French, however, found that Ho Chi
Minh, then as now the Communist leader of
Indochina, was already leading an insurrec-
tion. Be had created a Democartic Republic
of Vietnam and seized Hanoi in 1945. A
founding member of the French Communist
Party and an aid to Stalin's agent in China,
Borodin, Ho led the 9-year war against the
French. It ended soon after the capitulation
of Dienblenphu.
By then Dulles' intervention talk had
faded, and he was concentrating on creating
what came to be SEATO, the Southeast Asia
Treaty Organization, to protect the new sta-
tus quo. The war formally ended with a di-
vision of the Vietnams at the 17th parallel, a
product of the Geneva conference in July.
The United States, like the new regime set up
for South Vietnam, did not sign the Geneva
accords, but it did agree not to try to over-
turn them by force.
Nearly 900,000 refugees from the North fled
south, and a few from the South went north.
But in the South, as recounted in Bernard
Fall's excellent book, "The Two Vietnams," a
small group of Ho's elite guerrillas quietly
buried Its well-greased weapons, hid its port-
able radio transmitters, and simply returned
for the time being to the humdrum tasks of
sowing and harvesting rice.
The Ngo Diem Dinh regime began in the
South as the war halted. It ended 9 years
later with his murder during a coup against
Ids regime last November. Whatever his vir-
tues or his vices.. Diem's country was under
massive Communist guerrilla attack at the
time of his death. And American prestige
once again was deeply involved, this time in a
struggle to contain and destroy that internal
canlcoewrly Sthe United States "slid into the sec-
ond Indochina war," as Fall put it, in the lat-
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I964 MclitsW5WAtittdoit.46'Llgtglt E
ter Part of the Eisenhower adxfbittrtti6n
and -airing the Xennedy years.
-President ElsenhoWer-had firer-Min-iced the
falling doini6Oba theOry,-- and-Preaident- Ken-
nedy agreed- With -it; the loss ofVietnam
could Or *Mild lead to the loss of adjacent
, Lade and Carrhedia; then TliMland and ma-
layia crieW lqatikalal andfinally Indonesia
and Shrank, '115resgent. Jaliheon has not prib-
liclY said the-sahib thiriebilt-his 0611616 are
premised in the same way.
Since the massive Milo* of American
forces, that IS, from January 1, 1901, to April
22 of this: year, 129 -Americans have been
killed in Vietnam." However' tragic each in-
dividual death ha a been, the. total is less
than the riihriber--262of Peranna kited
during 1963 in automobile aCcidentsIn
-
Metropolitan Washington.
Such, however, is part of the price of
world power and Of trying to use that 'power
Irl a faraway place in a Minted fashiOn.
Today in the United -States there is a
discordant chorus of voices on what this
Nation should- do, Senators on,
and
Gatrzhiwo- say we should get out Completely.
Senator IVIShOrSi.c Says we shouldexplore
General de Gahlles_ talk of neutralization.
Richard NixOn and Senator :GoinWatErt.say
the War el*-1-d. be carried to Communist
North Vietnam.
Reports that "Henry Cabot' Lodge Is about
to resign as Ambassador t6 Vietnam, return
home and, :denounce the adminiatiation's
conduet of the war are denohneed ad-
ministration ofeicials: 'tntapy false. But
Senate GOP':, loader RKsEN says he has
.heard ."rignOre thait,Lodge,-the Republic-an
presidential -front runner in the polls, "is
unhappy about tlia? policy over there arid is
coming back." He says, hbviever, he has no
proof of such "rumors."
Thus the RepUblidans, hungry for a sharp
foreign policy issue again-st President
-Johnsen, Are themselves divided. Darkhorse
Governor ScraaMn of Pennsylvania is against
carrying the war to the north.
.-Does the bell toll in Vietnam f6r the
_ - _ _
Viiited_ttates? . Is that faraway land im-
portant in the world conflict between corn-
" iMMIAMAZd..dernocracy? Is it ahy,iiiore Or
less important to the "United- States than it
Was a decade,ago?
.,_Gentral to the_ administration's argument
of,?. Vietnam's, importance today is Secretary
of. State Rusk's contention that Red China
nrust_ixof he Allowed tO fihtl,thAt -aggression
pays. Yet neither Rusk nor anyone else In
the administration. has firmly__ and directly
conneCted the war in South, ytott14,41y4t11
the regime in Peinin_e. It is said only that
the Commuhlet direction cOmesfroin_gangi,
the North,. Wetnainese_ capital, with some
vague line: of authority running from Hanoi
to Peiping and, even Vaguer, perhaps to Mos-
cow,. Put ,no:holy professes to be very -clear
, about these connectiOns, _ .
-O
Of AS!, vietnam__ in i96 as in, .1095-4,iL
of no rea_l_imPortance in a power sense to the
T.J.nOod .ipita:tea. American power in Asia is
esserrilalii? In the air and on the seas, sus-
tained, by bases from Japan to Taiwan and
the Philippines to friendly ports and air-
Ael4P-144_ WU/14a. "
.:Indeed, it ,can be argued that Saigon is no
More Imforrtmit to ns. today than was "dear
old Den0ang". nearly_ a .quarter century
ago. It can be urged that American power
still would be ?present and massive in Asia
whatever happened to South Vietnam if
Arnerican,support were withdrawn, that the
dominoes, Wallitl ,ne more fall in 'that _event
than they didafter the loss of North Viet-
.nam ,
to ts gomniuniatg?.4_can be argued,
, toe, that a Cernmunist Vietnam Would have
considerable jndependence of Peiping and
?moacow.. _
But, contrariwise, it can be and is, argued
that retreat ixorn Saigon today is as impos-
sible as. retreat from West l',3erlia; that our
presence in support of indigeneous _people,
Vietnamese er tfiref3"t it an. earheSt
sign of our determination to yield no more
ground to aggressive communism.
rt can be and is argued that a Communist
takeover, even if a so-called neutralist regime
in Saigon came first, would massively in-
crease Red China's power and prestige in
Asia. This would be to the detriment chiefly
of the United States but also of the Soviet
Union, whose more cautious approach, at
least in words, the United States has been
applauding.
No one wants to die for Saigon any more
than for Dong-Dang. But that is not the
issue; rather, it is this: Is it in the vital
interest of the United States that, even at a
cost of further American lives, this country
continue to bolster the- regime in Saigon
against its Communist led and oriented
foes?
And on that point, in this election year,
neither party is fully agreed either among its
leaders or with the opposition. That is the
agony of uncertainty which troubles so many ,
in the United States today.,
AMALGAMATED CLOTHING
WORKERS
Mr. KEATING. Mr. President, will
the Senator from South Carolina yield
briefly to me?
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President,
with the same understanding, I am glad
to yield to the Senator from New York.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. With-
out objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KEATING. I thank, the Senator
from South Carolina for his courtesy.
Mr. President, this month, one of
America's foremost industrial unions, the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers, will be
celebrating, at its national convention,
its 59th birthday. Spawned of the
sweatshop, the Amalgamated has, in its
50 years, shown extreme dedication to
the cause of improving the lot of the
working man, through the vehicle of col-
lective bargaining.
Under the creative and inspiring
leadership of Sidney Hillman and Jacob
Potofsky, the Amalgamated has set an
example of responsible collective bar-
gaining for the settlement of labor dis-
Mites. It has found mutual cooperation
and discussion to be a successful method
of meeting the needs of its members?
so successful that the union has gone 50
years without an industrywide strike.
Particularly notable is the duration of
the 1911 arbitration agreement between
Amalgamated's predecessor and the
Hart, Schaffner, and Marx Co., of
Chicago. To end an unusually costly
strike of men's garment workers at the
Hart, Schaffner, and Marx plant, in
Chicago, in 1911, the union and the com-
pany agreed on a settlement providing
for binding arbitration if the two pri-
mary parties were unable to work out a
settlement. Thus, the union was fully
a generation ahead of its time.
Ed Townsend, the labor editor of Busi-
ness Week magazine, has paid tribute to
this fine labor organization in an article
in the American Legion magazine. I ask
unanimous consent that his article,
entitled "Fifty Years Without an Indus-
trial Strike," be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article
was ordered to be printed in the RECORD,
as follows:
cirri be Anierican
May 1964]
FIFTY YEARS WITHOUT AN INDUSTRIAL STRIKE?
BORN OF A BLOODY CONFLICT, THE AMAL-
GAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS SET A PATTERN
FOR LABOR PEACE THA'4 ENDURED
(By Ed Townsend)
The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of
America is 50 years old this year, and will
officially celebrate its first half century as a
labor union at its national convention in
May. It was born in 1914 out of a bloody
strike in 1910-11 in Chicago in which its'
leaders, then part of another union, joined
with management in setting precedents for
healthy labor-management relations from.
which we are still learning and still have
more to learn.
Amalgamated, made up chiefly of workers
in the men's clothing industry, was among
the first "industrial unions" hi the country.
As such it has had the power to pull the
whole industry out on strike, rather than
just the workers having one particular skill,
as in the "craft unions."
- But though it has been mixed up in local
labor turmoil (usually during organizing
'struggles) from New York's Mohawk Valley
to the Deep South, Amalgamated has not
pulled an industrywide strike since the day
it was founded, 50 years ago, nor, except once
in New York over 40 years ago, has it struck
any of the major manufacturers in its field.
Together with the management of Hart
Schaffner & Marx, Amalgamated in 1911
virtually invented successful arbitration as
the solution to a deadlock between workers
and employer?and both of them were there-
by more than a generation ahead of their
time.
On the record, the union has much more
to boast about on its 60th anniversary. It
cites (1) the establishment of commercial
banks back in days when laboring men and
women hardly felt welcome in most other
banks; (2) construction of public housing;
(3) resistance to Communist infiltration
(perhaps because many of its early members
were old European Socialists who were more
sophisticated about communism than the -
Americans of a generation ago) ; and (4)
,militant action to keep racketeers out of
their industry and their union.
But none of the pioneering of which
amalgamated can boast matches, in national
importance, the industrial peace formula
that its founders evolved with Hart Schaff-
ner & Marx (still the biggest employer in
the field) out of their violent conflict in
1910-11.
Big and brutal strikes?sheer tests of eco-
nomic power?are an ineffectual and un-
desirable way of resolving disputes over work
terms. They hurt labor, they hurt man-
agement, and they, hurt, that innocent by-
stander, the whole nation. We still have
Industrywide strike deadlocks and threats
of them in many industries. But for 53
years Hart Schaffner & Marx and its em-
ployees have not lost a single day's work as
a result of a contract dispute (perhaps the
longest uninterrupted contract relationship
In American industrial history)?and as
their formula long ago .spread to almost all
major union contracts in the men's clothing
field, it revolutionized company-worker rela-
tionships and replaced chaos with law, order,
and justice. The formula has been well
tested. Today's problem is to get others
to follow it.
In the years before 1910, the men's an&
boys' garment industry in New York, Chicago,
and other production centers had seen many
spontaneous stoppages to protest sweatshop
conditions. Working conditions were bad
and earnings meager. Weekly wages of $7
for 60 hours of work were above average.
The walkouts were quickly squelched. The
workers' union, the United Garment Work-
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ers, with headquarters in the old Bible House
in New York, gave them little support. It
was principally interested in skilled work-
ers?the industry's well-treated craftsmen?
at the expense of unskilled workers, more
than half of them women and young girls,
largely European immigrants.
Discontent over the lack of support from
the United Garment Workers built up stead-
ily along with anger at and fear of the
employers. UGW's leadership was sharply
criticized. Its predominantly Immigrant
rank-and-file charged that their interests
were being ignored. But, although vocal,
the immigrant group lacked strong leader-
ship that could pull it together.
But on September 22, 1910. a group of Hart
Schaffner & Marx pantsmakers In Chicago-
14 girls led by Bessie Abramowitz?walked
out rather than accept an arbitrary rut in
piece rates for pants seaming. (Miss Ab-
ramowitz later became Mrs. Sidney Hillman
and is a vice president of 'Amalgamated to-
day.)
The girls' walkout set off a slow-burning
fuse in a keg of dynamite.
Emboldened by them, others quit the
plant over the next 3 weeks. By mid-Octo-
ber, 8,000 Hart Schaffner & Marx workers
were out. la word of the wildcat strike
spread, nearly 40,000 garment workers laid
down their shears and needles in other Chi-
cago planta. Before long almost all of the
city's clothing manufacturing was shut down
by a general strike. A historic struggle
had begun.
Pickets trudged through snow and fought
Icy winds off Lake Michigan as winter set in
early. As before the United Garment Work-
ers showed little sympathy for the strike.
It tried to get workers back into the plants
With only minor concessions. Strikers
shouted down the proposals. UOW aid to
them grew slimmer.
The strikers tightened their belts for a
hard and angry battle without substantial
labor help from outside Chicago. Local
leaders emerged, notably Sidney Hillman, an
Immigrant from Lithuania. once a rabbini-
cal student. Hillman and other strike lead-
ers welded together a tight and strong or-
ganization.
They had important friends In the Mid-
west who closed ranks behind the strikers,
Including social workers like Jane Addams
of Hull House and Ellen Gates Starr; attor-
neys Clarence Darrow and William 0.
Thompson and other public figures, and
civic leaders like Mrs. Raymond Robins.
These friends were welcome In months of
suffering and hardship. Companies tried to
produce garments using strikebreakers with
the support of the Chicago police against
"rebellious" strikers. Countless strikers
were clubbed down, a few were shot; two
were killed. Thousands were arrested.
When the union needed $25,000 for bail
Jane Addams got it for the strikers. She
also permitted the union to hold strike strat-
egy meetings in Hull House and Riiimen
lived there. He long afterward referred to
Hull House as "my school" and said that he
learned more there about humanity than
anywhere else. A year or so ago, when Hull
House was threatened by razing, the Amalga-
niated repaid a debt. It helped raise some
;$00,000 to preserve the historic building.
After the second striker was killed in dis-
orders at the Hart Schaffner & Marx gates,
a conscience-stricken Joseph Schaffner, one
of the founders of the company and its
president, intervened personally to seek
peace with the union. As public and govern-
mental pressures built up for a settlement,
he placed two proposals before the strikers.
Both were rejected. A third, strongly en-
dorsed by strike leaders, was then accepted.
Schaffner acknowledged that many of the
workers' complaints were warranted. Work-
ers Were exploited. Wages of the easily hired
unskilled were indeed kept low so that scar-
cer skilled workers could be paid more and
kept contented. The work pace and pres-
sures were intense. And young women had
to submit to indignities from foremen in
order to keep jobs.
While Schaffner pledged that many of the
more deplorable conditions would be relieved,
he pointed out an economic reality. Cut-
throat competition among garment manu-
facturers, mostly small plants, would serve
as an effective brake against improvements.
The strike leaders conceded this. They still
hold to a policy of protecting contract em-
ployers against cutrate competition by or-
ganizing efforts and firm enforcement of
standard contract terms.
The settlement, in January 1911. took less
than a page as compared with today's inch-
thick labor agreements. It made only three
points: (1) All strikers would be taken back.
(2) there would be no penalties or discrim-
ination against any of them, (a) issues still
In dispute would be submitted to binding
arbitration.
The third provision was the all-important
One.
It called for arbitration of disputes by a
board whose decision both labor and manage-
ment agreed to accept in advance.
Arbitration was not new?but it was still
little known and rarely accepted. The ex-
tent of the proposed Hart Schaffner & Marx
arbitration was unheard of then. /t was
shattering news for other employers.
Under the 1911 plan, the union and its
counsel, and management and its counsel,
would bargain together. If all went
smoothly, well and good. But if they locked
horns on a question where neither side would
budge, a third neutral party?agreeable to
both?would be called in, to act as chairman
and have the controlling vote.
In coming to arbitration in 1911, Schaffner
and union representatives accepted two pre-
mises that have become, in the 1960's, the
basis of a new approach to collective bargain-
ing generally:
(1) Many controversial matters can be
handled best outside the tension and hot
tempera of a labor-management negotiating
room.
(2) More basically, industrial warfare cot
the kind that raged through Chicago must
be ended?not Just for the short duration
of a labor contract but through the foresee-
able future.
What they acknowledged then, many
thoughtful people in management and labor
are echoing now:
Large-scale strikes, such as the 116-day
strike in basic steel in 1969 and, the more re-
cent east coast longshoring and New York
newspaper strikes, seldom settle anything.
The issues become lost in a massive power
struggle. Positions polarize; collective bar-
gaining collapses. In the end. Government
or other outside aid is necessary to resolve
the differences.
Also, big strikes are much too costly for
everyone?employers, union's, wage earners
and the public. When they elect to fight,
unions are seldom able to hurt employers
without hurting their own members more.
Mechanization and automation make it eas-
ier for employers to keep plants operating
with minimum supervisory and white-collar
forces. On the other hand, established un-
ions seldom can be broken. Strikes can go
on indefinitely, as impasses, hurting both
sides and offering promises of real gains to
neither?meanwhile trying the ragged pa-
tience of the public.
They waste resources that could be put to
better economic and social use to improve
profits and jobs and for the security and
welfare of workers.
And, most important. industrial warfare
need not be inevitable in a live and dynamic
society. Sharply opposed positions of free
May 7
management and free labor can be adjusted
peacefully, by voluntary means. Alternatives
to industrial strife can and must be devised.
Level heads are preferable to tough muscles.
13,,ceogiaition of these things 53 years ago
turned Hart Schaffner & Marx and its gar-
ment workers' union to binding arbitration
on two levels: (1) "In-plant" arbitration of
day-to-day grievances, and (2) major ar-
bitration of any and all contract issues that
could not be resolved in collective bargain-
ing.
Recognition of the same things in 1959
and early 1960 turned the basic steel indus-
try and United Steelworkers from a danger-
ous practice of deadline bargaining?nego-
tiating with a strike threat just ahead?
to a, new and now twice successful policy
of year-round consideration of mutual prob-
lems through a human relations commit-
tee.
It also has led to predictions?probably
overoptimistic still?that the big strikes
In America are nearing an end.
Outside the men's garment industry, there
are still too few alternatives to ;strikes when
bargaining deadlocks. Few employers and
unions have been willing to go along with
Hart Schaffner & Marx and the Amalgamated
all the way in their labor peace plan. Ar-
bitration is now almost universally accepted
for settling routine grievances, but it still
Is only rarely used?voluntarily?as a way
out of bargaining Impasses
Most employers and unions remain firmly
opposed to submitting pay and other
contract issues to binding decisions by ar-
bitrators. They fear the consequences of
judgments by "a relatively unsophisticated
outsider" who can write an award and be
done with it?without having to work with
and live under the terms he orders. A bad
arbitration decision in a contract case could
have lasting damage on a company's eco-
nomic structure, one of the country's lead-
ing industrialists warned earlier this year.
After. 53 years, Hart Schaffner & Marx and
the Athalgarnated remain thoroughly satis-
fied with the machinery set up in 1911. As
with any machinery, no matter how well
tended, it has had some friction, whines, and
groans through its years of service: But the
machinery works for the garment manufac-
turer and union and they see no reason why
it shouldn't work as well for other employers
and unions willing to adopt such a mechan-
ism?and to apply themselves to making it
work smoothly and effectively.
Ordinarily, today, issues to be submitted
to arbitrators are narrowly limited to inter-
pretations of contract clauses. Hart Schaff-
ner & Marx and the Amalgamated imposed
no limits. They agreed to 'submit to the
board all issues that might come up between
them, including rates of pay, and to abide by
the arbitrators' decision.
Initially, the plan worked reasonably well.
No neutral board member was needed or ap-
pointed. The first arbitration award, 2
months after the plan went into effect, dealt
with the issues involved In the 1910-11 strike.
Sidney iiMman and Clarence Darrow, repre-
senting the union on the board at first, were
able to work out "a just and reasonable"
award with Hart Schaffner & Marx Attorney
Carl Meyer and Prof. Earl Dean Howard of
Northwestern University, representing the
company.
The terms included a minimum wage of $5
a week for women and $7 for men; increases
of 10 percent for tailors and 5 percent for
cutters: a 54-hour workweek with time-and-
a-half for overtime; shared work during the
slack season; improved sanitary conditions;
a regular dinner hour, and grievance ma-
chinery with the board of arbitration the
final recourse. A half century ago those
meager-sounding provisions were improve-
ments for labor, but many workers were dis-
satisfied. They argued they should have had
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