THE SITUATION IN SOUTH VIETNAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP67B00446R000300180031-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 6, 2003
• Sequence Number: 31
• Publication Date: February 8, 1965
• Content Type: OPEN

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~--w CONGRESSIONAL -RECORD - SENATE. 2221
night, a pattern of overall direction, probably tacked and our men and our airplanes which I believe merits the attention of
from Hanoi. are destroyed. If we take that action readers of the RECORD. t have a great
Since larger numbers of Vietcong attacks - . ._ .
Mr. SALTONSTALL. Mr. President, It was a chilling thing to hear. For if
I appreciate what the distinguished Sen- the Soviets had not been bluffing, the Cuban
aotr from Pennsylvania has said. It missile crisis would almost certainly have
seems to me fundamental that it is the ended in what the military theorists sweetly
only position we can honorably take at call a thermonuclear exchange. And the
the present time. tt! current Pentagon estimate of the cost to this
be? versely. However, iri-the course.of-his article
Secretary McNamara was asked at his news Without going into any lengthy dis- Mr. Alsip refers to a ratio or a percent-
conference whether the perimeter defense cussion at the present time, I wish to say ago of risk, that we may have weighed in
of the installations at Pleiku had been deg- that I Intend to support the President the balance during the Cuban missile
cient in view of the enemy success. and the Secretary of Defense in any re- crisis.
He said he did not believe "it would ever sponsible decisions-and I say they all My comment on this point is not "the
be possible to protect _ our forces against a will be responsible decisions-to retali- rear view" to which he refers in his arti-
sneak attack of that kind" and added that ate when situations like the
the mortars had been fired from a consid- present one cle, but rather is a comment I made at
erable distance and that clumps of foliage arise. the very time of the Cuban missile crisis.
on the generally open plateau had offered What the final determination will be I stated that I thought that President
cover. we cannot say at this time. I for one Kennedy was making the right decision,
Reports from Pleiku, however, later estab- know only what the Secretary of De- but I did not think that the possibility of
lished that the Vietcong attackers had been fense has said, and what I have read in a nuclear war, much less an all-out nu-
able to. crawl right onto the U.S. helicopter the newspapers. It seems to me funda- clear war, was very great.
base to place explosive charges against bar- mental to state that we are in Vietnam, The reason I made that statement then
racks' walls and on the airstrip.
A question raised was whether South Viet- and must maintain our prestige and the and the reason I repeat it now, is that
namese security troops were ignoring long- strength of our forces there in order to I did not think Mr. Khrushchev was any-
standing American advice to increase night preserve what we stand for. We cannot where near committing suicide. It is un-
patrolling. take an attack lying down and have men fortunate that Mr. Alsop's otherwise very
---.8.tili another question puzzling to some in in the uniform of our country killed and splendid article should be possibly re-
Washington is why all three attack carriers wounded without letting our enemies duced in its value by an argument over
of the U.S. 7th Fleet were in the South China know that anyone responsible for such the responsibilities. Nevertheless, I
Sea near the Vietnamese coast at the same action will meet with swift retaliation. think that the possibilities should be
time.
The usual pattern is one of dispersal, with That is what we have done in the present discussed.
each carrier forming the nucleus of an attack instance. I hope that we shall always I do not agree with Mr. Alsop's view
force operating off different parts of east retaliate and not allow our boys in uni- on this particular point, although I do
Asia. form to be killed, and take it lying down. agree with some of his other views.
EFFECT IS QUERIED That is all I care to say at the present In connection with this point, there is
A further question was whether the air moment. also an article in the February issue of
attacks on North Vietnam would weaken the Mr. CLARK. Mr. President, will the the Reader's Digest entitled "We Must
Vietcong guerrillas tactically or strategically Senator yield?
and prevent further Vietcong successes Stop Red China Now," containing a
against American installations. Mr. SALTONSTALL. I yield to the question-and-answer series involving Dr.
The administration contention clearl is senator from Pennsylvania.
William E. Griffith, an outstanding au-
that North Vietnam made possible the attack Mr. CLARK. I commend the Senator thority on communism. I believe that
on Pleiku. But the questions about the in- from Massachusetts for rising in support a reading of that article, coupled with
cident grow out of the apparent fact that a of the Johnson administration in his Mr. Alsop's article, might do much to
small Vietcong unit, armed with captured usual broadminded and bipartisan way clear the air with respect to where we
weapons and protected by a lack of field in- when a serious question of foreign pol- ought to be going in South Vietnam. I
telligence on the part of the South Viet- icy arises. ask unanimous consent that the two ar-
namese Army, succeeded in creeping onto I suppose I am as discontented with ticles to which I have referred be printed
the American base and dealing a bloody the present situation in Vietnam as is in the RECORD.
blow.
Thus, the final question is how much of the Senator from Massachusetts. I There being no objection, the articles
the responsibility for Pleiku can be held not know perhaps less about the situation were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, --
just to Hanoi but to a failure to prosecute - than does he as a member of the Com- as follows:
the anttiguerrilla war in South Vietnam it- mittee on Armed Services. But I believe [From the Washington Post, Feb. 8, 19651
self in amore vigorous and successful way. that this is no time to attack the present
The PRESIDING OFFICER. -What is adminisration on the floor of the Sen- "WE CAN" Joseph "WE CAN'T"
the will of the Senate? ate before we have far more information (By Joseph Alsop)
Mr. CLARK. Mr. President, i suggest about the background of the raids over Not long after the Cuban missile crisis in
the absence of a quorum. the weekend and the retaliation which October 1962, President Kennedy was remi-
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The the President, in his capacity as the Com- niscing about this supreme event of his
clerk will call the roll. administration.
mender in Chief of our Armed Forces, It all seei seemed easy enough, he remarked,
The legislative clerk proceeded to call has ordered. I for one am prepared to after the Soviet bluff had been successfully
the roll. give the administration the benefit of called, but the trouble was no one could
Mr. CLARK. Mr. President, I ask the doubt until I know far more about be sure, at the outset, that the Soviets really
unanimous consent that the order for the situation than I know at the present were bluffing.
the quorum call be rescinded. time. He was asked what he had thought the
The PRESIDING OFFICER. With- , . As the acting majority leader, I again odds were, at the outset, that the Soviets were
s
uppo o o through to the end was somewhere between
. what our President has done. 1 in 3 and even odds.
THF..S'T'T`TTA'PTnTT TTT enrrmv T1TL..TN.T n m
I should like to reply-or rather to ex-
press myself briefly-with relation to
what the Senator from - Alaska [Mr.
GRUENINGI, I am told, has said about our
situation in South Vietnam, Certainly,
no one regrets the present situation more
than I do. But it is very true and fun-
damental, in my opinion, that the pres-
tige of the United States, the whole se-
curity of our country, and the whole fu-
ture of our situation in the Far East de-
pends upon our retaliating quickly and
speedily when a U.S. compound is at-
country of a H-bomb attack is 110 million
dead Americans.
V.ir,irrtiivZ risking the destruction of 60 percent of the
Mr. MILLER. Mr. President, in this population of the United States when the
morning's edition of the Washington risk was at least as high as 1 in 3 in his
Post appears carefully considered opinion. He was
an article by the distin- helped, no doubt, because he was also con-
guished columnist, Mr. Joseph Alsop, en- scious that if he submitted to the threat
titled "'We Can' Versus 'We Can't'," of Soviet missiles in Cuba, most of the people
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2222 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE
whom he led and loved would never forgive In this interview, conducted by the editors the Southern Hemisphere, where people who
such a surrender. of The Reader's Digest, Dr, William E. Grif- are both poor and colored resent the wealthy
Every thinking person is grateful, today, flth, an outstanding authority on commu- white countries, including Russia. China
for the dead President's willingness to run nism, offers a series of specific proposals de- counts on the frustrations, the weakness, and
this fearful risk. Many are perhaps unaware signed to contain the strengthened Chinese the fear of the colored peoples of the world
of the Pentagon price tag above quoted. influence. Dr. Griffith is director of the In- to drive them into Peiping's control. That
Many may believe, with the easy wisdom of ternational Communism Project at the MIT is why they are working so hard-and effec-
the rear view, that the risk was not really Center for International Studies. He is also tively-in Africa and Latin America.
"1 in 3." professor of Soviet diplomacy in the Fletcher Question. How, exactly, do the Chinese
But no thinking person can suppose there School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts Uni- operate in these areas?
was no risk at all that the Kremlin would versity, and author of "The Sino-Soviet Answer. They have various weapons.
refuse to back dawn in October 1962. And Rift.") Their first weapon is money-they are spend
ne. thinking person can suppose that the Question. Dr. Griffith, what is the signifi- ing hundreds of millions of dollars a year on
thing risked-an H-bomb attack-would cance of Red Chinas explosion of a nuclear their worldwide operations. In Latin Amer-
have been anything but unimaginably awful. device? ica the Chinese have encouraged Castro to
All the same, there is unanimity that Mr. Answer. To the Chinese people, and to support the guerrillas in Venezuela. They
Kennedy did right. many others throughout the world, the de- have allied with him in a struggle to win
These facts provide the context in which vice is proof that Red China now has the supremacy over Latin American communism
to judge the sharp turn that events have essential element of becoming an independ- and, in the process, to depose the pro-Soviet
taken in the last 48 hours. As these words ent power-atomic capacity. The political heads of the big Latin American Commu-
are written, it is not known whether the effect of this is already apparent. More and nist Parties-in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.
President has merely ordered another demon- more people, even in India and Japan, are They do not have diplomatic missions in
stration, like the one after the trouble in beginning to think that the wave of the Latin America, but they frequently use their
the Gulf of Tonkin; or whether he has at future, at least in areas like southeast Asia, news agency offices-the New China News
last decided to do whatever may be needed is not red, white and blue, but yellow. Agency-as their base for subversion and
to avert defeat in South Vietnam. China is the first underdeveloped country bribery.
It is not known, in other words, whether the first Asian country and the first colored The Chinese carry on an immense -prooa
he has finally decided to act upon the advice country that has produced an atomic bomb, ganda operation, not only with very exten-
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his Ambas- There is no question that the Chinese are sive broadcasts, but also with an immense
sador in Saigon, Gen. Maxwell Taylor. But highly proud of this achievement and now amount of literature. They publish their
whether this is another fruitless one-shot realize that all the privations have not been magazines andarticles in about 15 languages
stunt, or whether the President now means in vain. If they don't have butter, at least and spread them around the world with no
business at last, it is worth fitting the reason they do have a very big gun. thought of cost. These things are very well
for his long indecision into the context al- From our point of view, the most alarming done, and there is no question that they have
ready provided above. aspect is the type of device that was ex- some influence. At the University of Ca-
Previously he has rejected the Joint Chiefs' ploded. The official statement of the U.S. racas in Venezuela, for example, you don't
advice and has done less than Maxwell Taylor Atomic Energy Commission indicates that see Russian literature, you don't see Ameri-
wanted done, even at the time of the Gulf the Chinese used uranium 235, very likely can literature-you see Chinese literature, in
of Tonkin, for a basically simple reason. produced in a gaseous-diffusion plant. This impeccable Spanish. It is tailormade for the
When each successive plan for sterner action is an enormously expensive operation, in- young, the radical, the violent, the dis-
against the North Vietnamese aggressors has volving tremendous amounts of electric pow- satisfied, the frustrated.
been presented to the President, he has asked er, and it indicates that Chinese technology In Africa, the Chinese think they have
for absolute guarantees that such action and engineering may be much more ad- great chances, because they feel the future
would not lead to "another Korea." And the vanced than we had thought. Moreover, the there holds more turmoil, more tribal and
guarantees have not been given, because they fact that the Chinese have uranium 235 in- ethnic warfare, and more anarchy and
could not be given with honesty. dicates that they will be able to get an H- chaos-the kind of violence which they have
The memory of the proudest episode in bomb much more rapidly than had been only to urge on. For this reason they have
this country's proud postwar history as thought-probably within 2 or 3 years. aided the revolutionaries in Zanzibar, the
burden-bearer of the free world has in fact For the present at least, one should think rebels in the Congo. They are trying to buy
paralyzed our highest councils instead of fundamentally of the Chinese nuclear de- up-, to influence and to give training and
inspiring them. vice as a political advantage, rather than political and ideological direction to the dis-
The practical political reasons why this a military gain. Red China still lacks an satisfied, frustrated radicals in all countries
has happened-the narrow murmurings of effective delivery - system for the A-bomb. of black Africa.
Senator RICHARD RUSSELL, the President's There is no reason, however, to suppose that Question. China is doing all this, and yet,
own memories of the opposition's squalid the dhinese cannot eventually develop one. internally, it is a weak country?
post-Korea behavior, and so on and on- Question. Apart from the bomb, have the Answer. Yes. This is the most remark-
hardly need emphasis. Chinese been doing well in extending their able aspect of its achievements. Not only is
What needs emphasis is the bizarre lunacy influence? it a weak country with an enormous popu-
of the people who insist we can quite prop- Answer. The Chinese are dizzy with suc- lation growth, but it has probably become
erly do what we did in October 1962 whereas cess. They were the greatest winners from weaker in the last 5 years. China was hard
we cannot again do what we did in Korea. the fall of Khrushchev. In Asia the Chinese hit when the Russians took back all their
The figures speak for themselves. In Oc- now have primary influence over the North technical experts and stopped all economic
tober 1962 President Kennedy took a sub- Vietnamese. By supporting the North aid in 1960. The stagnation of Chinese in- .
stantiel risk of 110 mililon casualties in this Koreans in the Korean war, they have won dustry in the last 5 years is almost unparal-
country. The Korean war was hard and primary influence over North Korea, and leled in any Communist country. Further-
cruel as well as proud, but it cost us, in the Russians have lost it. They have drawn more, the Chinese ran into a series of very bad
dead and wounded, only 137,000 casualties. Cambodia and Burma into their orbit. They harvests. They've been buying the wheat
Those men fell to defend all that had been defeated the Indians humiliatingly and surpluses of Canada and Australia for some
defended and gained for their country by disastrously in November 1962. They have years now; only in this way have they been
those who fell at Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Guadal- isolated the Indians from all the other south- able to keep going in the food sector.
canal, and Saipan-who also numbered less east Asian powers, which are now so fright- One must remember, however, that
than 300,000. Where then is our common- ened by Red China that they are in the throughout history China has always had
sense, that we shrink and fall back, and process of trying to come to terms with immense problems arising from its tremen-
shrink and fall back until the lives of millions Peiping. The Chinese have tremendous sway dous population, from recurrent bad har-
must again be risked? over the Indonesians. And Chinese influ- vests and floods of its great rivers. The Com-
We have waited overlong. With Kosygin ence even extends into Europe, for Albania munist Government, if nothing else, has pro-
at Hanoi, the danger is far greater than it is virtually, a Chinese satellite. duced a degree of discipline which prevents
was not so very long ago. But the choice is Question. What do these successes mean wholesale catastrophe; even at the worst of
the same, and the'figures are the same, and in terms of China's role in world affairs? the economic crisis in 1960-61, there was no
the price of failure is the same. Answer. The rise of Red China presents mass starvation in China.
an entirely new situation in the world bal- The Chinese seem for the present to he
[From the Reader's Digest, February 19651 ance of power. China is a revolutionary concentrating primarily on agriculture.
WE MUST STOP RED CHINA Now power with global ambitions. It is deter- Given their population problems, they prob-
An apprehensive shudder traveled through mined to replace Moscow at the head of ably can do little else. The population of
the free world last fall when Red China ex- what the Chinese would consider a com- China is estimated to be somewhere around
ploded its first nuclear device. Since then, pletely -purified and revolutionary world 650 to 700 million, and estimates of the rate
the Chinese have become increasingly bellig- Communist movement. of population increase have ranged as high
erent in sensitive areas around the globe. The Chinese think that the wave of victory as 25 million a year. This explains their
How should the United States and its allies which they are riding will engulf the under- interest in southeast Asia, which is tradi-
respond to this new and menacing offensive? developed countries, particularly those in tionally a great rice-producing area.
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