THE DANGER OF A HEMISPHERIC VIETNAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200320016-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 18, 1999
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: August 31, 1965
• Content Type: OPEN

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PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 89th CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION
The Danger of a Hemispheric
Vietnam
(Remarks of Senator Thomas J. Dodd before the national convention
of the American Legion, Portland, Oreg., Aug. 25, 1965)
Speech of
Hon. Thomas J. Dodd
of Connecticut
in the
Senate of the United States
Tuesday, August 31, 1965
Not printed
at Government
expense
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON s 1965
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HON. THOMAS J. DODD
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
Tuesday, August 31, 1965
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask
unanimous consent to insert into the
RECORD the text of a speech on "The
Danger of a Hemispheric Vietnam,"
which I delivered last Thursday before
the national convention of the American
Legion in Portland, Oreg.
There being no objection, the state-
ment was ordered to be printed in the
RECORD, as follows:
VIETNAM AND LATIN AMERICA: THE DANGER
OT A HEMISPHERIC VIETNAM
(Remarks of Senator THOMAS J. DODD before
the national convention of the American
Legion, Portland, Oreg., Aug. 25, 1965)
The invitation to address your national
convention means very much to me, not
only because of the respect I have for your
great organization but also because it has
over the years encouraged citizen concern
with our major problems of foreign policy
and has given its uncompromising support
to those policies which advance our national
security and protect the peace.
That this is so is not surprising. There
are no more passionate advocates of peace
than those who, like the members of the
American Legion, know the meaning of war.
On the other hand, the members of the
American Legion know well that peace can-
not be purchased or protected by appease-
ment and that aggression cannot be wished
away by burying one's head in the sand.
You know, because you have experienced
these things in your own lives, that the
surest way to destroy peace is to close one's
eyes to reality and to retreat before aggres-
sors. You know that peace can only be pro-
tected through strength, and that freedom
can only be protected if we are willing to
This to me is what the American Legion
stands for. And this is why I consider it a
very special privilege to be able to address
your convention today.
I want to take advantage of this opportu-
nity to discuss with you the increasingly
critical situation in Latin America.
We have, I fear, been so engrossed with
the war in Vietnam that most of us have
failed to note the storm clouds forming on
our Latin American horizon.
Even the Dominican uprising we were dis-
posed to put down as a passing storm.
And as soon as its fury had spent itself
we again turned our eyes away from Latin
America back to Vietnam, where almost
100,000 American boys are now committed to
a life-and-death struggle with the aggressive
forces of Asian communism.
Vietnam is not a diversion to distract our
attention from Latin America.
Nor was the Dominican uprising a diver-
sion intended to distract our attention from
Vietnam.
Latin America and southeast Asia are two
major fronts in the battle between the forces
of freedom and the forces of international
communism.
And each of these fronts is of such great
importance that the war can probably be
won or lost in either area.
More than any other war in which we
have been engaged in the past, the war in
Vietnam has driven home to the American
people the terrible difficulty of coping with
this type of Communist warfare, in which
each well-trained guerrilla soldier can pin
down 10 or 15 defenders.
Even on the scale on which it is now be-
ing fought, the war in Vietnam is taxing our
resources and our capabilities.
It is frightening, therefore, to think of
what would happen if we were ever con-
fronted with a hemispheric Vietnam, with
guerrilla uprisings occurring simultaneously
in Brazil and Venezuela and Colombia, and
Panama and Nicaragua and Guatemala, and
then spreading out to other countries.
This prospect is neither a pipedream nor
a nightmare.
On the contrary, there are official pro-
pledge to its defense "our lives, our fortunes, nouncements by Castro Cuba and by other
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the Communists are even today organizing
for the objective of a hemispheric Vietnam.
In this plan, Castro Cuba plays the role of
North Vietnam. And, as Castro's official
newspaper Revolution has spelled out the
next stage of Communist policy in Latin
America, "Colombia and Venezuela form
the nucleus of a vast South Vietnam of
Latin America."
CASTRO'S RECORD OF AGGRESSION
In January 1964, a tremendous cache of
arms was discovered on the coast of Vene-
zuela.
A special commission of the Organization
of American States which was set up to in-
vestigate this cache unanimously reported
that the arms originated in Cuba and that
they were surreptitiously landed on the
Venezuelan coast "for the purpose of being
used in subversive operations to overthrow
the constitutional government of Venezuela."
On the heels of this report, the OAS, with
the single exception of Mexico, decided to
sever diplomatic relations with Cuba.
This was held up at- the time as a major
victory in isolating Castro from his Latin
American neighbors, and as a death blow to
subversion.
But 1 year later we find that Castro sub-
version has been intensified and that it is
being carried out more and more openly and
with even greater success.
We have witnessed the overthrow of gov-
ernments in Bolivia, Ecuador, and the Do-
minican Republic.
Riots and terrorism threaten the founda-
tions of the governments of Panama, Guate-
mala, Colombia, Venezuela, and Peru.
And, in every case, Castro-trained plotters
are Identified with these disturbances and
Insurrections.
In July of 1963, the OAS issued a report
dealing with Soviet activities in Cuba.
In this report it named 10 major guerrilla
warfare training centers.
But, despite this exposure, Castro has
stepped up his training program for Latin
American guerrillas so that Castro today
operates no fewer than 30 guerrilla camps in
which Latin American cadres are trained in
the art of subversion.
After they are trained, they are reinfil-
trated into their homelands, where they are
skillfully working to overthrow the legiti-
The Dominican crisis is eloquent testi-
mony to the effectiveness of these trained
infiltrators.
Guerrilla training camps have been
recently located in the Panamanian province
of Chiriqui and in the capital of Guatemala.
inthe latter case, troops captured a large
cache of Cuban weapons.
The grave implications of these discov-
eries are that we may soon face self-propa-
gating armies of Communist guerrillas in
this hemisphere-armies which will no
longer be completely dependent on their
Cuban base.
When that happens, Cuban-sown time
bombs will explode one by one throughout
Latin America, or conceivably they will be
timed so that a number of them go off
simultaneously.
And the Communists make
their intent.
The record is full of comments by lead-
ing figures in Castro's government to the
effect that Cuba is indeed the North Viet-
nam of this hemisphere.
Castro's guerrilla chieftain, Maj. Ernesto
"Che" Guevara, has publicly embraced Latin
American guerrilla leaders in training in
Cuba-Jose Cardona, and Tiro-Fijo from Co-
lombia; German Layret of Venezuela, and
others.
Cuban broadcasts blanket Latin America
with propaganda, inciting riots and encour-
aging terrorism. - -
Havana radio openly broadcasts instruc-
tions to guerrilla bands in other Latin Amer-
ican countries.
For example, in a broadcast to Haiti on
August 9 of this year, the Havana radio car-
ried a lecture by "a guerrilla of the Vene-
zuelan Armed Forces of National Liberation."
"The lecture," said the announcer, "deals
with his experiences in northern Venezuela
and it will serve as valuable orientation for
revolutionaries. To the people of Haiti,
Latin America, and the whole world the lec-
ture will show that they must conduct their
own revolutionary processes."
The lecturer then proceeded to describe
how the urban and suburban detachments
of the Venezuelan rebels had been organized;
how they had sought to win the support of
workers and peasants with reform slogans;
how they had extended the guerrilla area of
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of arms and explosives, and given them po-
litical indoctrination; established operation
centers for guerrillas in the towns; and
finally how they had proceeded to establish
a combined command for the various sectors
of the guerrilla movement.
The lecture on guerrilla warfare even in-
cluded a passage inciting its listeners to the
kind of terrorist murders that have charac-
terized the Vietcong insurgency in Vietnam.
"There is another kind of influence," said the
broadcast. "For example, in a village where
there is an enemy of both the peasants and
the guerrillas, he is tried and executed.
There have been many cases in which the
results of this kind of influence had been
extraordinary."
The incications to violence are not confined
to Latin America. I do not think that it is in
any exaggeration to suggest that the broad-
casts over Castro's radio Free Dixie by the
renegade American Negro, Robert F. Wil-
liams, have played a role of some importance
in inciting extremists elements in the
American Negro community to the kind of
violence that we have witnessed in recent
weeks in Los Angeles and Chicago and other
centers.
I do not mean to minimize the injustices
which the American Negroes have suffered-
the poverty, the discrimination, the lack of
opportunity, the overcrowding in ghettos.
But no one can tell me that it does not have
some impact on the extremist minority in
the Negro community when day after day
they listen to broadcasts like the following
over radio Free Dixie. I quote Robert F.
Williams' words verbatim:
"We are injured by racial injustice. Let
the thug cop and the racist savages view our
indignation through the razor, the lye can,
the gas bomb, and the bullet ? * w let those
who despise us and brutally oppress our peo-
ple be prepared to kill or be killed * * * let
our people take to the streets in fierce num-
bers and let their battle cry be heard around
the world: Freedom, freedom, freedom, now
or death."
THE ROLE OF THE OTHER COMMUNIST COUNTRIES
But it is not just a matter of Cuba.
Those who talk about a detente with the
Soviet Union or about the so-called "de-
satellization" of the European satellites,
would do well to examine the activities of
In 1962, Ecuador broke relations with
Czechoslovakia when it was found that the
Czech Embassy was selling Skoda industrial
products in Ecuador and turning over the
proceeds to Castroites in that country.
Only last fall the Bolivian Government
also broke relations with Czechoslovakia.
Riots which overthrew the Government were
traced to the Czech Embassy and to the
military and financial support that it gave
to Castrolte terrorists in that country.
Moscow itself publicly issued a communi-
que which targeted seven nations in this
hemisphere to be overthrown by Cuban ex-
ported subversion. It went so far as to line
up all Communist parties in this hemisphere
in support of Castro.
The huge Soviet Embassy in Uruguay acts
as one of the several direction centers of
subversion in Latin America, while the role
played by the Chinese Embassy in Brazil
prior to the overthrow of the Goulart gov-
ernment is a matter of documentary record.
Despite the differences which divide them
as nations, a Communist consortium appears
to be biding its time in Latin America until
Its trained guerrilla forces are ready to strike.
If they strike simultaneously in a number of
Latin American countries, I am afraid that
we may be confronted by a "continental
war," as it is described by Moscow, which
will make the Dominican uprising and even
the Vietcong insurgency appear minor affairs
by comparison.
THE ANDES-"THE SIERRA MAESTRA OF
AMERICA"
I have already spoken about the danger in
Central America-in Guatemala, Honduras,
Panama, and Nicaragua-and of the danger
in the southern Caribbean countries of Vene-
zuela and Colombia.
There is, in addition, evidence that Castro
is setting up a series of headquarters and
way stations in the Andes Mountain.
Shortly before taking power in Cuba,
Castro boasted that he would convert the
Andes into "the Sierra Maestra" of South
America.
There are increasing indications that
Castro is on the way to achieving this goal.
From Bolivia comes reports that La Paz
has become a center of Communist arms run-
ning and subversion throughout the Andes,
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From Chile comes the report that the capi-
tal city of Santiago is the seat of a Castro-
Communist headquarters headed by two vet-
eran Bulgarian Reds, Ivan Tenev and Kon-
stantin Telalov.
From Peru there comes a report that, when
several Communist youths were captured in
the course of a guerrilla attack on May 20,
they confessed that they were part of a
larger Castroite operation intended to bring
terror and guerrilla warfare to key areas of
the country.
THE WAY OUT
At its meeting of July 26, 1964, the Orga-
nization of American States emphatically
condemned the Government of Cuba for its
acts of aggression and intervention against
Venezuela.
In addition to voting to sever all diplo-
matic connections and suspend all trade and
transportation between their countries and
Cuba, they warned the Castro government
that, if it persists in its acts of aggression
and intervention, the member states of the
OAS reserve the right to defend themselves,
either individually or collectively, not ex-
chiding the resort to armed force.
I believe that the time has come to re-
examine, on an emergency basis, our entire
policy toward Cuba and Latin America.
We cannot afford the luxury of waiting and
doing nothing until the flames of a Viet-
namese or Dominican-type insurrection erupt
at a dozen different points in the troubled
countries of Latin America.
There is no single solution for the sick-
ness of Latin America.
Those who believe that all of our Latin
American troubles would disappear over-
night if we simply sent in the marines to
unseat Castro have woefully oversimplified
the situation.
For the fact is that, with only a few coun-
tries excepted, the masses of the people in
the Latin American countries are abysmally
poor; the propertied classes-apart from an
enlightened minority-are narrow-minded
and grasping, and opposed to social progress:
and their social structures remain virtually
untouched by the vast reforms that have
swept through most of the civilized world in
recent decades.
If Castro were removed by the marines to-
morrow and if nothing were done to improve
social and economic conditions in the Amer-
icas, then, as surely as night follows day, it
could be predicted that we would be con-
fronted with another half dozen Castros in
various parts of the hemisphere over the
coming decade.
But those do-gooders who urge that we
push reforms in Latin America, and simply
ignore the menace of Castroism, are just as
blind and just as wrong as those who urge
that we send in the marines tomorrow.
The mere existence of the Castro regime
and its subversive network makes social re-
form and economic progress virtually im-
possible.
It makes chaos and violence an epidemic
condition throughout the Americas; and it
produces an outpouring of frightened capital
that far exceeds the intake of new capital
through the Alliance for Progress and private
investment.
The problem of Latin America will never
be solved and we will have no security in
this hemisphere unless we embark on a
simultaneous program, without delay and
with all possible urgency, to put an end to
the menace of Castroism and to bring the
American Revolution to the suffering and
impoverished and freedom-hungry peoples
of the hemisphere.
For it is we, and not the Communists, who
are the true revolutionaries.
It is we who stand for freedom and justice
and human equality, we who have found the
key to a better life for the masses of the
people-while the Communists, in every
country where they have seized power, have
coupled the total slavery of the mind with
an infallible genius for reducing agricul-
tural production and stultifying progress in
general.
I would like to see the OAS or the Alliance
for Progress commit itself at their next meet-
ing to the goal of a hemispheric revolution.
I would like to see a hemispheric attack
on the problems of illiteracy and disease and
housing and poverty.
I would also like to see the kind of sweep-
ing land reform program that the Chinese
Nationalist Government has carried out in
Taiwan put into effect in the many Latin
American countries where the majority of
the: peasants still do not own their own
land.
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I would like to see a massive program of Just over a month ago, the Castro regime
assistance to the institutes of higher educa- made the revealing admission that the offi-
tion in the Americas so that they can turn cial antiguerrilla forces, which are called the
out more graduates in business and public fighters against bandits, had liquidated over
administration, In agriculture and geology 1,000 civilians and guerrillas in just three of
and marine biology and all the fields related Cuba's six Provinces.
to the expansion of social resources and the Fidel Castro himself said on July 26 that
proper management of society. his soldiers had wiped out "counterrevolu-
Needless to say, no such hemispheric pro- tionary bands," with the exception of three
gram can be carried out without massive unidentified groups. Castro upped the figure
support from our own country. of civilians and guerrillas killed to 2,005.
I, as one Senator, would be prepared to It is significant that Castro has claimed
vote for such massive support because I be- the extinction of guerrillas on three previous
lieve that we could make no better invest- occasions, but they always pop up again.
ment from the standpoint of our own secu- Obviously, he is beset with more problems
rity. than meet the eye.
As for Castro, the time has come to accept If the Cuban people can accomplish this
the simple unescapable fact that Castro must much without any assistance from the out-
go-that we must embark on a crash pro- side, then I say that we have every reason to
gram to help the Cuban people liberate be confident that, given the assistance to
themselves from the tyranny of this alien which they are entitled, the Cuban people
despot. will prove to the world that they are capable
To those who say that Castro cannot be of making their own Hungarian revolution.
overthrown, my answer is the example of the We must put an end to the folly of re-
Hungarian revolution. straining and handicapping those patriotic
True, the Soviet Red Army succeeded in Cubans who seek to bring aid to the freedom
crushing the Hungarian rebels. But Castro fighters in their homeland.
will not be able to count on the intervention We must accord them at least the same
of 5,000 Soviet tanks when the Cuban people freedom of action that we accorded the fol-
rise against him, as the people of Hungary lowers of Castro when they were working
rose to a man against their own quisling for the overthrow of the Batista regime-
Communist tyrants. without any interference of any kind from
There is today In Cuba a state of disen- the American authorities.
chantment and open rebellion against the Basing ourselves upon the recognized facts
Castro regime that bears a striking similarity that the Castro regime is guilty of aggres-
to the situation that existed in Hungary be- sion and intervention against its neighbors,
fore the great popular revolution of October we must, as a measure of legitimate self-
1956. defense, publicly commit ourselves to the
There have been six major demonstrations liberation of the hemisphere from the men-
and revolts against the Castro regime over ace of Castro subversion and aggression.
the past 2 years. We must put teeth into our embargo on
The last revolt took place only several trade with Cuba. And here I would like to
weeks ago when a village of some 300 fami- suggest a declaration that if a ship of any
lies went on a hunger strike. company discharges or takes on cargo in
The army was sent in and the entire pop- Cuba, all the ships of this company should
ulation was taken by truck to the nearby be barred from entering American ports for
city of Sancti Spiritus. a period of 1 year thereafter.
And all of these uprisings and demonstra- I would also like to urge that we bring
tions, I want to emphasize, took place with- more pressure to bear on our allies than we
out the slightest encouragement or support have heretofore brought, to put an end to
from the United States. this traffic which undermines the security of
Guerrilla bands, too, are operating against the hemisphere and our own security.
the Castro regime, with no support or public I do not pretend to have worked out a
encouragement from outside. solution in all its details.
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These are only some of the things that
can and must be done.
But the essential thing is that Castro
must go and Cuba must be liberated so that
the countries of the Americas can together
embark on that true democratic revolution
which we in our country have pioneered, and
which points the way to the future for all
mankind.
EXHIBIT I
[From Havana, Radio Free Dixie in English,
0300 GMT, Aug.21, 1968]
ROBERT F. WILLIAMS URGES MORE RIOTS IN
UNITED STATES
(Excerpts) : Greetings my brothers and sis-
ters. We are witnessing the beginning of a
ferocious and devastating fire storm. We are
living in an age of great upheaval. We are
living in an age of violence and revolution.
We are living in an age where the angry cry
of freedom rises from every quarter as the
slave rises to challenge the enslaver. We
see passions pent up for centuries burst from
the miserable heart of the bondmen and
set the streets aflame with insurrection. Yes,
we see mighty racist America quiver from the
impact of a terrifying shock wave of free-
dom.
Yes, Los Angeles, Los Angeles. The glori-
ous spirit of our brutally dehumanized peo-
ple of the ghetto has restored our self-
respect, our human dignity. Los Angeles is a
warning to oppressive racists who know they
can no longer enjoy immunity from retribu-
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tion for their brutal crimes of violence and
oppression of our people.
Our shining hour is fast approaching, and
let us prepare to make the most of it. We
are not alone. Our friends are many, and
they are daily becoming even more powerful.
My brothers and sisters, the Afro-American
has no enemy any place in the world other
than in racist America. Look about you.
Take a good look. There you will see the only
enemy you have on this earth. He is the one
who hates you. He is the one who abuses
you. He is the one who blows the heads off
little black girls praying in Sunday school.
His hands are the ones stained with the
blood of Emmet Till, Mack Charles Parker,
Medgar Evers, and countless others.
My brothers and sisters, times are critical,
They are going to become ever more critical.
We are facing a future wherein the streets.
shall become like rivers of blood. Let us
be prepared to fight to the death, organize,
arm, learn to shoot and to handle explosives.
When the impending showdown comes, use
the match and the torch unsparingly. The
flame of retribution must not be limited to
urban buildings and centers, but the coun-
tryside must go up in smoke also. Remem-
ber the forests, the fields, and the crops. Re-
member the pipelines and oil storage tanks.
Yes, let it be known to the world that we
shall meet their sophisticated weapons of vio-
lence with the crude and simple flame of a
match. We cannot escape our historical
mission of destiny any more than our oppres-
sors can escape the destiny of retribution.
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