CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000200410014-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 22
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 1999
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: March 11, 1964
• Content Type: OPEN

Approved For Release 1999/09/07 : CIA-RDP75-00001 R000200410014-6
1) 64 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE
Under the protective provisions of the
fifth amendment no person can be de-
prived of his life, liberty, or property
without due process of law. These guar-
antees are as operative against legisla-
tive action as they are against action of
the courts. Due process is as much de-
nied by arbitrary and unjustified con-
gressional action as it is by judicial ac-
tion which deprives an individual of his
day in court or his right to justice. Due
process demands that the legislative
body, in performing its functions, jus-
tify any legislation which would curtail
the time-honored right of a property
owner to use his property as he sees fit.
This has not been done in the case of the
legislation commerce.
No respected legal scholar has ever
suggested such a far-fetched theory. If
the commerce clause can be stretched to
such an extreme, then Federal power and
authority could be used to achieve a
completely planned economy by regulat-
ing all business-local and intrastate as
well as interstate-in matters connected
with alleged civil rights.
I should like to say that again with
emphasis. If under the emotional im-
pulse of civil rights we are to stretch the
commerce clause far enough and broadly
enough to reach all the matters out-
lined in the bill, I submit to the Ameri-
can people that the last barrier of pro-
tection they might have in any of their
private or business or social affairs is
broken. The only exception is very in-
nermost parts of the private homes.
Congress has jurisdiction over inter-
state commerce. If interstate com-
merce is to be extended, to the limits at-
tempted here under authority of the
commerce clause bf the Constitution,
there are no boundaries to it.
Incredibly, we are asked to stretch the
commerce clause to reach even the
tiniest of the allegedly covered busi-
nesses, even though it is admittedly not
in interstate commerce, if cumulatively
the "total operations" of it and all the
other similar businesses taken together
would exercise a "substantial" effect on
interstate commerce.
In other words, the courts have held
that a fragmentary or remote effect on
interstate commerce will not give us ju-
risdiction. There must be a substantial
impact. Those who argue for the bill
say that a single little restaurant will not
itself affect commerce substantially, but,
they say, "There are a great number of
little restaurants on the highway; and
if we add them all together they have a
substantial effect cumulatively on inter-
state commerce."
Mr. HART. Mr. President, will the
Senator yield at that point?
Mr. STENNIS. I yield.
Mr. HART. Accepting the Senator's
statement as a statement of fact, let us
suppose that for 100 miles on the high-
way there are only tiny little restaurants,
but, judging from a distance of 50 feet,
a man is excluded from being served in
any of those little restaurants because
he is colored. Would that not affect In-
terstate commerce?
Mr. STENNIS. It would have a very
remote effect.
Mr. HART. It depends on how hun-
gry a person becomes in a hundred miles,
and how much he needs shelter.
Mr. STENNIS. The point I am ar-
guing is that one little restaurant A
would not have a substantial effect on
interstate commerce.
Mr. HART. I was not talking about
restaurant A. I was talking of restau-
rants A through AAA, in a stretch of
road. I ask the Senator if such a sit-
uation does not affect interstate com-
merce.
Mr. STENNIS. To obtain jurisdiction
over the little restaurant A under the
theory of the proponents of this bill, it
is necessary to consider all its activities,
all its customers, all its present and ex-
pected business, and everything else, and
to throw it in with a great many others.
Then, and only then, according to the
bill's proponents, can it be said that that
small restaurant has a substantial effect
on interstate commerce. My point is
that we have no jurisdiction over it be-
cause its business is so remote from the
standpoint of interstate commerce. I
understand the Senator's position.
I ask Senators to listen again to Mr.
Kennedy's testimony before the Senate
Commerce Committee. He said:
We intentionally did not make the size of
a business the criterion for coverage because
we believe that discrimination by many small
establishments imposes a cumulative burden
on interstate commerce.
I wish to make it clear that that was
not my conclusion, but that Mr. Ken-
nedy's conclusion.
Based upon the interpretation of the
Nation's highest legal official even before
the bill is enacted, it is not too difficult
to envision what this would mean to the
lives, the property, the fortunes, and the
very existence of the small restaurant
owners, motel owners, theater owners,
lodging house owners, and the like, who
would allegedly be covered by this bill
and forced to answer a charge that they
were engaged in interstate commerce-
not because of what they did-but be-
cause they and other cumulatively were
engaged in operations which collectively
affected interstate commerce.
The testimony of Mr. Kennedy evoked
a pertinent comment from the distin-
guished Senator from Oklahoma [Mr.
MONRONEY], and I commend him for it.
It was:
Many of us are worried about the use of
the interstate commerce clause will have on
matters which have been for more than 170
years thought to be within the realm of local
control under our dual system of State and
Federal Government, based on the doctrine
that those powers which were not specifically
granted to the Federal Government by the
Constitution are reserved to the States.
Let me also point out that Mr. Ken-
nedy's testimony before the Commerce
Committee revealed that he apparently
does not recognize the distinction be-
tween a statute which compels racial seg-
regation and one which grants freedom
of choice. When he appeared he placed
in the record a document entitled "State
or Local Laws Compelling Racial Segre-
gations in Public Accommodations." Un-
der the heading "State Segregation
Statutes," he listed section 2046.5, Mis-
sissippi Code of 1942. He would have
found, if he had bothered to completely
read this statute, that it does not com-
pel segregation. To the contrary, it
provides for freedom of choice and au-
thorizes the owner of an establishment
to sell to whom he pleases and, if he so
desires, to refuse to sell to, wait upon or
serve a person that he does not desire to
do business with.
This is a right which I believe is one
which is inherent in the concept of indi-
vidual liberty and which is protected by
the fifth amendment. This means, in
my judgment, that the Federal Govern-
ment cannot-even in pursuance of a
nebulous concept of public welfare-pass
a law dictating to the owner of an estab-
lishment those customers he must serve.
It means that a private owner has the
basic liberty to choose, according to his
own desires-be they arbitrary, capri-
cious, or even irrational-the persons
with whom he will do business.
More and more, Mr. President, there
has been an intrusion of national au-
thority into matters which were hereto-
fore conceded to be of purely local con-
sideration and concern. It therefore be-
comes increasingly imperative that the
Federal Government respect those
principles which mark the line of de-
marcation between Federal and State
authority. As we debate this new and
radical proposal for a quantum jump in
Federal intrusion, let us remember the
words of the Court in Carter v. Carter
Coal Co., 297 U.S. 238 (1936). They
were :
Every journey to a forbidden end begins
with the first step, and the danger of such a
step by the Federal Government in the direc-
tion of taking over the powers of the States
is that the end of the journey may find the
States so despoiled of their powers, or-what
may amount to the same thing-so relieved
of the responsibilities which possession of
the power necessarily enjoins, as to reduce
them to little more than geographical sub-
divisions of the national domain.
Let us not, in misguided but impas-
sioned enthusiasm, undermine our great
Constitution-the repository of all our
liberties. Instead let us dedicate our-
selves to upholding the Principles upon
which the Constitution was built. Let us
reject title II and thereby insure that in-
dividuals will have the right to say what
they please, to associate with those whom
they choose, to use their property as they
see fit, and to operate their private busi-
nesses in the manner which they desire.
In closing, Mr. President, if I may be
permitted to paraphrase a popular safety
slogan, I would say this to my fellow Sen-
ators: Be careful of what you do. The
constitution you destroy may be our own.
Mr. SPARKMAN. Mr. President, will
the Senator yield?
Mr. STENNIS. I yield.
Mr. SPARKMAN. I compliment the
Senator from Mississippi most heartily
on an excellent presentation.
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-! SENATE FOIAb3 Ware h, y
# 5, A71LLNiN10. i tnan1 tile Senator.
Mr. SPARKMAN. I was thinking as
the Senator was speaking-and I wish
given yesterday by my colleague, th
senior 8Senator from Alabama. Justic
Brandeis was one of the all-time libera
Justices, and a clear thinker.
Justice Brandeis is quoted as saying J
Experience should teach us to be most on
our guard to protect liberty when the Gov-
ernment's purposes are beneficient.
Men born to freedom are naturally alert
to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-
minded rulers. The greatest dangers to lib-
erty lurk in insidious encroachment by men
of zeal, well meaning, but without under-
standing.
Does the Senator from Mississippi
think that is very real and pertinent at
this time?
Mr. STENNIS. Very real; and it cer-
tainly is applicable. The Senator from
Mississippi, along with the Senator from
Alabama, I am sure, as, young men, or
perhaps only boys, remember when Jus-
tice Brandeis was nominated for the Su-
preme Court of the United States.
Mr. SPARKMAN. I do.
Mr. STENNIS. I remember that Jus-
tice Brandeis was opposed in the Senate
on the ground that he had extremely
liberal views. Many people believed his
views were not in keeping with our con-
stitutional principles. Justice Brandeis
was known as a man of impeccable char-
acter, lofty standards, and a great mind.
He adorned the Court with great learn-
ing and pointed out clearly the funda-
mentals of our Constitution, our liber-
ties, and our rights.
I thank the Senator for making that
very fine remark, which is an excellent
closing.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence
of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The
clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll,
and the following Senators answered to
Ailott
Anderson
Bartlett
Bayh
Beall
Bennett
Bible
Boggs
Byrd, Va.
Byrd, W. Va.
Cannon
Carlson
Case
Church
Clark
Cooper
Curtis
Dirksen
Dodd
Dominick
Douglas
Eastland
Ellender
Ervin
Fong
Goldwater
Gore
Gruening
[No. 74 Leg.]
Hart Morton
Hartke Moss
Hayden Muskie
Hickenlooper Neuberger
Hill Pastore
Holland Pearson
Hruska Pell
Humphrey Prouty
Inouye Proxmire
Javits Ribicoff
Johnston Robertson
Jordan, N.C. Russell
Jordan, Idaho Saltonstall
Keating Scott
Kennedy Simpson
Kuchel Smathers
Lausche Smith
Long, Mo. Sparkman
Long, La. Stennis
Magnuson Talmadge
Mansfield
McClellan
McGovern
McNamara
Metcalf
Miller
Monroney
Morse
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. U.S. military and economic aid to Laos,
INOUYE in the chair). A quorum is Cambodia, and South Vietnam, fiscal years
nresent. 954
.
963
to
THE UNITED STATES SHOULD GET
OUT OF VIETNAM
Mr. GRUENING. Mr. President, the
mess in Vietnam was inherited by Pres-
ident Johnson.
Over 10 years ago, after a careful study
of the situation in Indochino, a report
was made to the Senate outlining the
following conditions for success in that
troubled area of the world:
The basic problem which confronts all
three governments and particularly that of
Vietnam is, to put clown firm roots in their
respective populations. They will be able to
do so only if they evolve in accord with pop-
ular sentiment and they deal competently
with such basic problems as illiteracy, pub-
lic health, excessive population in the deltas,
inequities in labor, and land tenure, and
village and agricultural improvements. Fi-
nally, it'is essential that there be a constant
rising of the ethical standards of government
and a determination to use the armies, now
the process of formation, strictly for national
rather than private purposes. Failure in
these fundamental responsibilities of self-
government will result in the achievement of
the shadow rather than the substance of in-
dependence. It could also mean the rapid
reduction of the three nations to chaos and
the subsequent intrusion of some new form
of foreign domination from close at hand.
The date of that report was October
27, 1953, over 10 years ago.
The person making the report was our
very able and distinguished majority
leader, the Senator from Montana [Mr.
MANSFIELD], whose knowledge of that
area of the world is most extensive. With
respect to South Vietnam, the recom-
mendations of the Senator from Mon-
tana, were prophetic, but they went
unheeded.
History shows that the major causes of
the deterioration, not only of the U.S.
poistion, but also of the position of the
South Vietnamese governments, have
been actions by the South Vietnamese
government contrary to the advice of-
fered by the distinguished majority lead-
er 10 years ago.
The war in South Vietnam is not and
never has been a U.S. war. It is and
must remain a fight to be fought and won
by the people of South Vietnam the m-
25X1A9a
South
Vietnam
19.54__-_---_-----
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0
1
1955___________-
40.9
38.2 I
.
335
8
195fi
76. 5
70.8
.
383
6
1957--------------
48.7
55.3
.
391
6
1958--------------
36.9
36.1
.
242
0
1959--------------
32.6
29.0
.
249
0
1960-
55.5
26.0
.
2.51
4
1961--------------
64. 2
28.1
.
209
6
1962
64.1
39.9
.
287
2
1963-------------
36.8
29.2
.
208.1
Mr. GRUENING. Why have these
been unavailing in bringing security to
South Vietnam from the Communist-led
attacks of the Vietcong? As Sam Cas-
tan, Look senior editor, wrote on January
28, 1964:
But in spite of our noble intent, our mas-
sive aid and all the small acts of selfless hero-
ism our men have performed in its behalf,
South Vietnam's path to peace is cluttered
by the debris of mistakes that America either
made or endorsed.
I ask unanimous consent that the en-
tire article by Mr. Caston entitled "Viet-
nam's Two Wars" be printed in full in the
RECORD at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without
objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. GRUENING. It is to the past
then, rather than to the events of recent
days and months, that we must look for
the answer to the "why" of the present
dilemma of the United States in South
Vietnam.
When President Eisenhower took office
in January 1953, the war in Indochina
was not going well. It was a French war,
fought with French troops as well as the
troops of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
U.S. military and economic aid had been
going to the French in ever-increasing
amounts as the drain of maintaining a
fighting force of a quarter of a million
men and of supporting three Indochinese
national armies numbering 120,000 men
increased.
In reviewing the situation on January
27, 1963-6 days after taking office-
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles
stated:
selves. The will to fight and win must Now the Soviet Russians are making a
come from the spirit of the South Viet- they are drive doing get Japan, ng In northern only through what
namese. The United States cannot in- d areas of the
islands and in Korea, but also through what
still that will in them. they are doing in Indochina. If they could
For 14 years now the United States get this peninsula of Indochina, Siam,
has helped the South Vietnamese with Burma, Malaya, they would have what is
men, money and material in generous called the rice bowl of Asia. That's the
amounts. I ask unanimous constent that area from which the great peoples of Asia,
there be printed at this noint. in mil ,.a- great countries of Asia, such as Japan and
Thurmond marks a table showing the amounts of i.,uaw, gas in large measure, their food. And
Walters you can see that if the Soviet Union had con-
Williams, N.J. aid loaned or granted for this area over trol of the rice bowl of Asia, that would be
Williams, Del. the years. another weapon which would tend to expand
Yarborough There being no objection, the table their control into Japan and into India,
Young, N. Dak was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, That is a growing danger and it is not only
Young, Ohio
as follows: a bad situation because of the threat in the
Mien countries that I refer to but also be-
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1964 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE
cause the French who are doing much of the
fighting there are making great effort and
that effort subtracts just that much from
the capacity of their building a European
army and making the contribution which
otherwise they could be expected to make.
In terms of fighting men, France was
there as the only major power on the
scene because the three countries had
been and were French colonies. While
they had been given independence in
1949, the independence was with respect
to internal affairs only. They were still
within the French Union and France had
an obligation to them to help fight the
Communist-supported internal fighting
they faced.
But the long supply lines and the fierce
lighting continued to sap French
strength.
Then came the tragic events at Dien-
bienphu in March 1954. The Commu-
nists under Ho Chi Minh attacked that
fortress in force.
Those were the days of brinkmanship,
of massive retaliation and of the domino
theory-policies proclaimed b y Secre-
tary of State John Foster Dulles.
While the fighting was taking place,
Gen. Paul Ely, French chief of staff,
flew to Washington to inform the Eisen-
hower administration that the French
could not hold out much longer and
needed direct U.S. intervention.
This request precipitated a behind the
scenes struggle at the highest levels of
Government circles both here in Wash-
ington and in London.
While General Ely was still in town,
Secretary of State Dulles held a news
conference in which he stated that what
military aid was given to France was a
military matter and that "if there are
further requests of that kind that are
made, I have no doubt that our military
or defense people will attempt to meet
them."
I ask unanimous consent that the text
of Secretary Dulles' news conference on
March 23, 1954, be printed in full in the
RECORD, at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without
objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 2.)
Mr. GRUENING. Mr. Fletcher Kne-
bel, well-known Washington correspond-
ent, in an article in Look on February
8, 1955, gave a forceful account of ma-
neuverings in high places in Washington
and London in those fateful, early days
of 1954 when the United States stood on
the brink of an all-out invasion of Viet-
nam.
According to Mr. Kriebel, Adm. Arthur
W. Radford, then Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, advocated an immediate
airstrike from carriers; Gen. Matthew
B. Ridgway, Army Chief of Staff, was
opposed since he believed that such a
strike could lead to all-out intervention;
Admiral Carney, Chief of Naval Opera-
tions, and Gen. Nathan F. Twining, Air
Force Chief of Staff, felt that, while an
airstrike might help the French at
Dienbienphu, more force would be need-
ed to win the fight in Vietnam.
President Eisenhower, according to
Knebel, agreed with Admiral Radford on
two conditions: That the United States
be joined in the action by other allies;
namely, Great Britain; and that con-
gressional approval be obtained for the
action. Since neither condition could be
met, the United States moved back safely
from the brink.
I ask unanimous consent that that
portion of Mr. Knebel's article dealing
with Indochina be printed in the RECORD
at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without
objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 3.)
Mr. GRUENING. Dienbienphu fell on
May 7, 1954.
At Genera on July 21, 1954, delegates
from Great Britain and the U.S.S.R.,
France, the United States, Communist
China, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and the
Vietminh came to a settlement to resolve
the fighting in Vietnam. The main pro-
visions of the agreement concerning Viet-
nam were as follows:
First. Vietnam was to be partitioned
along the 17th parallel into North and
South Vietnam.
Second. Regulations were imposed on
foreign military personnel and on in-
creased armaments.
Third. Countrywide elections, leading
to the reunification of North and South
Vietnam, were to be held by July 20, 1956.
Fourth. An International Control
Commission-ICC-was to be established
to supervise the implementation of the
agreements.
The United States was not a signatory
of the agreement, but issued a statement,
unilaterally, stating that-
. It (1) will refrain from the threat or the
use of force to disturb the Geneva Agree-
ments; (2) would view any renewal of the
aggression in violation of the aforesaid agree-
ments with grave concern and as seriously
threatening international peace and secur-
ity," and (3) shall continue to seek to achieve
unity through free elections, supervised by
the U.N. to insure that they are conducted
fairly.
Mr. MORSE. Mr. President, will the
Senator yield?,
Mr. GRUENING. I yield with pleas-
ure.
Mr. MORSE. I may say to the Sena-
tor from Alaska that I had planned to
sit through every word of his speech. I
had expected it would come earlier this
afternoon. Unfortunately, I must go to
an official conference. I assure the Sen-
ator from Alaska that I have read every
word of his speech. I would have the
RECORD today show that the senior Sena-
tor from Oregon thinks this is one of the
great speeches in this session of the Con-
gress on foreign policy. I associate my-
self with every word of the speech.
I am awaiting my Government's an-
swer to it. In my judgment, there is no
answer to the Senator's speech. There is
no justification for killing a single Amer-
ican boy in South Vietnam. It is about
time the American people awakened to
what is going on in South Vietnam and
recognized that South Vietnam is beyond
the perimeter of American defense.
There is no justification for murdering
a single American boy in South Vietnam,
for the issue has now become one of
murder.
Everyone knows that if we got into a
war with Russia or Red China it would
4659
be a nuclear war, not a conventional
war. I do not know what we are doing
over there with a conventional program.
Furthermore, as the Senator pointed
out, where are our alleged allies in South
Vietnam? In contrast with South Ko-
rea, where are our friends there? So
long as we are willing to pay 99 percent
of the bill and spill American blood, they
will be satisfied.
If my Government wants to make this
an issue across the land, I am willing to
have it become an issue; but I do not in-
tend to vote for a single dollar for opera-
tions in South Vietnam or to give sup-
port to the American Secretary of De-
fense who is bespeaking American for-
eign policy with no right to do so.
South Vietnam is not worth the life of
a single American boy. I say to my ad-
ministration that I have no intention of
giving any support whatsoever to contin-
uing the cost in blood and money for
operations in South Vietnam that can-
not be justified on the ground of Ameri-
can defense or on any other ground.
The Senator from Alaska has set forth
the issue in his speech in terms so un-
answerable that the American people
have a right to say to the administration,
"What is your answer?" I wait for the
answer.
Mr. GRUENING. I thank the Senator
for his helpful comment.
Within 2 months, on September 8,
1954, the Governments of Australia,
France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the
Philippines, Thailand, the United King-
dom and the United States signed a col-
lective security pact at Manila, known as
the Southeast Asia Collective Defense
Treaty. Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam
were not parties to this treaty, but by a
simultaneous protocol to the treaty all
the parties to the original treaty agreed
to include the territories of those three
nations in the territory protected by the
treaty from "armed attack and counter
subversive activities directed from with-
out against their territorial integrity and
political stability."
The United States made it clear to all
the signatories that the type of aggres-
sion it considered itself bound to prevent
was Communist aggression. As Secre-
tary of State Dulles explained it:
We stipulated on behalf of the United
States, however, that the only armed attack
in that area which we would regard as neces-
sarily dangerous to our peace and security
would be a Communist armed attack.
In his address to the Nation on Sep-
tember 15, 1954, explaining the action
taken at Manila, Secretary Dulles first
reiterated his concept of the domino
theory of possible events in southeast
Asia in the following words :
Any significant expansion of the Commu-
nist world, would, indeed, be a danger to
the United States, because International com-
munism thinks in terms of ultimately us-
ing its power position against the United
States. Therefore, we could honestly say,
using the words that President Monroe used
in proclaiming his Doctrine, that Commu-
nist armed aggression in southeast Asia
would, in fact, endanger our peace and se-
curity and call for counteraction on our past.
Secretary of State Dulles had ex-
plained the domino theory at an earlier
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4660 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE March 10
news conference on May 11, 1954, in the
following words: Asked if the plan for
collective security could succeed if one
or more of its segments were lost to the
Communists, Secretary Dulles replied:
The situation in that area, as we found
it, was that it was subject to the so-called
domino theory. . You mean that if one went,
another would go? We are trying to change
it so that would not be the case. That is the
whole theory of collective security. You gen-
erally have a whole series of countries which
can be picked up one by one. That is the
whole theory of the North Atlantic Treaty.
As the nations come Together, then the
domino theory, so-called, ceases to apply.
And what we are trying to do is create a situ-
ation in southeast Asia where the domino
situation will not apply. And'while I see it
has been said that I felt that southeast Asia
could be secured even without perhaps Viet-
nam, Laos, and Cambodia, I do not want
for a minute to underestimate the impor-
tance of the countries. nor do I want for
a minute to give the impression that we be-
lieve that they are going to be lost or that
we have given up trying to prevent their
being lost. On the contrary, we recognize
that they are extremely important and that
the problem of saving southeast Asia is far
more difficult if they are lost. But I do not
want to give the impression, either, that if
events that we could not control and which
we do not anticipate should lead to their
being lost, that we would consider the whole
situation hopeless, and we would give up in
despair. We do not give up in despair. Also,
we do not give up Vietnam, Laos, or Cam-
bodia.
In his nationwide address on Septem-
ber 15, 1954, on the Southeast Asia
Treaty, Secretary of State Dulles also
expounded his massive retaliation theo-
ries of how to contain communism any-
where in the world, anytime, at the least
cost:
. We considered at Manila how to imple-
ment the treaty. One possibility was to cre-
ate a joint military force. However, I ex-
plained that the U.S. responsibilities were
so vast and so far flung that we believed
that we would serve best, not by earmarking
forces for particular areas of the Far East,
but by developing the deterrent of mobile
striking power, plus strategically placed
reserves.
This viewpoint was accepted. Thus, the
treaty will not require us to make material
changes in our military plans. These plans
already call for our maintaining at all times
powerful naval and air forces in the West-
ern Pacific capable of striking at any aggres-
sor by means and at places of our choosing.
The deterrent power we thus create can pro-
tect many, as effectively as it protects one.
I ask unanimous consent that a sum-
mary of events in Vietnam from the time
of the Geneva agreements as prepared by
the Library of Congress be printed in the
RECORD at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without
objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 4.)
Mr. GRUENING. Mr. President, by
January 1, 1955, U.S. aid began to flow
directly to South Vietnam and on Febru-
ary 12, 1955, a U.S. military assistance
advisory group took over the training of
the South Vietnamese army. Previously,
U.S. aid had been given through France.
In October 1955, the Eisenhower ad-
ministration picked Ngo Dinh Diem to
rule South Vietnam.
There may be some room for disagree-
ment as to whether Diem was a poor
choice for the job to begin with or
whether, after having come to power, the
thirst for more and more power on his
part and on the part of his many rela-
tives, whom he placed in high govern-
mental posts, became insatiable.
Seven months before the former em-
peror, Bao Dai, was deposed on October
23, 1955, in a national referendum in
which Diem received 98 percent of the
votes, Diem met and greatly impressed
Secretary of State Dulles. In a nation-
wide broadcast on March 8, 1955, Secre-
tary Dulles said:
I was much impressed by Prime Minister
Diem. He is a true patriot, dedicated to in-
dependence and to the enjoyment by his
people of political and religious freedoms. He
now has a program for agricultural reform.
If it is effectively executed, it will both assist
in the resettlement of the refugees and pro-
vide his country with a sounder agricultural
system. I am convinced that his Govern-
ment deserves the support which the United
States is giving to help to create an efficient,
loyal military force and sounder economic
conditions.
Ngo Dinh Diem ruled South Vietnam
from October 23, 1955, until the coup of
November 2, 1963, deposed him. As the
guerrilla fighting intensified through the
years, so did the mismanagement and
corruption of the Diem government. It
became increasingly oppressive, tram-
pling the rights of individuals and ignor-
ing the necessity for economic reforms to
benefit the people.
There is no room for disagreement
concerning the fact that the United
States condoned or ignored actions by
Diem and his ruling relatives calculated
to antagonize the people on whose sup-
port any stable South Vietnamese Gov-
ernment must rest-or fall.
As Jerry A. Rose stated in the New
Republic on October 12, 1963:
For some reason, diplomats, soldiers in the
field, and politicians in Washington are un-
able to grasp the importance of the people.
While forever raising wet fingers to the wind
of public opinion in the United States, the
policymakers appear to operate on the belief
that Asian people have no opinions, and
even if they did have an opinion, It would
carry no weight. A good Gallup poll would
easily disprove the former proposition, and
history has proved time and again the fal-,
lacy of the latter.
I ask unanimous consent to have Mr.
Rose's article entitled "Dead End in
Vietnam" be printed in full in the RECORD
at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without
objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 5.)
Mr. GRUENING. The recent spate of
optimistic announcements from the Pen-
tagon on how well the war in South Viet-
nam is going-despite contrary reports
from trained observers on the scene-
only carries on a tradition begun in the
earliest days of U.S. participation in the
fighting in Vietnam.
Thus, in July 1956, in the face of con-
tinued Vietcong sabotage and virulent
propaganda, Vice President Nixon ad-
dressing the first Constituent Assembly
of South Vietnam, stated that "the mili-
tant march of communism has been
halted." But by the middle of the next
year, Vietcong guerrilla bands stepped
up their attacks, bombing U.S., MAAG
and USIS installations and attacking
settlements near Saigon.
Mr. Nixon's overoptimistic statement
in July 1956 is on a par with his state-
ment in October 1960, when he stated:
As far as Indochina was concerned, I stated
over and over again that it was essential dur-
ing that period that the United States make
it clear that we would not tolerate Indochina
falling under Communist domination. Now,
as a result of our taking the strong stand that
we did, the civil war there was ended, and to-
day we do have a strong free bastion there.
Vietcong guerrilla activities, reinforced
by arms and men from North Vietnam,
increased greatly during Diem's regime.
So did corruption and the oppression
of the people.
As Castan states in his article already
referred to:
To his [Diem's] personal credit, he alleged-
ly managed, again with American aid, to
amass a personal fortune of some $50 million
during the same period. Diem changed-too
slowly for our then Ambasador Frederick J.
Nolting, an intimate friend of both Diem and
his charming sister-in-law, Mme. Ngo Dinh
Nhu, to notice. Too slowly for Gen. Paul D.
Harkins, boss of our military-assistance com-
mand, to notice. No one, in fact, noticed un-
til we found that we had been duped into
complicity, and were compounding by assent
the mistakes of Diem and his family.
In the face of increasingly serious
guerrilla activity, the so-called strategic
hamlet plan was instituted in 1961. It
was copied from Malaya, but served only
to make it easier for the guerrillas to
capture arms and supplies. It was a
failure also as a means of isolating
Diem's opponents.
Two accounts illustrate the hows and
the whys of the failure of the strategic
hamlet plan:
The first is related in the article before
referred to by Castan:
Plei Ia Miah, one of the hamlets, is an ex-
ample. "The soldiers forced us out of our
huts," said the village chief, shortly before
the November coup d'etat, "and told us that
a fortified village was ready for us in, the
valley. Can we take our land?' we asked.
Two men refused to leave our ancestral
home and were shot. It took us 60 days to
march here. We have no land to farm, and
if the Government doesn't give us food soon,
we'll have to sell the pigs and buffalo we
brought with us. The Vietcong come at night
for our weapons. We give them the weapons.
Why should we die for weapons?"
The second is from a Reporter article
by Bernard Fall in the October 24, 1963.
issue. I ask unanimous consent to have
the article printed in the RECORD at the
conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without
objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 6.)
Mr. GRUENING. Reading from the
Fall article:
There is not one plantation that has not
been attacked or partly pillaged several times
by the Vietcong during the past 5 years, and
which has not seen several of its French
personnel kidnaped and held for ransom or
killed. During the Indochina war, the
plantations had been allowed to arm them-
selves and maintained militia forces at their
own expense. When Ngo Dinh Diem came
to power he ordered all plantations disarmed
and they thus became military liabilities.
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1964 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE 4661
The plantation managers now keep in should not-the grave possibility of The theory has been advanced that
business by closing their eyes to the Viet- drawing Red China into the fray in a the United States has no alternative but
tong emissaries who come to the workers'
villages and exact tribute; they Korean-type engagement, there are to remain in South Vietnam regardless
silently pay
millions of plasters of ransom to the Viet- serious drawbacks to such a course of of the course of action followed by the
cong-and as much again to bribe South action. The first is the unwillingness of people and the government of South
Vietnamese authorities to allow them to op-, the South Vietnamese to follow such a Vietnam. This theory follows the line
erate. Here and there, the Saigon-controlled course of action. The second, of course, that if we pulled our support out of
press announces that a French plantation is the fact that this is not solely an en- South Vietnam now, it would quickly
was fined tens of millions of piasters (a gagement between South and North be taken over by the Vietcong who in
million dollars or more) for "economic vio- Vietnamese. South Vietnamese are
lations." Everybody knows what that turn would be controlled by North Viet-
means, and business goes on as usual.
fighting South Vietnamese in a country nam which in turn would be controlled
divided within itself.
The oppression of the people by Diem's by Red China. The theory then contin-
The A comparison with Korea is not ap- ues that if this happens then Cambodia
secret police was intensified, propriate. There we had South Koreans and Laos would also fall "like a row of
In the summer of 1963, Diem turned who had the will to fight and win. And dominoes" to Red China. This is a con-
on the Buddhists and the students, with secondly, South Korea was not a coun- tinuance 10 years later of Secretary
wholesale arrests and imprisonments. try divided within itself. Dulles' domino theory.
And yet all through these years from And finally, there is one important Recent actions on the part of Cambo-
1955 to the November 1963 coup, Diem difference between the situation as it dia in seeking its own neutralization cast
was shored up and kept in office with exists in Vietnam and the situation as considerable doubt on this theory. Cam-
billions of American dollars and as at it existed in Korea. This is a difference bodia, the middle domino, fell out of its
present as many as 17,000 American which many people who are urging an own accord. The $300 million we have
troops. The people of South Vietnam escalation of U.S. armed effort in South spent there was totally wasted. More-
knew this. The United States won no Vietnam conveniently do not mention, over Cambodia action took the United
friends and influenced no Vietnamese In Vietnam we are alone-in Korea we States by surprise. We were ill in-
people when Buddhist priests were were in there as part of a United Na- formed. How well informed are we in
driven off to concentration camps in tions effort. this whole area? The repeated optimis-
AID vehicles by Diem's secret police, Fighting side by side with American tic statements of our officials in the past
who were paid by U.S. funds. troops in Korea were troops from Aus- have been promptly refuted by events.
In the light of Diem's long years of tralia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Colom- The distinguished majority leader [Mr.
corrupt and repressive rule, the two coups bia, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Luxem- MANSFIELD], on Monday, March 2, stat-
in Vietnam last year should have come bourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, ed:
as no surprise to anyone. The surprise the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, I think the best thing our country can do
lies in the fact that they did not occur and Turkey. is reassess its foreign policy insofar as it is
sooner. Where are our allies in South Vietnam? possible to do so, face up to the realities of
As I have said, the roots of the present The 1954 Southeast Asia Collective today, and not depend so much on the
dilemma of the United States reach back Defense Treaty was signed by eight na- wishes of yesterday,
to 1955 and to the years of condoning tions-Australia, France, New Zealand, In no area of our foreign policy is such
Corruption, misrule, and repression. Pakistan, the Republic of the Philip- a reassessment of our foreign policy
Diem lost whatever support he had from pines, Thailand, the United Kingdom, needed than with respect to the policy
the people through the use of U.S. money and the United States. we are pursuing in Vietnam.
and U.S, arms. We do not read in the headlines about The United States should no longer
Where do we turn now for our solution the officers and men of the other sig- permit the dead hand of past mistakes
in South Vietnam? natory countries being killed in the jun- to guide the course of our future actions
The United States must start with gles of South Vietnam. We do not read in South Vietnam.
one basic truth which should be con- about them because they are not there. President Johnson, by virtue of the
stantly reiterated: the fight in South Over 200 Americans have been killed in fact that his control of U.S. foreign
Vietnam can be won only by the South South Vietnam, 115 of them in direct policy is so recent, is in the best pos-
Vietnamese. Even if the United States combat. The United States is all alone sible position to make the reassessment
would or could, the fight in South Viet- in the fight there and the prospects are of our foreign policy suggested by Sen-
nam cannot be won by making of that it will continue to fight alone there. ator MANSFIELD and not permit himself
that country a colony of the United To give my colleagues some idea of the to be bound by a past made by his pred-
States. The French tried and failed, confusion prevailing in South Vietnam ecessors. The domino theory is not
even though they used a quarter of a in the military command there and of President Johnson's-it is a theory ad-
million troops. the conditions under which U.S. troops vanced by Secretary of State Dulles dur-
The question is this: After 20 bloody are fighting, I ask unanimous consent ing the Eisenhower administration and,
years of conflict, have the people of that an article in the Washington Daily as in the case of Cambodia, already
South Vietnam and the Government of News by Jim Lucas on March 6, 1964, be proven fallacious.
South Vietnam the will and the capacity printed in full at the conclusion of my A few days ago, the senior Senator
to fight to win? Putting it in other remarks. from Montana [Mr. MANSFIELD] took an
terms, Mr. President, has the present The PRESIDING OFFICER. With- enlightened stand with respect to the
Government of South Vietnam the out objection, it is so ordered. attempt by the President of France to
ability and the stability to wage the fight (See exhibit 7.) put forth a solution for the deteriora-
or is it obliged to look over its shoulder Mr. GRUENING. Mr. President, de- ting situation in South Vietnam. He
constantly in fear of another coup?
If scribing the "Spoils for Generals" after stated:
there is no heart to fight in the
people of South the most recent coup by Maj. Gen. Ngu- It seems to me most glib to make light of
Vietnam, the sooner we
face that fact the yen Khanh, Time magazine for February the admittedly unsatisfactory situation in
better off we shall be. 14, 1964, stated: Laos or the unhappy state of our relations
Since a victory in South Vietnam can with Cambodia as a basis for any offhand
come only through a victory by the It is far from certain that all the military rejection of De Gaulle's essay at a new ap-
chief re behind him. , But he has rewarded his proach to Indochina and southeast Asia.
South Vietnamese themselves, if the a
people and the Government do not want Tran Thien collaborators whose III handsomely.
Co Corps Maj. troops I commend the majority leader for his
to continue the fight in a manner con- arrested former Junta Boss General Duong statesmanlike approach to an admittedly
ducive to victory, it is contrary to the van (Big) Minh, got the No. 2 military job difficult situation and join him in his
best interests of the United States to as Defense Minister and Commander in Chief.
"---' ment of February 19, 1964, should be
Some urge stepped-up military ac- bandede 5
r junta (o 10 lieute major lieutela t carefully studied in any reevaluation of
tiVity on the part of the United States, colonels, , one 1 major), there e was was enant
col endless wren- our foreign policy in Indochina.
including carrying the war to North gling over the lesser spoils. Many a _ junior ' I also wish to commend my able col-
Vietnam. Even disregarding-which we officer was disgusted. league, Senator BARTLETT, for his excel-
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE March 10
lent analysis of the Vietnam situation a
few weeks ago and for his plea for less
rigidity in our policy in Indochina; he
stated:
It is important, however, in our Asian
policies, that we strive to achieve flexibility,
flexibility which our policies in recent years
have failed to have. We cannot allow our-
selves to be frozen forever with a rigid policy
hoaiy with age. In Asia as elsewhere we
must be willing to discuss anything with
anybody who is willing to discuss in a
rational and responsible manner. We are
the greatest power on earth and we have no
need to fear Red China and no need to fear
negotiations.
I also wish to commend the able senior
Senator from Oregon [Mr. MORSE] for his
splendid speech last week on this same
topic. Senator MORSE pointed out
cogently that-
American unilateral participation in the
war in South Vietnam cannot be justified
and will not be justified in American his-
tory * * * we have always considered South-
east Asia to be beyond the perimeter of U.S.
defense. Southeast Asia is not essential to
U.S. defense. Southeast Asia may very well be
essential to the defense of some of our
allies, but where are they? They ran out
on us.
And more pointedly, in response to a
question from Senator ELLENDER what
Senator MORSE would advise we should
do in South Vietnam, Senator MORSE
answered with his usual forthrightness:
We should never have gone in. We should
never have stayed in. We should get out.
stubbornly when a decade of bitter ex-
perience has shown us that the expendi-
ture of blood and treasure has resulted
in failure?
Shall we not, if taught anything by this
tragic experience, consider that of the
three alternatives: First, to continue this
bloody and wanton stalemate; second, to
go in "all out" for a full-scale invasion
and the certain sacrifice of far more lives
and a scarcely less doubtful outcome;
or, third, to pull out with the knowledge
that the game was not worth the candle.
This last is the best of these choices.
in the event of determining on that
last and least unhappy alternative, we
shall no doubt be told by some that the
United States will lose face in Asia.
I doubt whether we should lose face,
whatever that may mean. But if it be
so interpreted by some whose opinion
should give us small concern, I say better
to lose face than to lose the life of an-
other American boy, or a score, or an-
other 200 of them, doomed in varying
numbers as long as we stay on.
President Johnson, let me repeat, in-
herited this mess.- It was not of his
making. As he approaches the difficult
task of making the necessarily hard deci-
as South Vietnam, whose people are so
reluctant to fend for themselves. Let
us keep on, by all means, supplying them
with arms. Let us continue to give them
the means if they wish to use them.
But not our men.
The time has come to cease the use-
less and senseless losses of American
lives in an area not essential to the
security of the United States.
Only yesterday the report came in
of two more American fighting men
killed in Vietnam.
Last Wednesday the report was made
that three American officers had been
killed there. Part of the UPI story reads
as follows :
Two U.S. officers were killed yesterday in
separate battles with the Vietcong, mili-
tary sources reported. A U.S. Navy officer
was killed yesterday in a helicopter crash.
One of the Army officers died as he at-
tempted to rally Government paratroopers
for an assault on a Communist position near
the Cambodian border.
There were few details on the death of
the other Army officer. Reports reaching
Saigon said he was killed in a battle at
Trung Lap village 27 miles northwest of
Saigon.
It is obvious from this story, as it has
been for some time now, that the United
States so-called training mission is actu-
ally engaged in fighting the Vietcong in
a war which the South Vietnamese are
themselves reluctant to fight.
I urge the President to take steps to
disengage the United States immediately
from this engagement.
All our military should immediately
berelieved of combat assignments. All
military dependents should be returned
home at once. A return of the troops to
our own shores should begin.
I also urge the President to go to the
American people and explain in detail
how the United States got involved in
Vietnam; when we got involved in Viet-
nam, and why we are getting out of
there.
I sincerely hope that President John-
son will heed the advice of our distin-
guished majority leader, Mr. MANSFIELD,
and others in this body, as knowledge-
able as Senators MORSE, ELLENDER, and
others reassess the Dulles doctrine of
sions with respect to the problems in
South Vietnam, problems created long
before he was President, he should feel
no compunction to act in such a way as
to justify past actions, past decisions and
past mistakes. He should feel entirely
free to act in such a manner and to make
such decisions as are calculated best to
serve the interests of the United States
and the free world-a world changed
greatly from the time President Eisen-
hower and Secretary Dulles initiated our
southeast Asia policies.
Would South Vietnam go Communist
if we get out? Probably, but it will
doubtless do so in any event. What
would the loss of a million men, or 2 mil-
lion, or 5 million matter to the jam-
packed nation of 700 million that is
mainland China, that can and will un-
concernedly pour its cannon fodder into
an adjacent, long-coveted area, and
peopled with its fellow Asiatics. Their
lives mean nothing to their own bloody
rulers who have liquidated vast numbers
of their own. But our American boys'
And Senator ELLENDER seconded that
clear-and in my judgment thoroughly
correct and realistic counsel-by saying:
I have been advocating such P. course of
action. After my last visit there, I again
stated that we should never have gone in
there and that we should get out. My advice
was never heeded. That is my advice today.
Had this advice of Senator ELLENDER
given some time ago, now repeated by
him and reaffirmed by Senator MORSE
been heeded 200 precious American lives
would not have been lost. These are far
more important than the billions of dol-
lars we have now wasted in seeking
vainly in this remote jungle to shore up
selfserving corrupt dynasts or their self-
imposed successors and a people that has
conclusively demonstrated that it has
no will to save itself.
I consider the life of one American
worth more than this putrid mess. I
consider that every additional life that
is sacrificed in this forlorn venture a
tragedy. Someday-not distant-if this
sacrificing continues, it will be de-
nounced as a crime.
I would ask my colleagues and indeed
American fathers and mothers this ques-
tion:
If your drafted son is sent to Vietnam
is killed there would you feel that he
died for our country?
lives would mean everything to our own grounds-12,000 miles away-and bring
Government and people if sacrificed in a our boys home.
cause in which we should never have This is a fight which is not our fight
engaged. into which we should not have gotten
Of course, it is a source of regret when- in the first place. The time to get out
ever a new political entity appears to is now before the further loss of Ameri-
be falling behind the Iron or Bamboo can lives.
Curtain. But why should we persist in Let us get out of Vietnam on as good
seeking to prevent what is ultimately terms as possible-but let us get out.
inevitable, in impossible terrain, for a President Johnson is in an excellent
people who care not, in the most distant position to reverse the previous unsuc-
spot on the globe. It makes no sense. cessful policies in Vietnam which he did
Moreover there is considerable ques-
tion whether South Vietnam, even if EXHIBIT 1
overrun by the indigenous Vietcong, or From Look magazine, Jan. 28, 19641
by the North Vietnamese, will not con-
WARS
stitute Jan.
another problem for Peiping as it B Sam Castan)
was for the French, as it has been for y
the United States. It might well prove To a larger extent than we have ad-
an aggravation of Red China's consider- mitted, the United States is responsible for
able Internal troubles. South Vietnam's agony. We were behind
But surely we have no business there the scenes at its birth in 1954. We hand-
picked its leaders, trained its troops and paid
any longer, if indeed we ever had. for its economic and military survival. We
The time has come to reverse our poi- didn't push it into war; the Communists did
icy of undertaking to defend areas such that. But in spite of our noble intent, our
and
had
I can answer that question for myself.
I would feel very definitely that he had
not died for our country, but had been
mistakenly sacrificed in behalf of an in-
herited folly.
Let us do a little hard rethinking.
Must the United States be expected to
jump into every fracas all over the world,
to go it all alone, at the cost of our
youngsters' lives, and stay in blindly and
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1964 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD.,- SENATE
massive aid and all the small acts of selfless
heroism our men have performed in its be-
half, South Vietnam's path to peace' is
cluttered by the debris of mistakes that
America either made or indorsed.
Ngo Dinh Diem was one.
In 1954, after an 8-year losing war to pre-
serve Its colonial holdings In Indochina,
France took the knockout punch at Dien-
bienphu. The United States had a heavy
interest in Southeast Asian developments.
We had underwritten fully 60 percent of
France's military costs-about $2 billion-
and were considering direct military inter-
vention when the end Game. France sued
the victorious Vietminh-a largely Commu-
nist guerrilla force led by a wily old Asian
Marxist, Ho Chi Minh-for peace, and the
Geneva Conference of 1954 divided the former
French colony into four independent states:
North Vietnam, led by fio Chi Minh- neu-
tralist Cambodia, Laos,, and pro-Western
South Vietnam. The West knew that Ho
Chi Minh had for years been preparing his
share of the spoils for self-sufficiency. A
civil service was ready, factory sites were
laid out, teachers and industrial workers
were trained, and a communications system
as already buzzing messages to Peiping.
The West also knew that South Vietnam had
been left unprepared by France, and that
with all the help we might give the new
nation, its first, shaky steps toward demo-
cratic Independence would be menaced by
Vietminh cells left behind for purposes of
disruption. We badly needed a man in Viet-
nam, and Diem was in.
Descended from a family of central Viet-
namese mandarins, Ngo Dinh Diem was an
ascetic Catholic bachelor who had once lived
in, .a Lakewood, N.J., monastery. As a civil
administrator under the French, he had en-
joyed a certain measure of popular support.
Most important, he was an avowed anti-
Communist. That was it, Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles picked him, Senator MIKE
MANSFIELD endorsed him, Francis Cardinal
Spellman praised him, Vice President Rich-
ard M. Nixon liked him, and President
Dwight D. Eisenhower OK'd him.
,Although 80 percent of South Vietnam
was, and is, Buddhist, Diem's Catholicism
was good politics in the United States. The
Catholic Bishops' Relief Fund and the Cath-
olicRelief Service assumed major roles in the
resettlement of refugees streaming out of
predominantly Catholic provinces of North
Vietnam. Cardinal Spellman kept shower-
ing praise on Diem and his brother, Arch-
bishop Ngo Dinh Thuc. 'At this point, some
American Catholics were beginning to vote
Republican anyway, and the Eisenhower ad-
ministration, with a wary eye toward John
F. Kennedy in 1960, stressed its own role In
creating an Asian haven for Catholics.
Out in the Vietnamese boondocks,, how-
ever, Diem's catholicism didn't mean a thing.
Both America and Saigon were remote from
the peasant huts along the muddy canals of
South Vietnam, where 80 percent of the
population lives, and the nation's real
strength lies. It was not religion that turned
the people against Diem, and, aside from the
extra aid it may have brought in, it was
certainly not religion that helped him sus-
tain the nation through those early, critical
years. Diem managed, with half a billion
dollars per year in American aid and his own
shill, to keep South Vietnam afloat in the
flood of propaganda and subversion let loose
by the old Vietminh cells-now called Viet
cong.
That much was to Diem's administrative
credit. To his personal credit, he allegedly
managed, again with American aid, to amass
a personal fortune of some $50 million dur-
ing the same period. Diem changed-too
slowly for our then Ambassador, Frederick J.
Nolting, Jr., an intimate friend of both Diem
and his charming sister-in-law, Mme. Ngo
Dinh Nhu, to notice. Too slowly for Gen.
Paul D. Harkins, boss of our military assist-
ance command, to notice. No one, in
noticed until we found that we had been
duped into complicity, and were compound-
ing by assent the mistakes of Diem and his
family.
In 1958, the Vietcong turned from subver-
sion and propaganda to violent guerrilla in-
surgency. "And Diem," says a Vietnamese
Army lieutenant, who was later called away
from his post in the field to police Saigon
during a martial-law period, "made things
so easy for them that every time the sun
rose on South Vietnam, the Vietcong was
stronger than they had been the night be-
fore."
Diem installed virtually all of his relatives
in key positions, and insured their tenure by
rigged elections. Family friends became dis-
trict and province chiefs; their sons received
commissions and cushy Army spots. What-
ever dissidence this caused among the popu-
lation was left to Diem's brother, Nhu, to
handle, through 18 separate secret police
agencies and the Vietnamese Special Forces,
which were not a branch of the regular
militia, but in effect a private police force.
Under cover of .the 1961 rainy season, Viet-
cong forces were bolstered by heavy rein-
forcements, along the famous "Ho Chi Minh
trail." Vietcong raids became more frequent
and more ferocious. By this time, corruption
in Saigon was well known throughout the
provinces. The Ngo's, influenced by Malaya's
experience, devised a plan to contend with
increased guerrilla activity and, at the same
time, contain pockets of internal dissidence.
It was called the strategic hamlet program,
and it had still another benefit. For public
relations, the fortified villages could be
passed off as a reminder of the pioneer stock-
ades of early America. This device would
bring in still more aid money.
It worked for everyone-everyone being
Diem and the Vietcong. Diem got his money,
the Vietcong got clearly marked and easily
taken resupply points for food, weapons, and
ammunition. But it didn't work for the
people. Plei Is, Miah, one of the hamlets, is
an example. "The soldiers forced us out of
our huts," said the village chief, shortly be-
fore the November coup d'etat, "and told us
that a fortified village was ready for us in
the valley. 'Can we take our land?' we asked.
Two men refused to leave our ancestral home,
and were shot. It took us 60 days to march
here. We have no land to farm, and if the
government doesn't give us food soon, we'll
have to sell the pigs and buffalo we brought
with us. The Vietcong come at night for our
weapons. We give them the weapons. Why
should we die for Weapons?"
Buddhists, who comprise the great bulk of
South Vietnam's population, became special
targets of Nhu's secret police last summer.
Like the university students who followed
them into the torture cells and concentra-
tion camps ringing Saigon and Rue, they
were too cohesive, too vocal to be allowed
freedom. South Vietnam owes them a pro-
found debt, for their protests, along with
Madame Nhu's arrogant tirades about "Bud-
dhist barbecues" and "American adventur-
ers," focused world attention on the police-
state measures Diem had adopted. The
United Nations sent a special,conunission to
investigate religious persecution in South
Vietnam, but it arrived too late. On Novem-
ber 2, 9 days after the commission reached
Saigon, Diem fell, and a wildly jubilant
Saigon crowd carried newly released Buddhist
monks on their Shoulders through a free
city.
The coup d'etat of last November was en-
tirely predictable, despite the contentions
of certain American journalists, notably
Joseph Alsop and Marguerite Higgins, and
the official word from the Public Informa-
tion Office of our Military Assistance Com-
mand Vietnam (MAC-V) that Diem was
winning the war and enjoying popular sup-
4663
port. "You Americans wouldn't under-
stand," said one coup leader. "Diem be-
trayed us in the critical hour of our fight
against communism. We had to kill him."
Added another, "Diem started a second war-
himself, his family, and his American allies
against the people. That was the important
war as far as he was concerned. In another
month, the Vietcong would have controlled
every province in the country."
What sort of war have Diem's mistakes,
and ours for allowing them, left us to face in
the bloody showdown ahead?
South Vietnam's new military government
estimates that hart-core Vietcong guerrillas
total upward of 35,000 men, with around
100,000 part-time irregulars joining them
each night. Nearly all are armed with the
best weapons America has been able to man-
ufacture. a 19 The homemade rifles they began
are used as drill weapons for
recruits. The number of Vietcong rose
sharply last year, when Diem's political in-
terference in the military campaign was at
its height, and popular resentment against
the regime was sharpest. "Diem hated large
casualty reports," relates one ARVN (Army
of the Republic of Vietnam) colonel. "Our
orders were to surround the enemy on three
sides, and let the main body out to avoid
pitched battles. We had to head back for
the barracks at dusk, even if it meant letting
a boxed-in group we could easily handle get
away."
These factors, combined with outright
neglect in some provinces, and the existence
of isolated and vulnerable "paper hamlets,"
to which Diem could point as proof that he
was "showing the flag," have so strengthened
the Vietcong that they no longer operate in
marauding cutthroat gangs. "They've got
regular battalions," says one American ad-
viser, "with heavy-weapons sections, radio
communication-the works." Says a chop-
per pilot, "I half expect to see a Vietcong jet
fighter waiting for me every time I go up."
The most critical factor in any guerrilla
war is still popular support. The Vietcong,
for all their newly gained strength, do not
have the staying power in any one area to set
up hospitals, rest areas, training camps, etc.
In many areas, they don't need them, for
every hut is a place to eat and rest and have
wounds treated. "Five miles down the
canal, there's a Vietcong village," says a U.S.
Army ,,Special Forces sergeant at Tan Phu.
"There are never any men around when we
come through, but every hut's got a Vietcong
flag on the wall, and there's a school with
paper Vietcong pennants on every desk. I
knew this was a strong Vietcong area, but
the first time I hear about a Vietcong PTA,
I'm getting the hell out."
We are faced, then, with a dedicated enemy
grown strong on an endless string of mis-
takes we endorsed, fighting on his own
ground and calling the tune. None of this
has changed substantially since the coup.
The new government will need months to
replace commanders, district, province and
village chiefs, and Institute the civil reforms
that will give South Vietnam its first real
chance for democracy. Meanwhile, as sol-
diers and peasants wait to see how the new
government will go, some of the old habits
remain. And the Vietcong have taken every
opportunity during this transitional period
to strike and strike again. In the 4 weeks
following the coup, Vietcong activity rose 50
percent.
South Vietnam's uppermost need is to re-
gain the military initiative. No one in the
new government deludes himself with the
notion that we are winning the war, or that
we even have the balance to jab back when
we are hit. The common people of South
Vietnam are tired after 20 years of fighting
(against Japanese Invaders, French colo-
nialists and now Communist guerillas).
The new government must show its will to
prosecute the war until a workable peace is
in sight.
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How well the regime does depends upon
the unity of the junta. Behind a facade of
strength, strains are appearing among the
14 generals who wrested power from Diem.
Most are loyal to Gen. D,uong Van Minh,
chairman of 'the revolutionary council, but
some observers see the youngest general, 3&-
year-old Ton That Dinh, as a comer. fie is
an ambitious man who assumed nearly all
the credit for the coup's success, and his
high personal ambitions remain unsatisfied.
It was Dinh's weight that swung crucial
troops against Diem. Immediately after the
Presidential palace surrendered, he promoted
himself from two- to three-star general. "I
was the coup," says Dinh. "It was my plan-
ning, my courage, my leadership that
brought Diem down. I did it for the peo-
ple-not for money, not for another star. I
have no personal ambitions," To prove that
it believed him, the revolutionary council
named Dinh Minister of Security, a consid-
erably lesser post than he may have planned
for himself.
If dissension is actually developing within
the provisional military government, the
war effort may be adversely affected. So
may the peace effort, if the generals decide,
and if the United States, which pays their
salaries, agrees, that tile war cannot be won,
and some sort of neutralism, such as that
envisaged by France's President Charles de
Gaulle, is the best way out of a bad thing.
As long as there is shooting, the American
involvement will, of course, continue. The
-removal of over 1,000 Americans last month
was characterized by one personnel officer as
"trimming some of the fat off our Saigon
surplus. Those boys had nothing to do but
create a problem for the MP's, and stuff
more money into Saigon's black market."
Our field forces stand at their highest
level of 2,700 officers and men. There will
be more American fatalities, more wounded
and more captured. And more, too, of the
weirdly funny tales that are part of any war.
There was the. young Army pilot who, shook
up by the presence of Gen. Paul Harkins as
a passenger, forgot to drop his wheels for
a landing. Harkins climbed out of the
wreckage, saying, "That's one way to stop
the damned thing." And those two ser-
geants in Pleiku who measured their re-
maining time in Vietnam by the number of
weekly malaria pills they still had to take.
"I'm down to 22 pills," boasted one to the
other. "How many pills do you have left?"
Thanks in part to our blunders, to our old
policy of seeing, hearing and thinking no
evil CC anyone who labels himself "anti-
Communist," and to our love of bucking
reality, a tired, bloodied nation is approach-
ing its critical hour.
How many pills does South Vietnam have
left?
[From Look-magazine, Jan. 28, 1964]
AN INTERVIEW WITH TON THAT DINH
Question. General Dinh (full name pro-
nounced Tone Tuck Dinn), what made you
turn against Diem? You are the general
who led his August pagoda raids against the
Buddhists and ruled Saigon as military gov-
ernor when he declared martial law.
Answer. Diem did not order the raids. It
was his brother Nhu who ordered me, against
the Buddhists, and as a soldier, I had to fol-
low. They must have thought me a fool,
those two. The very morning of the coup,
I visited them in the Presidential Palace. I
asked Diem how his head cold was coming.
I was very pleasant. Then Imustered troops
against them.
Question. What made you decide to join,
in a coup d'etat?
Answer. As a soldier, my resentment was
building up for a long time. I was in the
French colonial army as a private, and later
became a cadet at St. Cyr, the French equiv-
alent of your West Point. I have attended
your General Staff College at Fort Leaven-
worth, Kans. I did not like being told how
to fight the Vietcong. I did not like seeing
them win because of Diem's and Nhu's inter-
ference. The last straw came when the na-
tional elections of last October were fixed. I
knew then that Diem intended to stay in
power, to keep interfering and never to in-
stitute reforms.
Question. Which reforms, specifically?
Answer. He had promised to institute re-
ligious freedoms, to end press censorship,
to insure justice in the courts, to restore the
legitimate authority of ministers and army
commanders. I knew that none of these
would ever come about, and that he had no
intention of removing Nhu and his wife, or of
lessening the air of discord and suspicion
that was everywhere. We all became masters
of subterfuge and intrigue under Diem. That
much he taught us, and we used it against
him.
Question. How do you think the war
against the Vietcong will go now?
Answer. In some areas, the situation is
very bad. We will have to start from scratch.
But now we will push much harder. We
will try to control the Cambodian border,
where many of their supplies come through.
We'll step up night operations-until now,
the Vietcong has been fighting at night. And
we have been fighting in the daytime, and
well take risks. I was not frightened of risks
when I fought Diem. I led the attack. I
was at the palace, hurrying the troops
through breaches in the wall. I did it. And
now I can do it against the Vietcong.
Question. Would you consider taking a
higher government post than the one you
now hold as Minister of Security?
Answer. I have no personal ambitions. I
am a soldier. But if the people ask me to
serve, I will obey-nor for myself, for them.
I only want to serve, as I served Diem. I
was sorry that we had to kill him. I cried.
ExIsiBrr 2
[Department of State press release, Mar. 23,
19b4]
INDOCHINA
Asked at his news conference today about
the situation in Indochina, Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles made the following state-
ment :
"I do not expect that there is going to be
a Communist victory in Indochina. By that
I don't mean that there may not be local
affairs where one side or another will win
victories, but in terms of a Communist
domination of Indochina, I do., not accept
that as a probability.
"There is a very gallant and brave struggle
being carried on at Dienbienphu by the
French and Associated States Forces. It is
an outpost. It has already inflicted very
heavy damage upon the enemy. The French
and Associated States Forces at Dienbienphu
are writing, inmy opinion, a notable chap-
ter in military history. Dienbienphu is, as
I say, an outpost position where only a very
small percentage of the French Union Forces
are engaged, and where a very considerable
percentage of the forces of the Vietminh is
engaged.
"Broadly speaking, the United States has,
under its previously known policy, been ex-
tending aid in the form of money and ma-
teriel to the French Union Forces in Indo-
china. As their requests for materiel become
known, and their need for that becomes evi-
dent, we respond to it as rapidly-as we can.
Those requests have assumed various forms
at various times. But I think that we have
responded in a very prompt and effective
Inanner to those requests.
"If there are further requests of that kind
that are made, I have no doubt that our mili-
tary or defense people will attempt to meet
them.
"As soon as this press conference is over,
March 10
I am meeting with Admiral Radford. But
so far I have not met General Ely, and I do
not know what requests he has made, if
any, in that respect because that would be
primarily a matter for the defense people in
any case. The policy has already been estab-
lished so far as the political aspects of it are
concerned.
"We have seen no reason to abandon the
so-called Navarre plan which was, broadly
speaking, a 2-year plan which anticipated,
if not complete victory, at least decisive mili-
tary results during the fighting season which
would follow the present fighting season,
which is roughly a year from now.
"As you recall, that plan contemplated t
very substantial buildup of the local forces
and their training and equipment. It was
believed that under that program, assum-
ing there were no serious military reversals
during the present fighting season, the upper
hand could definitely be achieved in the area
by the end of the next fighting season.
There have been no such military reverses,
and, as far as we can see, none are in pros-
pect which would be of a character which
would upset the broad timetable and strat-
egy of the Navarre plan."
Asked whether that ruled out any possi-
bility of a negotiated peace at Geneva, Mr.
Dulles replied:
"At any time if the Chinese Communists
are willing to cut off military assistance, and
thereby demonstrate that they are not still
aggressors in spirit, that would, of course,
advance greatly the possibility of achieving
peace and tranquility in the area. That is a
result which we would like to see.
"To date, however, I have no evidence that
they have changed their mood. One is al-
ways hopeful in those respects, but, so far,
the evidence seems to indicate that the Chi-
n@se Communists are still in an aggressive,
militaristic and expansionist mood."
EXHIBIT 3
[From Look magazine, Feb. 8, 19561
WE NEARLY WENT TO WAR 3 TIMES LAST YEAR
BUT IKE SAID No
(By Fletcher Knebel)
Three times wthin the past 10 months, the
United States stood on the brink of war with
the Communists in the Far East. Three
times the proposal of war in the Orient was
advanced in the highest councils of the Ei-
senhower administration. Twice it was re-
jected. Once it was abandoned-but only
after a veto by Great Britain.
Last April, America came to the thresh-
old of war to save Indochina from the Com-
munist forces of Ho Chi Minh, a venture that
might or might not have involved us in hot
war with Red China.
In September, the United States was but
inches away from a decision to go to war to
prevent the little island of Quemoy, off the
Chinese mainland, from falling into Com-
munist hands.
In November, America was stayed from a
naval and air blockade of Red China-an
act of war-by President Dwight D. Eisen-
hower and Secretary of State John Foster
Dulles.
The story of how America narrowly missed
armed conflict in Asia is a fascinating inter-
play of the convinctions of powerful men,
all of them high-principled, all of them shar-
ing the Nation's top secret intelligence re-
ports and all of them determined to guide
America's destiny to the eventual goal of
world peace.
WERE IKE'S DECISIONS RIGHT?
History may credit a number of men with
helping to keep America out of war in the
last 10 months. They were Eisenhower,
Dulles, Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway, Anthony
Eden and even, curiously, Jawaharlal Nehru
of India.
The strongest voice for peace was that of
President Eisenhower. Whether his deci-
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2964 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE
sions for peace were right or wrong is a mat- ford an idea of congressional opinion and to
ter of violent dispute in the Nation's Capi- give congressional leaders Radford's view-
tal. "Thank God for Eisenhower," says one point, Dulles summoned three. top Repub-
Democratic Senator who was consulted dur- licans and five Democrats to a Saturday-
ing the Indochina crisis. "Ike has but post- morning meeting, April 3, at the State De-
ported the day of reckoning," says another partment,
well-briefed legislator who believes that the . This secret briefing left the legislators bug-
United States has taken the downhill path of eyed, for it was, the first time they realized
appeasement. that the administration was actually consid-
for peace in the secret councils of his ad-
ministration, far from the headlines and the
public eye. Without President Eisenhower,
hundreds of thousands of American boys to-
day might be plowing across the Pacific in
Army transports-destination Red China.
The men who urged war were sincere and
dedicated leaders who believed thgt bold
American action would check the Commu-
nists without plunging the Nation into allout
land war with Red China. Ike believe other-
wise,
The struggle for war or peace in Washing-
ton was contested on an oddly shaped trian-
gle, its points resting on the White House,
the State Department and the Pentagon
across the Potomac River in Virginia.
Here is the inside story, as gathered from
many of the participants, of how the United
States looked into the pit of war-and turned
away.
INDOCHINA
Last March, the Communist warriors of Ho
Chi Minh besieged the French fortress of
Dienbienphu in tremendous strength, seeking
a knockout blow to win the dreary, 8-year-
old conflict.
Six days later, Gen. Paul Ely, French chief
of staff, arrived in Washington and secretly
informed U.S. leaders that American inter-
vention was needed to.save Indochina,,, This
set in motion a month-long chain of private
Washington huddles and frenzied diplomacy.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, America's top
military body, met in the Pentagon.
Adm. Arthur W. Radford, a carrier and air-
power naval officer and chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, advocated U.S. intervention
through a carrier strike from the U.S.S.
Essex and Boxer, both then in the Gulf of
Tonkin, and by Air Force bombers from the
Philippines. Radford had long favored a dis-
play of force in the Far East, was already
an advocate, of blockading Red China.
Gen, Matthew B. Ridgway, Army chief of
staff and former Korean commander, declared
himself flatly against American intervention.
He declared that an air strike would lead in-
evitably to action by American troops as soon
as the first planes were shot down. He con-
tended that his limited army, with commit-
ments around the globe, could not fight In
the jungles of Indochina short of allout mo-
bilization at home.
Adm. Robert B. Carney, chief of naval op-
erations, and. Gen. Nathan F. Twining, Air
Force chief of staff, took a middle ground
between Radford and Ridgway. They ex-
pressed belief than an airstrike would be
effective in aiding the defenders of Dien-
bienphu, but doubted the aerial blow alone
could win the war for the French.
Radford took his recommendation for U,S.
intervention to the National Security Coun-
cil. President Eisenhower accepted Radford's
opinion that an airstrike would be effective,
but quickly laid down the rule that the
United States would intervene only if joined
by other allies. In the circumstances, "other
allies" meant Britain, which had a carrier
In the area.
4665
Council to extraordinary session at Denver
to discuss war in Quemoy. The meeting
was held in the Officer's Club at Lowry Air
Force Base.
Dulles was in Manilla, signing the south-
east Asian collective-defense treaty. He
cabled that he had two questions: One. Was
Quemoy essential to the defense of Formosa
(which the United States is committed to
defend) ? Two. Was Quemoy itself defend-
able?
Dulles got the answers to his questions
from Radford. Quemoy could be defended,
but Quemoy was not absolutely essential to
the defense of Formosa. Dulles then took
a stand against any ironclad assurance to
Chiang that we would help defend Quemoy.
Vice President Nixon also opposed American
aid for Quemoy.
President Eisenhower in the end decided
that we would make no definite commitment
to Chiang to defend Quemoy. On the other
hand, if the Reds attacked Quemoy in force
as an obvious prelude to an invasion of For-
mosa, we would be free to strike if we wished.
President Eisenhower cast his deciding vote
against war.
THE BLOCKADE
Barely 2 months later, strong men in the
administration and the Republican Party
again propelled the United States toward war
with Red China.
In late November, the Chinese Communists
announced they had imprisoned as spies 11
U.S. airmen and 2 civilians, captured in the
Korean war.
Secretary Dulles was vacationing at his
home on Duck Island in,Lake Ontario, where
the chief blessing Is the absence of a tele-
phone. When Dulles stepped ashore Sunday,
November 28, in Jefferson County, N.Y., he
learned of the gathering thunderclouds.
Senate Republican leader William F.
Knowland, of California, had called for a
naval blockade so tight that "no vessel can
get in or out of China until these Americans
are released." He was then backed by other
Republicans. Also, Dulles knew that Ad-
mirals Radford and Carney on the joint
chiefs favored a blockade, not specifically be-
cause of the spy "conviction" of the Ameri-
can airmen, but as a tool to yank the fangs
of militant Red China.
Dulles decided to call the President. who
was In Augusta, Ga., for Thanskgiving, but
the President got him first at the home of
friends in the hamlet of Chaumont on the
shores of Chaumont Bay, Lake Ontario.
They talked for 15 minutes and agreed that
a blockade would be an act of war, that
America should not commit its armed might
in response to what they believed was a care-
fully timed provocative act by the Commu-
nists.
Dulles sketched a proposed revision of his
scheduled speech in Chicago Monday night
and Ike approved it. The next morning,
Dulles called to dictate the text of his revi-
sion, and an aid took it to Ike, who was out
playing golf. As he sat on a bench beside a
tee, the President made a few changes and
approved the rest. The speech flatly rejected
a blockade.
The decision again was against war.
Twice in 1954, the President turned down
proposals that America fight Red China.
Once he approved war action, but only on
condition that our allies join us-they never
did.
In the search for peace, an American Presi-
dent must finger many tools. Once Ike used
President Eisenhower also stipulated that way opposed it, the hammer. To understand the peace quest
again because he feared it of recent months, it is necessary to go back
any move of Intervention in Indochina re- meant eventual use of ground troops, lead- 2 years-to the time when Ike got tough.
quired approval of Congress. But the Presi- ing to an all-out land war with Red China. On December 8, 1952, the heavy cruiser
dent and Dulles were convinced that Con- her three believed such "clean" air Helena rolled in the seas off Wake Island,
dress was in no mood to give a blank check and sea action could do the job without in- carrying President-elect Eisenhower from
for war measures at that time, before Britain volving troops. Guam to Hawaii after his
post-
had signed on the dotted line. To give Rad- Ike summoned the National Security election trip to Korea. A helicopter brought
No. 43-8
ering war in Indochina.
The legislators said "No" in various ways
to the suggestion of congressional authoriza-
tion for U.S. solo intervention. And Dulles
indicated that the President had no thought
of asking this anyway, since the principle of
"united action" had been determined.
The Secretary of State flew to London and
Paris in mid-April, got British and French
agreement to proceed with united action
talks. A communique was issued, after Sir
Winston Churchill himself made penciled
changes.
BRITISH MOVE ANGERS DULLES
Back in Washington, Dulles arranged an
eight-power conference on methods of stop-
ping the Reds in Indochina. On Easter
Sunday, however, Sir Roger Makins, the
British Ambassador, called Dulles at home to
say he had been instructed not to attend the
talks. Angry at the apparent British re-
treat, Dulles changed the meeting into a
I6-power Korean peace conference as a face-
saving device.
The transatlantic maneuvering generated
terrific tensions behind the scenes. At one
congressional briefing, a Republican legisla-
tor blurted out to Dulles, "You are either a
liar or Eden is a doublecrosser." Dulles
vowed he had told the exact truth of the ne-
gotiations with the British, that London
suddenly had switched signals on him.
On April 25, the British Cabinet met in
emergency session and decided finally
against military action in Indochina. The
decision was relayed to Dulles in Paris by
Anthony Eden. U.S. officials learned that
Nehru in India bad influenced the British
Cabinet's decision by voicing violent objec-
tion to British-American military action in
Indochina.
Radford flew from Paris to London the
next day, conferred with British leaders in
an effort to arrange some other joint action
in Indochina. But this mission failed. This
ended all thought by U.S. leaders of inter-
vening to save Dienbienphu, and on May 7
the fortress fell tq Ho Chi Minh's troops.
QUEMOY
Two months after the Indochina armistice
was signed in Geneva, July 21, the United
States again moved to the edge of war In the
Orient. This time, however, there was no
question of "united action." This time, the
joint chiefs proposed that America go it
alone.
In early September, Red Chinese artillery
began shelling the Nationalist Chinese is-
land of Quemoy, a few miles off the Asiatic
mainland and about 125 miles from Chiang
Kai-shek's stronghold on Formosa.
The American Joint Chiefs of Staff, fear-
ing preparations for the long-promised Red
invasion of Formosa 'had begun, met at the
Pentagon. They decided to urge President
Eisenhower to use the 7th Fleet to thwart an
invasion of Quemoy, should it develop.
The joint chiefs split 3-to-1 on the recom-
mendation. Radford, Carney, and Twining
favored American strafing and bombing
alongside Chiang's planes if a Red invasion
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE March 10
aboard Secretary of State-designate Dulles "would view any renewal of the aggression tributing literature signed by North Viet-
and other future Cabinet members. For the in violation of the aforesaid agreements nam's National United Front.
better part of 3 days, Ike and Dulles dis- with grave concern and as seriously July 1: French formally relinquish com-
cussed the Korean conflict as the Helena cut threatening international peace and secur- mand authority over the Vietnamese Navy.
eastward. ity," and (3) "shall continue to seek to July 7: French formally transfer Nha
Ike took the firm position that "this war achieve unity through free elections. Trang Air Base to Vietnamese control.
must end." Dulles agreed. American casual- supervised by the U.N. to insure that they are July 20: Mass demonstrations by anti-
ties then had mounted to 128,000, including conducted fairly." Communists in Saigon, Capital of South
22,000 killed. Both men agreed that Red July 7: Head of state and former Emperor Vietnam. The demonstrators accuse the ICC
China wanted the conflict prolonged, that Bao Dai appoints Ngo Dinh Diem Premier. of not preventing Communist violations of
the Reds must be made to quit. "We've got August: Flow of almost 1 million refugees the Geneva agreements. On the same day,
to make them want peace" is the way Ike from North to South Vietnam begins. talks were scheduled to begin (according to
put it. August 31: Gen. Paul Ely, French High Geneva agreement) for the preparation of all-
Ike and Dulles reached a basic decision. If Commissioner for Indochina, states that Vietnam elections to be held on July 20,
the Reds did not come to terms, the United France is unequivocally committed to support 1956, to reunite the country. The Govern-
States would bomb the new industrial corn- the South Vietnamese Government as the le- ment of South Vietnam rejects the North
plex of Manchuria above the then-sacred gal government in Vietnam and to grant it Vietnamese Government's invitation to dis-
Yalu River and smash Red China's will to total independence: cuss the elections, on the grounds that in
fight. September 16: South Vietnam's independ- North Vietnam the people would not be able
IKE PUTS IT UP TO T`'':iE REDS ence established as France turns Over to the to express their will freely and that falsified
By May, 1953, the truce talks still drifted Diem government control of the police, jus- votes in North Vietnam could overrule the
in the Communist doldrums, despite an ties and security departments, public util- votes in South Vietnam.
April agreement for exchange of sick and ities, and civil aviation. August 18: Last French High Commissioner
wounded prisoners. The Reds were playing October: National Revolutionary Move- . in Vietnam departs.
the same old game of delay, frustration and ment, mass political party in South Viet- October: Binh Xuyen is defeated as an
obstruction. nam, is founded. organized armed insurgent force.
Ike decided the time had come to let Red October 11: The Communist Viehminh October 23: A national referendum deposes
China know we meant business. Dulles, ac- regime formally takes over control of Hanoi Bao Dai, former emperor and since March
companied by FOA Director Harold E. Stas- and North Vietnam. 7, 1949, Head of the State votes Vietnam. N nety-
sen, set off on a global flying tour. For 3 October 24: President Eisenhower sends a eight percent expressed prefer-
days, May 20 to 22, Dulles held confidential letter to Premier Diem of South Vietnam ence for Premier Diem.
talks with Nehru in New Delhi, impressing stating that American assistance will be October 26: A republic is proclaimed by
on him that U.S. patience had come to an given hereafter not through the French au- Ngo Dinh Diem who becomes the first Presi-
end In Korea. The Reds must either come thorities, but directly to the Government Of dent of South Vietnam.
to terms or face that allout bombing of South Vietnam. The letter also states that December 5: President Diem decrees a new
Manchurian factories, he told Prime Minister the U.S. Government "expects this aid will Vietnamese nationality law.
Nehru. be met by ? " " undertaking needed re- December 30: Government plan is pub-
Thelfe is no concrete evidence outside the forms." lished for resettlement of 100,000 refugees
secret files of India that Nehru relayed this 1955 from North Vietnam. The government will
"ultimatum" to Red China, but circum- January 1: United States begins to render induce landlords to sign contracts with
stantial evidence indicates that he did. direct assistance to South Vietnam, on the refugee tenants, and if the landlords refuse
Within 48 hours, our military negotiators basis of the existing pentalateral agree- to sign, the government will take over the
reported to Washington that the Communist ment of December 1950, for the support of contracts on behalf of the refugees.
attitude had softened. the Vietnamese armed forces. 1956
The fits and starts of haggling at Panmun- January 24: Premier Diem states, in an in- January: South Vietnamese army units oc-
jom Continued, but the Reds had decided to terview with a New York Post correspondent, cupy Tay Ninh, Viet al Cao Dai political
quit. On July 27, the long-sought truce in that Vietnam would do everything possible center, leading to breakup of the organized
I orea was signed. Three years and 32 days to help the ICC and would wait to see Cao Dai armed insurgency. Agreement with
of killing ended. That was just 114 days whether conditions of freedom existed in Cao Dai leaders on February 28 legalizes Cao
short of the duration of our fight against Communist North Vietnam at the time stip- Dai religious practices and forbids its polit-
Gerxrany in World War II. ulated in the Geneva Agreement for hold- ical activities as a religous sect.
America had been at peace for 18 months. Ing Vietnam-wide elections. February 12: Trap Van Soat, leader of an
No man is certain how peace should be main- February 5: Premier Diem decrees the first
tained. I imCrtant Hoa Hao faction, surrenders.
conviction a seeks many Ways. Men of deep of a series of laws initiating important and Ba Cut, another principal Hoa Hao leader, is
differ with some of his methods. extensive land reform program. captured on April 13, leading to breakup of
The debate continues in Washington. February 12: The U.S. Military Assistance organized captured Hoa Hao armed insurgency.
Advisory Group (MAAG) takes over the February 23: Communist North Vietnam
ExHimi 4 training of the South Vietnamese army, fol-
the relinquishing of command au- calls for a new meeting of the participants of
SOUTH VIETNAM: -A SUMMARY OFD EVENTS Lowing the Geneva Conference. North Vietnam ac-
thority by the French. cuses South Vietnam of violating the agree-
February 19: Southeast Asia Collective De-
May 8-July 21: Geneva Conference on fense Treaty (SEATO)-with its protocol ment by refusing to participat In all-Vietnam
china: The delections and by preparing separate elections
Indp are from Great covering Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos- in South Vietnam.
Britain and the U.S.S.R. (joint chairmen), comes into force. March 4: General elections for South Viet-
France, the United States, Communist China, March 7: United States and South Viet- 's first National Constituent Assembly,
Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, and the nam sign agreement which supplements nom have 1al members, result in the
Vietminh . regime. Agreements are signed existing economic cooperation agreement of which the National Revolutionary bers result n the
on July 21 and the main provisions concern- September 1951. victory h is s t meat and other Napolitical tional
Move-
parties supporting
Ing Vietnam are that (1) Vietnam is to be March 29: Armed revolt is precipitated in President Diem.
partitioned along the 17th parallel into Saigon by the Binh Xuyen political-bandit March D 22: French-Vietnamese agreement
North and South Vietnam, (2) regulations group, sprgading ultimately Into large-scale
are imposed on foreign military bases and dissidence in the southern provinces with is-signed for withdrawal of the remaining
personnel and on increased armaments, (3) the participation of elements of the Cao Dal French expeditionary forces by June 30,
couritrywide elections, leading to the reun- and Hoa Hao religious sects. 1956.
iflcation o f North and South Vietnam, are march 31: French-North Vietnamese agree- April 6 : The Vietnamese Government an-
to be held, by July 20, 1956, and '(4) an In- ment provides for a North Vietnamese liaison pounces it will continue to cooperate with
ternational Control Commission (ICC) is mission to the ICC to operate in South Viet- the ICC and reiterates its position of sup-
to be established to supervise the ample- nam. port on Vietnam-wide elections at such time
mentation of the 'agreements. 'The United April 17: South Vietnamese Government as conditions in Communist North Vietnam
States and Vietnam are not signatories to appeals to the U.N.` against the North Viet- permit genuinely free voting.
the agreements. The United States issues a namese Communists, who, in violation of the April 28: French Military High Command
unilateral declaration stating that it (1) Geneva agreements, prevent northerners in Vietnam is dissolved,
"will refrain from the threat or the use of from migrating to South Vietnam. July 4: Constituent Assembly approves
force to disturb" the Geneva Agreements, (2) May 10: Premier Diem forms a new Cabinet unanimously a draft constitution providing
composed largely of his own followers. for a strong executive with safeguards for
1This chronology has been compiled pri- May 16: Time limit given by Geneva agree- individual citizens. The President, whose
madly on the basis of: Deadline Data on ment for exodus of refugees from North to term of office is to be 5 years, has veto power
World Affairs, Deadline Data, Inc., New York, South Vietnam (and vice versa) is extended over all legislation of the unicameral parlia-
and memorandum RFE-14, Department of to July 20. ment and may rule by decree when the Na-
State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, July: Communists initiate the first overt tional Assembly (elected for 4 years) is not
Jan. 10, 1962. propaganda moves In South Vietnam by dis- in session.
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1964 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE
July 6: U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon
visits Vietnam, hands to President Diem of
South Vietnam a letter In which President
Eisenhower declares he is looking forward to
many years of partnership between the two
countries. As guest speaker before the Con-
stituent Assembly, Nixon declares that "the
militant march of corrimunism has been
halted."
July 30: Vietnamese liason mission to ICC
is established preparatory to the transfer of
functions from the French liaison mission.
August 21: President Diem issues "decree
regulating the- status of Chinese born in
Vietnam. The decree declares them to be
Vietnamese citizens; those who refuse tb
accept their new status must leave the coun-
try.
September 14: President Diem reshuffles his
Cabinet.
September 19: French Air Force offcially
transfers the Tourane Air Base to Vietnamese
control.
October 26: South Vietnam's first consti-
tution is promulgated and the National Con-
stituent Assembly is officially transferred into
a national assembly.
November 16: Radio Hanoi broadcasts ad-
mit peasant resistance and armed clashes in
North Vietnam's Nghe An Province.
November 29: President Diem denounces
the North Vietnamese Communist 'regime's
military actions in Nghe An Province as a
violation of human rights and a forceful
suppression of persons Wishing to move to
the southern zone and urged the U.N to take
the matter under consideration; Vietnam
also protests to the ICC, charging the North
Vietnamese Communist regime with viola-
tion of article 14c of the Geneva Agreements.
December 28: Nguyen Ngoc Tho confirmed
by the National Assembly as Vietnam's first
Vice President, following his appointment
by President Diem.
1957
January 3: International Control Commis-
sion reports that between December 1955 and
August 1956 neither North Vietnam nor
South Vietnam have been fulfilling their
obligations under the 1954 armistice agree-
ment.
February 22: Attempted assassination of
President Diem at a rural fair in Ban Me
Thuot by a Cao Dai adherent.
March 5: President Diem enunciates a new
national investment policy.
March 27: Asian People's Anti-Communist
League begins its third conference in Saigon.
Vietnam established as the site of the perma-
nent secretariat.
April 11: Lucien Cannon, chief of the
Canadian delegation to the ICC, is murdered.
May 2: In South Vietnam a national mili-
tary conscription program is decreed.
May 5-19: President Diem visits the United
States. He addresses on May,9 a joint ses-
sion of Congress. In a joint communique
(issued May 11) , President Eisenhower and
President Diem declare that' both countries
will work toward a peaceful unification of
Vietnam. The United States will continue
helping South Vietnam to stand firm against
communism.
June: French naval and air force training
mission withdrawn.
June 10: U.S. Export-Import Bank grants
South Vietnam a $25-million loan for eco-
nomic development.
October 22: Bombing of the U.S. MAAG
and USIS installations in Saigon; U,S. per-
sonnel injured in the incident.
November 15: United Nations Secretary
General announces plan for the development
of the Mekpng River basin, which is to be
carried out in, cooperation with Tllailand,
Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam, assisted
by the U.N. Economic Commission for Asia
and the Far East (ECAFE).
1955
January 4: Large Communist guerrilla
band attacks plantation north of Saigon,
reflecting steady increase in Communist
armed activity since mid-1957.
February 20: Fire sweeps Gia Klein ref-
ugee settlement center leaving 20,000 per-
sons homeless.
February 26: President Diem announces
cabinet changes.
March 7: Premier Pham Van-dong of
North Vietnam (in a letter to President Diem
of South Vietnam) proposes a conference of
the two Governments to discuss reduction of
their respective armed forces.
April 26: Declaration by the Government
of South Vietnam on measures to be taken
by North Vietnam in order to create condi-
tions for the holding of free elections as
stipulated in the Geneva agreements.
May 9: President Diem distributes land
ownership certificates to 1,819 landless
farmers.
May 17: North Vietnamese liaison mission
to the ICC withdrawn from Saigon.
June 25: Cambodian royal proclamation,
alleging that South Vietnamese troops have
"Invaded" and occupied several Cambodian
border villages, accuses South Vietnam of
19 cases of violation of Cambodian territory
since January 1957. Allegation is repudi-
ated by the Foreign Minister of South Viet-
nam.
August 5: Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother of
President Diem, travels to Cambodia to try
to'settle the drawn-out border dispute.
August 10: Large Communist guerrilla
force attacks in Tay Ninh.
September 10: France and South Vietnam
sign agreement under which France provides
aid for the Vietnam Government's agrarian
reform program-1,490 million francs.
December 26: Premier Pham Van-dong of
North Vietnam proposes a conference to dis-
cuss limitation of military commitments and
establishment of commercial and other ex-
changes between the north and the south.
1959
April 22: United States and South Vietnam
sign an agreement for cooperation for re-
search in the peaceful uses of atomic energy.
May 13:, Japan signs a World War II repa-
rations-.and loan agreement with South Viet-
nam.
June 11: Laos and South Vietnam sign
series of agreements, on judiciary coopera-
tion, commercial.. exchanges and payments,
and border contrl.
July: Vietnam Government publishes offi-
cial publication, "Violations of the-Geneva
Agreements by the Viet Minh Communists."
Annual installments published in July 1960
and May 1961.
July 8: Communist guerrillas attack Viet-
namese military base at Bien Hoa, killing and
wounding' several U.S. MAAG personnel.
July 10: In Belgian Communist publication
Red Flag, Ho Chi Minh, head of the North
Vietnamese Communist regime, states "we
are building socialism in Vietnam, but we
are building it in only one part of the coun-
try, while in the other part we still have to
direct and bring to a close the middle-class
democratic and anti-imperialist revolution."
August 3: Premier Prince Norodom Si-
hanouk of Cambodia in South Vietnam on
official visit.
August 30: Second national elections give
the National Revolutionary Movement and
other pro-Government political parties over-
whelming majority in the National Assembly.
October 30: Spokesman of the Vietnamese
Army discloses that a campaign against Com-
munist guerrillas in the country's southern-
most region, the Camau Peninsula, resulted
in heavy guerrilla losses.
November 14: French Minister of Finance
and Vietnamese Vice President initial (in
Saigon) agreements for the settlement of
financial claims between the two countries
and for a French loan of 7 billion (old)
francs (about $14 million) and a credit of
11 billion (old) francs (about $22 million)
for the purchase by South Vietnam of cap-
ital equipment.
1960
January: In an article in Hoc Tap, journal
of the Communist Party (Lao Dong) in
North Vietnam, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, head
of the North Vietnamese armed forces, states
"the North has become a large rear echelon
of our army" and "the North is the revolu-
tionary base for the whole country." A Com-
munist guerrilla band attacks Vietnamese
Army installation in Tay Ninh.
March: Communist guerrilla force attacks
leprosarium in Bien Hoa Province. President
Diem inaugurates first agroville in Phong
Dinh Province.
March 24: France and South Vietnam sign
agreement on outstanding financial and
properties issues and on trade relations.
April 17: North Vietnam protests to the
chairmen of the 1954 Geneva Conference
(Britain and the U.S.S.R.) against a formid-
able increase of personnel in the American
military assistance and advisory group in
South Vietnam; and accuses the United
States of turning South Vietnam into "a U.S.
military base for the preparation of a new
war."
April 30: An opposition group of 18, call-
ing themselves the Committee for Progress
and Liberty, send letter to President Diem
demanding drastic economic, administra-
tive, and military reforms.
May 5: United States announces that at
the request of the Government of South
Vietnam, the U.S. military assistance and
advisory group will be increased by the end
of the year from 327 to 685 members.
June 3: U.S. Development Loan Fund ap-
proves $9,700,000 loan to South Vietnam for
purchase in the United States of diesel loco-
motives and railway cars.
June 18: Government announces that the
Governor of Vinh Kong Province and his
driver were assassinated and a bodyguard
wounded by Communist terrorists.
June 26: Government announces that
South Vietnamese troops kill 34 Communist
rebels in a battle along the Cambodian bor-
der on June 22.
June 28: Defense Ministry announces that
Government troops killed 41 Communist
guerrillas and lost 2 soldiers in a clash west
of Saigon.
June 29: Communist guerrillas ambush
and kill the inspector of South Vietnam's
youth and sports organizations. "Each
month, from 250 to 300 Government officials
are murdered by Red guerrillas * * * South
Vietnam is clearly the target of a new Com-
munist offensive." (Time, July 11, 1960.)
July 16: Government discloses that in
clashes with Communist guerrillas on July
9, Government troops killed 76, wounded at
least 100, and captured 28.
July 20: Vietnam National Assembly dele-
gation leaves Saigon for 6-week visit to the
United States.
September 5: In addressing the opening
of the Third National Congress of the Lao
Dong (Communist) Party in Hanoi, Ho Chi
Minh states "the North is becoming more
and more consolidated and transformed into
a firm base for the struggle for national re-
unification."
September 10: The resolution adopted by
the Third National Congress of the Lao Dong
Party declares clearly that an "immediate
task" of the "revolutionary struggle of our
compatriots in the South" is to overthrow
President Diem's government.
October: Series of attacks by large Com-
munist guerrilla force in the Kontum-Pleiku
area.
October 18: President Diem reshuffles his
cabinet and replaces the Secretaries of State
for Justice, Interior, and National Defense.
October 26: President Eisenhower assures
President Ngo Dinh Diem, in a letter of good
wishes on South Vietnam's fifth anniver-
sary, that "for so long as our strength can
be useful, the United States will continue
to assist Vietnam in the difficult yet hopeful
struggle ahead."
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE March 10
November 2: Development Loan Fund an-
nounces signing of an agreement for a
$17,500,000 loan to South Vietnam. The loan
is for the improvement and expansion of the
water supply of the Saigon metropolitan
area.
November 5: In a daylight ambush a U.S.
public safety adviser, Dolph B. Owens, and`
his driver are killed by guerrilla machinegun
fire near seaside resort, Long 14Iai. On the
same, day the National Assembly passes bill
empowering 'the Government to mobilize
"popular fronts and to strengthenexisting
military measures to "better insure the secu-
rity of the nation."
November 10: South Vietnam Government
sends letter to the ICC charging that Com-
munist attacks` in the Kontum-Plelku area
in October (1) involved regular army forces
from Communist North Vietnam through
Laos, (2) constitute open aggression which
was well prepared, commanded by high-
ranking officers, and conducted by regular
forces trained in North Vietnam, and (3)
employed weapons made in North Vietnam
and other Communist countries.
November 11: Military coup attempt
against President Diem's regime. Paratroop
battalions led by Col. Nguyen Van Thy and
Lt. Col. Vuong Van Dong besiege the Presi-
dential palace. An order of the day Issued
by Col. Thy declares that struggle against
the Communists will be intensified, that
President Diem is guilty of autocratic rule
and nepotism and has "shown himself in-
capable of saving the country from com-
munism and protecting nation l unity."
November 12: Loyalists troops enter the
capital and subdue the rebels. According to
press reports from Saigon, an estimated 200
soldiers and civilians were killed during the
fighting.
November 13: U.S. State Department ex-
presses satisfaction at the failure of the coup
against President Diem and also hope that
"his powers will be established on a wider
basis with rapid implementation of radical
refolms and energetic action against cor-
ruption-suspected elements."
November 16`. Ngo Dinh Nhu, President
Diem's brother and political adviser, an-
nounces that President Diem plans to ap-
point a new Government and introduce a far-
reaching reform program based on reports of
the Ford Foundation and of a French study
group.
Jai 1961
uary 29: Radio Hanoi praises establish-
went of the National Front for Liberation of
South Vietnam (NFLSV), alledgedly founded
in December 1960. On January 30, Radio
Hanoi, quoting the press organ of the Lao
Dong Party in North Vietnam, states that
the "sacred historical task" of the NFSLV Is
to overthrow the United States-Diem clique
and to liberate the south.
February 6: President~Diem announces (at
the first press conference held by him in 5
years) his administrative reform program.
February 7: President Diem announces he
will be a candidate for reelection In the
presidential elections to be held on April 9.
March 10: The Communist-Ted newly
formed National Font for the Liberation of
South Vietnam announces that a guerrilla
offensive against the Government will be
-started to prevent the holding of the April
9 elections. The National Front also de-
clares that it will fight with every means
the dictatorial regime set up by the Ameri-
cans, that it stands for the peaceful reuni-
fication of the country.
. March 27: Cambodian and South Vietna-
mese representatives reach agreement in
Pnom Penh, Cambodia, on settling the Cam-
bodian refugee problem which has recently
strained relations between the two coun-
,tries. Large numbers of Cambodians settled
in Vietnam crossed into Cambodia during
the past weeks complaining that both Com-
munist guerrillas and Government forces
have committed atrocities against them.
April 3: United States and South Vietnam
sign a Treaty of Amity and Economic Re-
lations in Saigon.
April 4: President Diem appeals to the ICC
to make an immediate and energeticInvesti-
gation of growing Communist terrorism and
subversion throughout South Vietnam.
April 6: U.S. President John F. Kennedy
and British Prime Minister Harold Macmil-
lan discuss (according' to press reports from
Washington) the steps to be taken to pre-
vent a deterioration of the situation in
South Vietnam. On the same day, Govern-
ment of South Vietnam announces details
of nine engagements between Government
forces and Vietcong guerrillas in widely
separated areas.
April 9: President Diem and Vice President
Tho are elected by an overwhelming major-
ity in Vietnam's presidential elections.
May 2: North Vietnam calls for a) cease-
fire in Laos.
May 4: Chairman of U.S. Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, Senator J. W. FuL-
BRIGHT, declares to the press (after a con-
ference with President Kennedy) that he
would not oppose direct military interven-
tion in South Vietnam and Thailand, to
counteract the threat of a Communist take-
over in those countries. He also emphasizes
that he is opposed to the United States be-
coming the primary defensive factor in
southeast Asia over a long time, and says
that role should be up to India and Japan.
May 5: President Kennedy declares at a
press conference that consideration Is being
given to the use of U.S. forces, if necessary,
to help South Vietnam resist Communist
pressures. He declares that this will be one
of the subjects discussed during the forth-
coming visit of Vice President Johnson in
South Vietnam.
May 11-13: U.S. Vice President Johnson in
South Vietnam. Joint communique on May
13 declares that additional U.S. military and
economic aid will be given to help South
Vietnam in its fight against Communist
guerrilla forces.
May 29: President Diem reorganizes his
Cabinet.
June 12: Communist Chinese Premier
Chou En-lai and North Vietnamese Premier
Phan Van-dong (in Peiping on a visit) ac-
cuse the United States of aggression and In-
tervention in South Vietnam.
June 19-July 15: U.S. group of financial,
economic, and military experts, headed by
Eugene A. Stanley, in South Vietnam to
study methods of countering guerrilla ac-
tivities and to establish long-term plans to
assist the South Vietnamese economy.
June 29: ICC decides it is competent to
investigate North and South Vietnamese
complaints of violation of the agreement on
Vietnamese partition.
July 8: Attempted assassination of U.S.
Ambasador Frederick E. Nolting.
July 16: Government forces win an im-
portant battle 60 miles southwest of Saigon
in the swampy region of the Plaine des Joncs,
a guerrilla-infested territory.
July 17: U.S. Agriculture Department an-
nounces an agreement to sell South Vietnam
$11 million worth of U.S. surplus wheat, cot-
ton, and tobacco to be paid for in Vietnam-
ese currency. '
July 24: Two National Assembly deputies
assassinated by Communist guerrillas.
August 2: President Kennedy declares that
the United States will do all it can to save
South Vietnam from communism. On the
same day, the Government of South Vietnam
orders all men between the ages of 25 and 35
to report for military duty.
August 17: Government forces win anoth-
er victory over Communist guerrillas on the
Paine des Jones.
September 1-4: Series of attacks by 1,000
Communist guerrillas in Kontoum province.
Army command communique states that
during the month of August there were 41
engagements between Government forces
and Communist rebels.
September 17: British advisory mission on
administrative and police matters, headed
by R. G. K. Thompson (former Permanent
defense secretary in Malaya), leaves for
South Vietnam.
September 18: Communist forces esti-
mated at 1,500 men attack and seize the
bapital of Phuoc Thanh Province, only 60
miles from Saigon.
September 25: President Kennedy, ad-
dressing the U.N. General Assembly in New
York, declares that a threat to peace is "the
smoldering coals of war in southeast Asia."
October 1: Military experts of SEATO meet
in Bangkok, Thailand, to consider the in-
creasing Communist menace to South Viet-
nam. Adm. Harry D. Felt, U.S. Navy com-
mander in chief in the Pacific, declares that
there is no immediate prospect of using U.S.
troops to stop the Communist advance in
southeast Asia, but he indicates that among
the plans evolved for "every eventuality"
some do call for the use of American troops.
October 2: President Diem declares at the
opening of the National Assembly's budget-
ary session: "It is no longer a guerrilla war
we have to face but a real war waged by an
enemy who attacks us with regular units
fully and heavily equipped and who seeks a
strategic decision in southeast Asia in con-
formity with the orders of the Communist
international." The President also says that
the U.S. committee headed by Dr. Eugene
Staley recommended an increase in aid both
for military measures and for economic and
social development.
October 11: President Kennedy announces
(at his news conference) that he is sending
Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, his military adviser,
to South Vietnam to investigate there the
military situation and to report on it to him
personally.
October 18: State of emergency is pro-
claimed in South Vietnam by President Diem.
On the same day the President also begins
a series of consultations with Gen. Maxwell
D. Taylor.
October 24: Government of South Vietnam
sends letter to the ICC charging the North
Vietnamese Communist regime with organiz-
ing and carrying out"'elaborate and inten-
sive" program of subversion, terror, and di-
rect aggression against South Vietnam.
October 26: On the sixth anniversary of
South Vietnam as a republic, President Diem
-issues a message stressing the theme of na-
tional emergency and the need for greater
effort and dynamic solidarity against "Com-
munist imperialism." He demands the
"complete destruction of Communist aggres-
sion," for which purpose the state of emer-
gency has been declared. On the some day,
President Kennedy, in a letter to President
Diem, assures the South Vietnamese Presi-
dent that the United States "is determined
to help Vietnam preserve its independence,
protect its people against Communist assas-
sins and build a better life through economic
growth."
October 28: Government announces that
Cambodian and South Vietnamese troops
clashed in An Giang Province in the border
region where Cambodian troops crossed into
Vietnamese territory.
November 16: Following closely the recom-
mendations in General Taylor's report, Presi-
dent Kennedy (with the approval of the
National Security Council, decides to bolster
South Vietnam's military strength, but not
to commit U.S. combat forces at this time.
November-'20: Discussions between U.S.
Ambassador Frederick Nolting and President
Diem on measures to be taken by both Gov-
ernments to implement General Taylor's
report on South Vietnam and on possible
reforms in the Diem administration.
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1964 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -SENATE
December 8: U.S. State Department pub-
lishes white paper that South Vietnam is
threatened by clear and present danger
of Communist conquest.
December 15: U.S. President Kennedy
pledges increased aid to South Vietnam.
1962
January 4: A joint United States-South
Vietnamese communique announces "broad
economic and social program [to raise liv-
ing standards] * * * measures to strengthen
South Vietnam's defense in the military
field are being taken simultaneously."
February 7: Two U.S. Army air support
companies totaling 300 men arrive in Saigon,
increasing (according to the New York
Times) the total of U.S. military personnel
in South Vietnam to 4,000.
February 8: United States reorganizes its
South Vietnam military command, estab-
lishes new U.S. Military Assistance Command,
Vietnam under four-star Gen. Paul D.
Harkins.
February 24: In a Peiping radio broadcast,
Communist China declares her security se-
riously threatened by an "undeclared war"
being waged by the United States in South
Vietnam. The broadcast demands the with-
drawal of U.S. personnel and equipment.
February 27: Two fighter planes, piloted
by members of the South Vietnam Air Force,
bomb and strafe Presidential Palace in Sai-
gon for 25 minutes. President Diem and his
staff not injured.
March 7: U.S. Operations Mission Director
Arthur Z. Gardiner discloses that the United
States will spend $200 million to support
South Vietnam's economy this year and help
raise living standards.
March 17: Tars Soviet news agency pub-
lishes Soviet Ministry note to the signatories
of the 1954 Geneva Agreements. The note
charges the United States with creating "a
serious danger to peace" by its "interference"
in South Vietnam, in contravention of the
Geneva Agreements, and demands immediate
withdrawal of U.S. troops.
March 22: Operation Sunrise, a comprehen-
sive plan to eliminate the Vietcong guerrillas
in South Vietnam, begins with a mopping-
up operation of rebels in Binh Duong
Province.
April 16: In answer to the Soviet note of
March 17, the British Foreign Office rejects
the Soviet charges and recalls that U.S. meas-
ures in South Vietnam were adopted long
after the North Vietnamese Government had
begun its campaign to overthrow the Gov-
ernment of South Vietnam, and that these
North Vietnamese activities "are at the root
of the present trouble in South Vietnam."
April 20: National Assembly pledges full
support to President Diem's plan to estab-
lish thousands of strategic hamlets in the
Communist infested Mekong Delta during
the current year.
April 26: Foreign Minister Vu Van Mau
accuses the Polish team on the ICC of "act-
ing more like a Communist delegation than a
neutral body," and says the Government is
considering boycotting the delegation.
May 9: At meeting of ANZUS (Australia-
New Zealand-United States Defense Pact)
Council in Canberra, Australia, U.S. Secre-
tary of State Dean Rusk appeals for "a help-
ing hand" in South Vietnam.
May 12: Communist forces in Laos gain
control of large territories; about 2,000 Lao-
tian Royal Army troops with their com-
mander flee into Thailand crossing the Me-
kong River.
May 15: U.S. troops land in Thailand to
help deter a possible Communist attack.
May 22: President Diem promulgates the
protection of morality law, which prohibits
all dancing and beauty contests, and makes
prostitution and unnatural methods of birth
control illegal.
May 25: Canadian and Indian members of
the ICC find North Vietnam guilty of sub-
version and covert aggression against South
Vietnam. The Polish delegation to the com-
mission rejects the charge.
May 28: President Diem refuses a U.S. pro-
posal that $1.5 million be set aside for direct
aid by Americans for emergency counter-
insurgency projects.
June 23: North Vietnam's Central Com-
mittee of the National Liberation Front for
South Vietnam orders intensified attacks
against the strategic hamlets in South Viet-
nam.
June 26: South Vietnam's National As-
sembly votes to extend its term of office by
1 year, to August 1963. The explanation
given is that it is impossible to hold elections
now, because it would tie down troops needed
against the Communist guerrillas.
July 2: Fourteen-nation Geneva Confer-
ence on Laos reconvenes, and on July 23 the
Foreign Ministers of the 14 nations sign a
declaration on the neutrality of Laos.
July 6: U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara declares that, while a final victory
over the Communists in South Vietnam is
years away, he is encouraged by the increased
effectiveness of U.S. aid to the South Viet-
namese forces.
July 17: Leader of the Communist-run
South Vietnam National Liberation Front
Nguyen Van Hieu (in Moscow for a World
Peace Congress) calls for the neutralization
of South Vietnam similar to the 14-nation
agreement an the neutrality of Laos.
July 24: U.S. Secretary of Defense Mc-
Namara in Honolulu. Hawaii, confers with
the commander of U.S. military forces in
southeast Asia Gen. Paul Harkins and U.S.
Ambassador to South Vietnam Frederick
Nolting.
August 19: U.S. aid mission in Saigon dis-
closes that the South Vietnamese Govern-
ment has agreed to embark on a program of
deficit financing to help pay for the struggle
against the guerrillas.
August 25: U.S. Embassy in Saigon an-
nounces that it will provide $10 million to
be distributed by South Vietnamese authori-
ties for emergency projects to help refugees
of the guerrilla war.
August 26: Dr. Pham Huy Co, president of
the banned Free Democratic Party, announc-
es in Tokyo, where he lives in exile, that he
has been clandestinely in South Vietnam and
that a meeting of the opposition to the Diem
government has been held on a junk off the
coast of South Vietnam. The meeting ap-
pointed a 30-member National Council of
the Revolution to head the anti-Communist,
anti-Diem movement.
September 11: Prince Uorodom Sihanouk,
of Cambodia, warns that if South Vietnam
undertakes two more incursions into Cam-
bodian territory, he will break off diplomatic
relations with South Vietnam and establish
diplomatic relations with Communist North
Vietnam.
September 12: General Taylor, Chairman
of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, visits the
Central Highland of South Vietnam where
mountain peasants (montagnards) are being
trained by the U.S. Special Forces for war
against the Vietcong Communist guerrillas.
October 8: United States publishes Amer-
ican war casualties in South Vietnam. Be-
tween December 31, 1961, and October 1,
1962, 46 Americans dead, 56 Americans sick
or injured.
October 26: National Assembly extends by
1 year President Diem's emergency powers
to rule by decree.
November 8: South Vietnam breaks off dip-
lomatic relations with Laos as a result of
Laos establishment of diplomatic relations
with North Vietnam.
December 6: South Vietnamese Govern-
ment protests to the ICC against the intro-
duction of Chinese-made weapons and am-
munition. A large cache was discovered by
a patrol in the Central Highlands.
December 8: President Diem signs a Re-
organization of the Army Act creating a
fourth Army corps area and making several
changes in military command posts.
December 12: Government announces plans
to transfer provincial and district adminis-
tration from military to civilian personnel.
December 29: Government in Saigon an-
nounces that 4,077 strategic hamlets have
been completed (of a total of 11,182 to be
built) and that 39 percent of South Viet-
nam's population is now living in these com-
munities.
1963
January 2: Vietcong guerrilla force esti-
mated at 200 and armed with automatic
weapons engages in an all-day battle against
1,200 government troops and inflicts heavy
casualties at Ap Bac, in the Mekong River
Delta 35 miles southwest of Saigon.
January 9-11: Adm. Harry D. Felt, com-
mander in chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific
confers with Gen. Paul D. Harkins and de-
clares, before his departure, that the Viet-
cong guerrillas face "inevitable" defeat, and
he says: "I am confident the Vietnamese are
going to win the war."
January 20: Press reports states that a
captured Vietcong document (dated Septem-
ber 1962 and written by a senior Vietcong of-
ficial) outlines the future of the war in
Vietnam as a long and difficult struggle. Re-
viewing the expansion of U.S. military as-
sistance to South Vietnam within the last
year, the document says that the United
States is the Vietcong's main enemy and
that United States presence will drive many
uncommitted Vietnamese to the Communist
side. The document foresees a negotiated
settlement of the war patterned on the Lao-
tian agreement and it stresses the impor-
tance of understanding so-called transi-
tional steps to the achievement of victory.
February 1: U.S. Secretary of Defense Dean
Rusk says (at a press conference) that there
are "both pluses and minuses" in the U.S.
aid program to South Vietnam and he adds
that "there is no more difficult, disagreeable,
and frustrating type of operation than those
that are required to deal with guerrilla ac-
tion supported from outside of a country,
such as we find in that country."
February 2: Pharr Huy Co, president of the
National Council of the Vietnamese Revolu-
tion, claims (in Paris where he is a poltical
exile) that his organization is the source of
terrorist bombings which have occurred in
Saigon and its suburbs since mid-January.
He says the aim of these activities is to
hasten the overthrow of the Diem Govern-
ment.
February 11: V.S. Ambassador Frederick
Nolting asks (in a Saigon speech) for greater
frankness between U.S. and Vietnamese
officials in the fight against the Commu-
nist guerrillas.
February 16: Times of Vietnam (in an
editorial) attacks U.S. press and demands
United States consider censorship of Ameri-
can dispatches from South Vietnam, accus-
ing U.S. correspondents of helping Commu-
nist guerrillas and of responsibility for the
deaths of United States and Vietnamese
personnel engaged in the war.
February 24: U.S. Senate study group,
headed by Senate Majority Leader MIKE
MANSFIELD, submits a report on southeast
Asia made at the request of President Ken-
nedy, to the Senate Foreign Relations Com-
mittee. The report warns that the fight
against Communist guerrillas in Vietnam is
becoming an "American war" which is not
justified by U.S. security interests and calls
for a "thorough reassessment of our overall
security requirements on the southeast Asian
mainand." While expressing doubts con-
cerning the results of $5 billion in U.S. aid
to southeast Asia since 1950, the report rec-
ommends "extreme caution" in reducing
military and economic assistance in this
area.
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4670 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE March 10
February 28: Nguyen Ton Roan, Secretary
General of the Dal-Viet Nationalist Party
and a political exile living In Paris, declares
(in a letter to President Kennedy) that
"President Ngo [Dinh Diem] Is incapable
of leadership and unamenable to reform,
His government may suddenly collapse in
the near future and leave a vacuum into
which the Communists will gladly step-
unless both the American authorities and
Vietnamese nationalist leaders are prepared
to cope with such an emergency together
instead of working at cross purposes."
March 6: U.S. military sources report that
the Vietnamese Navy has taken over patrol
of South Vietnam's coast from the U.S. 7th
Fleet.
March 9: Soviet newspaper Red Star, of-
ficial publication of the Soviet Defense Min-
istry, charges that "American intervention-
ists have again used poison substances in
South Vietnam" resulting in the killing of
hundreds of people. On the same day, U.S.
Defense Department denies the Soviet
charges. Of the chemical now in use, the
Department says, "It is nontoxic to humans
when used in the prescribed manner, that
is sprayed on trees and under bushes In the
open air."
April 8-10: SEATO Ministerial Council
meeting in Paris (to discuss the Communist
threat to southeast Asia) issues communique
on April 10 expressing "concern over the
continuing and widening threats to the
security" of the treaty area; takes note of
the "ponsiderable progress" made in South
Vietnam in the fight against Communist
subversion and rebellion; emphasizes that ef-
fective measures to "prevent and counter
subversion continues to be a major task
facing the member countries"; and notes the
Improvements in the "plans for defensive
action, in the light of changing and antici-
pated situations."
April 14: U.S. Under Secretary of State
Averell Harriman (in a television interview)
says that President Kennedy has decided
that the United States must not become in-
volved in the continuing conflict in Laos.
He says that there are no plans to commit
U.S. troops, and military supplies will only
be sent if requested by the Laotian Govern-
ment.
April 17: President Diem proclaims an
"open arms" campaign to induce Vietcong
guerrillas to give up their weapons and
return to the side of South Vietnam.
April 22: U.S. Secretary of State Dean
Rusk calls the situation in South Vietnam
"difficult and dangerous," and says that the
United States "cannot promise or expect a
quick victory" and that its role is "limited
and supporting."
May 8: Riot erupts in northern city of
Hue, former imperial capital, 400 miles north
of Saigon. Involves Buddhist celebration of
the anniversary of Buddha's birth and the
flying of flags on the special day. Twelve
persons are killed, including some children.
Buddhist leaders charge that Government
troops fired into the crowd, while Govern-
ment officials say that Communists were
responsible for the explosion.
May 9: South Vietnam concludes agree-
ment with the United States in which South
Vietnam will finance the local cost ($17 mil-
lion) of operating its strategic hamlet pro-
gram and transporting U.S. economic and
military equipment, 'food and other sup-
plies to these settlements.
June 3: Buddhist demonstrations break
out in Hue. Martial law is swiftly imposed.
June 7: President Diem (in a broadcast)
appeals for calm and makes a partial conces-
sion to Buddhist demands that the Govern-
ment accept responsibility for the incidents
In Hue.
June 11: Buddhist monk (Thich Quang
Due) commits suicide by burning himself
to death with gasoline in front of the Cam-
bodian legation. Further aggravates reli-
gious crisis involving South Vietnamese
Buddhists.
June 14: Press reports state that the
United States has warned President Diem
that unless he takes immediate steps to
alleviate Buddhist grievances the United
States will publicly condemn the treatment
they have received.
June 15: Tentative agreement is reached
between Buddhist leaders and represent-
atives of President Diem to end alleged reli-
gious discrimination and meet Buddhist
demands.
June 16: Government troops use tanks,
tear gas, clubs, firearms, and barbed wire
to suppress riots in Saigon which follow an
agreement between Buddhist leaders and
the Government.
June 27: President Kennedy announces
(in Ireland while on a European tour) the
appointment of Henry Cabot Lodge as the
next American Ambassador to South Viet-
nam, effective September 1963, to succeed
Frederick Nolting.
July 5: Trial of 19 Vietnamese paratroopers,
admitted leaders of a revolt against the
Diem government in November 1960 opens in
Saigon. Prosecutor accuses former U.S. Em-
bassy personnel of aiding the conspiracy to
overthrow regime. Denied by the United
States.
July 7: Nine correspondents for U.S. news
services in South Vietnam, including seven
American, are physically assaulted by secret
policemen armed with rocks at the scene
of a memorial service for a Buddhist monk
who committed suicide on June 11.
July 9: Trial of 34 civilians, including Dr.
Phan Quang Dan, leader of the Free Demo-
cratic Party, allegedly involved in a plot to
overthrow President Diem in 1960, opens be-
fore a military tribunal in Saigon. Nguyen
Tuong Tam, a Buddhist and a prominent
author, scheduled to be tried, commits sui-
cide by poison.
July 11: U.S. Ambassador Nolting returns
to South Vietnam after consultations in
Washington and issues a statement assuring
continued U.S. support to President Diem
and warning that "unity of purpose and
purpose in action" must not be weakened by
"internal dissension."
July 15; Buddhist supreme leader, Thich
Thinh Kbiet, in a letter to President Diem,
charges the Government with bad faith con-
cerning the agreement of June 15 and says
that there have been "acts of a terrorist
nature', against Buddhists throughout the
country.
. July 17: Armed policemen use clubs
against 1,000 Buddhists protesting religious
discrimination in front of a pagoda in
Saigon. On the same day, president Ken-
nedy says (at his news conference) that
the religious crisis in South Vietnam is
interfering with the war effort against the
Vietcong guerrillas and expresses hope that
President Diem and Buddhist leaders will
"reach an agreement on the civil disturb-
ances and also In respect for the rights of
others."
July 1S: President Diem asks Buddhist
leaders to meet with Government officials
and say that he has instructed a special
committee to cooperate with Buddhists in
implementing an earlier agreement and that
all Government officials have been instructed
to cooperate actively in this effort. How-
ever, Buddhist leaders indicate an unwilling-
ness to negotiate with Government officials
until certain conditions are fulfilled: secret
policemen who have attacked Buddhist dem-
onstrators must be publicly identified; pris-
oners being detained for their part in earlier
riots must be released; permission to print
missing persons notices in newspapers to
locate Buddhists who have disappeared must
be granted.
July 23: Militiamen, war veterans, and
widows parade through the streets of Saigon
to demonstrate support for Government
policies in the Buddhist dispute.
July 30: Memorial services for Thich
Quang Duc who committed suicide to pro-
test alleged persecution by the Government
are attended by thousands of Buddhists in
Saigon, Hue and other cities. Peaceful
demonstrations are staged without Govern-
ment interference.
August 1: Mme. Ngo Dinh Nhu, sister-
In-law of President Diem, declares in an
Interview for television: "The only thing
that they (the Buddhists) have done " *
(is that they) have barbecued one of their
monks whom they have intoxicated. And
even that barbecuing was not even with self-
sufficient means, because they used Imported
gasoline."
August 3: Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother of Presi-
dent Diem, says (in an interview) that if
the dispute with the Buddhists Is not settled
"it will lead toward a coup d'etat" which
would be anti-American, anti-Buddhist, and
against "weakness by the Government."
August 4: Young Buddhist monk sud-
denly immolates himself during a hunger
strike at Phan Tiet.
August 13: U.S. Assistant Secretary of
State for Far Eastern Affairs Roger .Hilsman
declares (at a Washington press conference)
that there are signs that the Buddhist crisis
in South Vietnam "is beginning to affect the
war effort and to benefit the Communists,
which none of the Vietnamese want, either
the Government or the Buddhists."
August 17: Forty-seven faculty members
at the University of Hue resign to protest
Government indifference in the Buddhist
crisis and the dismissal of the university's
rector.
August 20: Vietcong guerrillas overrun
and burn 137 homes in the Ben Tuong
strategic hamlet, 30 miles north of Saigon.
It was the showplace of the strategic ham-
let program.
August 21: Martial law is proclaimed
throughout South Vietnam by President
Diem after hundreds of armed police and
Government troops raided the main Budd-
hist Xa Loi pagoda in Saigon.
August 22: Foreign Minister Vu Van: Mau
(a Buddhist) submits his resignation to Pres-
ident Diem. Also on the same day, South
Vietnam's Ambassador to the United States
Tran Van Chuong (father of Mme. Ngo
Dinh Nhu) resigns. Both resign in disap-
proval of Government policies toward Budd-
hists.
August 23: Student demonstrations at
Saigon University in opposition to Govern-
ment disperse before police arrive on the
scene. But the following day there are
direct clashes, and many students are con-
fined to jail.
August 26: U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot
Lodge presents his credentials to President
Diem and confers with him at a second meet-
ing on the same day. On the same day, U.S.
State Department declares: "Present infor-
mation is that the top leadership of the
Vietnamese Army was not aware of the plans
to attack the pagodas, much less the brutal
manner in which it was carried out."
August 28: Joint Genera Staff of the Viet-
namese Army issues a repl to the U.S. state-
ment insisting that "These allegations are en-
tirely and absolutely erroneous."
August 29: French President de Gaulle is-
sues controversial policy statement on South
Vietnam. He declares that France is able
"to- appreciate the role this people would be
capable of playing in the current situation
of Asia for its own progress and for the bene-
fit of international understanding once it
was able to exercise its activity in independ-
ence from foreign influence, in Internal peace
and unity, and In concord with its neighbors.
Today, more than ever, this is what France
wishes to all of Vietnam."
August 30: French Ambassador to the
United States Herve Alphand declares, after
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1964 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE
meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Dean
Rusk, that General de Gaulle's statement is
part of a long-range French political solu-
tion which would reunify North and South
Vietnam in "independence and neutrality"
and that his declaration is not meant as a
slap at the United States.
September 1: Three Buddhist monks, in-
cluding Thich Tri Quang, take refuge in U.S.
Agency for International Development mis-
sion headquarters in Saigon.
September 2: Times of Vietnam charges
that U.S. Central Intelligence Agency agents
had planned a coup d'etat for August 28 to
overthrow President Diem. On the same day,
U.S. President Kennedy declares (in a tele-
vision interview with CBS Correspondent
Walter Cronkite) that the United States is
prepared to continue to assist South Vietnam
"but I don't think that the war can be
won unless the people support the effort
and, in my opinion, in the last 2 months, the
Government has gotten out of touch with
the people."
September 3: Group of 56 African and
Asian UN members decides to ask the U.N.
General Assembly to consider "the question
of the violation of human rights in South
Vietnam" at its next session which begins
September 17.
September 5: President Diem declares (in
a press interview) that.. "the Government
considers this [Buddhist] affair closed." He
denies reports that his brother Ngo Dinh
Nhu has taken control of the Government.
On the same day, Ngo Dinh Nhu says (in a
press interview) : "I have never controlled
the Government."
September 7: About 800 high school stu-
dents are arrested by armed police and
Special Forces (secret police) while engaged
in anti-Government demonstrations in
Saigon. "For the first time in student
demonstrations here, the slogans they
shouted included criticism of the United
States" (New York Times, September 8,
1963).
September 8: David Bell, Administrator
of the U.S. Agency for International De-
velopment, warns (in a television interview)
that the U.S. Congress may cut back aid
to South Vietnam unless the Diem Govern-
ment changes its policies. On the same day
press reports emanating from "highly reliable
sources" in Washington state that the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency has decided to
continue making regular monthly payments
of $250,000 to support the special forces
of Col. Le Quang Tung in South Vietnam.
September 9: President Kennedy (in a tele-
vised interview) says that "it would not be
helpful at this time" to reduce U.S. aid to
South Vietnam, because that might bring
about a collapse similar to that of the
Chiang Kai-shek Government in China after
World War II. On the same day, U.S. Am-
bassador Henry Cabot Lodge confers with
President Diem "The United States has di-
rectly advised President Ngo Dinh Diem
* * * that it regards the removal of his
brother Ngo Dinh Nhu as vital" (New York
Times, September 12, 1963).
September 12: U.S. Senator FRANK CHURCH,
Democrat, of Idaho, introduces a resolution
(sponsored by 18 Democrats and 4 Republi-
cans) in the Senate which calls for ending
all U.S military and economic aid to South
Vietnam and withdrawal of U.S. troops un-
less the Diem Government abandons its pol-
icy of "cruel repressions."
September 14: Presidential decree an-
nounces end of martial law on September 16.
September 16: Fourteen Afro-Asian na-
tions demand a debate in the U.N. General
Assembly (opening its fall session on Sep-
tember 17) on the "ruthless" suppression
of Buddhist rights in South Vietnam.
September 20: U.S. Senate Majority Leader
MIKE MANSFIELD, Democrat, of Montana,
speaking in the Senate calls on all U.S. agen-
cies in South Vietnam to give full support to
U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. Ob-
servers interpreted the speech as being di-
rected against the CIA and some elements
in the American military mission to Vietnam.
September 21: President Kennedy orders
Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara
and Gen. Maxwell D Taylor, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to go to South
Vietnam to review the military efforts against
the Communist Vietcong. McNamara and
Taylor in South Vietnam during September
24 to October 1.
September 22: Mme. Ngo Dinh Nhu, sister-
in-law of President Diem, declares (in a press
interview in Rome) that junior U.S. Army
officers in South Vietnam are irresponsible
"little soldiers of fortune."
September 27: Elections are held for the
123-member National Assembly. All candi-
dates were approved in advance by the Gov-
ernment; many were unopposed, including
President Diem's brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and
his wife, Mme. Nhu.
October 2: Secretary of Defense Robert S.
McNamara and Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, report
to President Kennedy and the National Secu-
rity Council on their mission to South Viet-
nam. The statement says that the United
States will continue its "policy of working
with the people and Government of South
Vietnam to deny this country to communism
and to suppress the externally stimulated
and supported insurgency of the Vietcong as
promptly as possible. Effective performance
in this undertaking is the central object of
our policy in South Vietnam."
October 5: Buddhist monk burns himself
to death in Saigon-the sixth such suicide
since June 11. Three U.S. journalists who
see the suicide are beaten by police. On
the same day, the head of U.S. Central In-
telligence Agency operations in Saigon (John
H. Richardson) is recalled to Washington.
October 7; Mme. Ngo Dinh Nhu, sister-in-
law of President Diem, arrives in New York
to begin a 3-week unofficial visit to the
United States.
October 8: U.N. General Assembly agrees
to send a factfinding mission to South Viet-
nam to investigate charges of Government
oppression of Buddhists. The Diem govern-
ment on October 4 had invited the U.N. to
send such a mission.
October 17: Ngo Dinh Nhu, chief adviser
of President Diem, declares (in a press inter-
view in Saigon) that he cannot understand
why the United States has "initiated a proc-
ess of disintegration in Vietnam." He adds
that "the confidence between the Vietnamese
people and the American Government has
been lost."
October 21: It is disclosed in Washington
and Saigon that the United States will with-
hold financial aid to the special forces of
Col. Le Quang Tung as long as they are not
used to fight Communist guerrillas.
October 24: U.N. factfinding mission on
the Buddhist situation in South Vietnam
arrives in Saigon, and on the next day con-
fers with President Diem and his brother,
Ngo Dinh Nhu.
October 27: Buddhist monk burns him-
self to death in Saigon-the seventh such
suicide since June 11.
October 31: Vietcong guerrillas attack on
armored train north of Saigon, inflict heavy
casualties on Government troops, and seize
a large number of weapons.
November 1: Military coup (organized by
the key generals of the armed forces) against
the Diem regime. Rebels lay seize to the
Presidential Palace in Saigon which is cap-
tured by the following morning. President
Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu escape
from the palace, but a few hours later are
taken by the rebels, and while being trans-
ported in an armored carrier to rebel head-
quarters they are assassinated. A proclama-
tion broadcast by the leaders of the coup (a
council of generals, headed by Maj. Gen.
4671
Duong Van Minh) declares that they have
"no political ambitions" and that the fight
against the Communists must be carried on
to a successful conclusion.
November 2: Military leaders set up a pro-
visional government headed by former Vice
President Nguyen Ngoc Tho (a Buddhist) as
Premier. The Constitution is suspended and
the National Assembly dissolved. Buddhists,
students and other political prisoners arrested
by the former regime are released.
November 4: Premier Nguyen Ngoc Tho
announces formation of a mixed military-
civilian Cabinet which has been approved by
the military leaders.
November 7: United States recognizes the
new provisional Government of South Viet-
nam.
EXHIBIT 5
DEAD END IN VIETNAM
WE CAN'T WIN, BUT WE NEED NOT LOSE--I
(By Jerry A. Rose')
SAIGON.-The war in South Vietnam cannot
be won. That is now the on-the-spot opin-
ion of numerous Vietnamese, American and
other foreign experts. After 4 years of closely
observing the situation, I concur. But it is
unlikely that the Secretary of Defense, Rob-
ert McNamara, and the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, have
reached a similar conclusion, though they
have heard passionately contradictory view-
points. There are powerful voices of opti-
mism.
Gen. Paul D. Harkins, Commander of
the Military Assistance Command, is one
such voice. To many of us long in the area,
his voice is like a frightening echo of past
American commanders. Gen. "Hanging Sam"
Williams considered President Ngo Dinh
Diem a near brother and felt that the Viet-
cong guerrillas could be eliminated with
tanks and howitzers-and while he was
molding the Vietnamese troops into standard
warfare units, guerrilla terrorism increased.
But Williams chose to ignore that lethal in-
crease. Then came Gen. Lionel "Stonehead"
McGarr, who once told me that "President
Diem is a genius, a genius." McGarr, to the
day he left Vietnam because of "heart trou-
ble," stoutly contended that the guerrillas
were being contained. The opposite was true
to any rational observer. Strangely, the tra-
dition of rosy optimism dates back to French
commanders during the Indochina War who
saw a final victory forever around the corner
until one day they turned the corner and ran
smack into Dien Bien Phu.
"Vietnam has been the burial ground for
more generals and diplomats than any other
place on earth," said a laconic reporter the
day Ambassador Frederick Nolting departed.
And indeed it has, though more realism and
less wishful thinking may have saved their
own necks and the nation's. Lesser officials
and the much-maligned correspondents have
called the hard, unpleasant but realistic
shots. To do so is not difficult; it takes but
a recognition of the basic factors involved
in Vietnam and in guerrilla warfare. And
the most basic of these factors is the attitude
of the people toward their government and
national leader. But for some reason, diplo-
mats, soldiers in the field, and politicians in
Washington are unable to grasp the impor-
tance of the people. While forever raising
wet fingers to the wind of public opinion in
the United States, the policymakers appear to
operate on the belief that Asian people have
no opinions, and even if they did have an
opinion, it would carry no weight. A good
Gallup poll would easily disprove the former
proposition, and history has proved time and
again the fallacy of the latter.
1 Jerry A. Rose, former Far Eastern corres-
pondent for Time magazine, now resides in
Hong Kong where he does freelance writing
on the Far East.
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE March 10
During their week's stay in Vietnam, Mc-
Namara and Taylor got little if any inkling
of Vietnamese public opinion and of its sig-
nificance in the war effort. Rather, they
have been evaluating the war largely through
military statistics. Such statistics-when ac-
curate-indicate trends but not solutions.
The trend is: greater Vietcong activity, in-
creased casualties on both sides (with the
Government suffering generally fewer), and
the crucial ratio of weapons lost and gained
favoring the enemy by at least 2 to 1.
A recent tabulation within 1 week showed
the guerrillas to have captured 360 weapons
from the Government while losing only 150
to the national forces. These figures tell a
clear story: the Vietcong are winning the
ground battles, though they incur heavy
casualties from Government airstrikes. Thus,
with a steady flow of weapons from within
South Vietnam-and an increasing stream of
Communist-bloc weapons being smuggled to
the guerrillas from the outside-it is not
surprising that the hard-core Vietcong force
has jumped by an estimated 8,000 men in the
last several months. There are now some
31,000 Communist guerrillas, well above last
year's figure of 20,000 to 25,000.
Nevertheless, $1.5 million a day and about
17,000 active U.S. military men has had some
positive effect. The keynote strategic hamlet
plan to urbanize and control the population
goes well north of Saigon. As of September
8,227 strategic hamlets have been built, en-
compassing 76 percent of the population or
9.6 million people. In costal provinces such
as Quang Ngai, once a Vietcong stronghold,
the "hamletization" coupled with sound agri-
cultural projects (small dams for irrigation,
tons of fertilizer and pesticides) has gone far
to winning back the support of the people.
And here, notable military victories have
been. won-for it only takes one govern-
ment-oriented peasant to inform on the
movements of the Vietcong, one peasant
actively supporting the Government. With
solid information, the military can prepare
itself. Just recently the Government caught
the guerrillas by surprise and gained a de-
cisive battle because one old lady came In to
report the Vietcong's position.
"We're lucky to hold our own"
Incredible though it is, that one active
individual is lacking in most areas of the
Mekong Delta, the economic heart of South
Vietnam. Americans working with the
strategic hamlet plan in the delta readily
admit that the program is floundering, has
made little progress. Militarily, the situa-
tion is equally unsatisfactory. Commented
an American general: "Below the Bassac
River, we're lucky to hold our own." Many
feel that we are not even doing that.
This economic heart of South Vietnam, the
Mekong Delta, has suffered severe strokes
over the last several years. In 1961, rice
exports from the area-Vietnam's major ex-
port product-were totally suspended. The
exports began to diminish in 1962. Now,
they have against been halted. Despite the
vast American aid, the Government is finding
itself short of cash. For example, this year
the strategic hamlet program was calculated
to cost about $30 million. The United States
was to pay the first 6 months (to the end
of June), the Vietnamese the latter half of
the year. As of September, the Diem gov-
ernment had not yet started to fulfill its
part of the agreement. From July of 1962
to July of this year, Vietnam's foreign and
gold reserves fell from $200 million to $130
million. The national bank is reported to
have a piaster reserve of only $14 million.
And Vietnam's debts to foreign banks
amount to some $14Q million (which is one
reason why hardheaded Hong Kong busi-
nessmen decided to cease trading with the
country).
"Right now, our greatest danger," said a
Vietnamese economist, "is national bank-
ruptcy and wild inflation."
Part of this economic condition is due di-
rectly to President Diem. He will not listen
to the counsel of his own trained economists.
Similarly, President Diem refused to listen
to reasoning voices of moderation when the
Buddhist trouble erupted. He took brother
Nhu's advice and cracked down harshly. He
has echoed his sister-in-law, the now in-
famous Madame Nhu, in calling the self-
immolation of a Buddhish monk a murder.
Then the Vietnamese students began to riot,
and over 8,000 teenagers, both girls and boys,
were imprisoned. Ministers of the state, civil
officials, army officers went to the prisons
with packages of clothing and food for their
sons and daughters. Throughout the coun-
try, the word of these events-both with the
Buddhists and the students-slowly seeps
down. (Slowly seeps down, for news does not
travel quickly.) Slowly seeps down and takes
seed in the minds of the Vietnamese people,
who are perhaps the most politically sophis-
ticated people in Asia, for they have suffered
the wars of politics for more than 20 years.
They have listened to many political ideol-
ogies. They have learned to choose cau-
tiously, but they have also learned that to
survive they must, sooner or later, choose a
side. The repression against the students
and the Buddhists will inevitably affect their
choice, for they are no different from any
other peoples in the world. They do not like
to see their religious leaders or their young
people persecuted.
Yet, almost unbelievably, some U.S. offi-
cials maintain that the Buddhist and student
demonstrations have not affected and will
not affect the people and the "way the war
is going." It has been said many times now,
by U.S. Army officers, by disinterested ob-
servers, by journalists, by Communist guer-
rilla leaders themselves that "a guerrilla war
cannot be won by military means alone,"
that "the people are the key to victory." It
has been said so many times that the state-
ment has become cliche. It is true neverthe-
less-except I believe that the roots of rancor
now run so deep in South Vietnam that the
people can no longer be won over, at least
not enough of them to result in clear-cut
stability.
"Outside of a miracle, a genius-like Mag-
saysay--coming to the fore," said one Amer-
ican in Saigon who has dedicated all his
energies over the last 3 years to South Viet-
nam, "this country is lost." Then, rather
wearily, he murmured: "Leadership, leader-
ship." Even as late as last year, popular
leadership may have spelled the difference.
Today, the grassroot strength of the Viet-
cong appears so strong, particularly in the
delta, that it seems unlikely any leader
could shake it.
On top of this a few hardheaded observers
contend that the war could never have been
won. Said one Australian diplomat: "We
must clearly define what we mean by `win-
ning' the war. An outright victory Is impos-
sible. Stability as existed in 1957 might still
be achieved-but as then, there will always
be terrorism." While acknowledging the
need of sound and popular leadership to
gain that 1957 stability, this gentleman
points to South Vietnam's long, gaping bor-
ders: a border with Cambodia, another with
Laos, a third with North Vietnam. "Porous
borders," he calls them-they could never
be sealed off; they would always permit a
shower of infiltrators, terrorists. Thus: "In
that sense, the war cannot be won. Peace
cannot be established."
According to good estimates, last year in-
filtration into South Vietnam ran in the
neighborhood of 1,000 men per month. This
year it fell off for awhile to almost nothing,
now it is back to around 500 per month.
But the shocking factor is not the actual
number of Infiltrators but the capacity for
infiltration. An intelligence expert told me
bluntly: "If North Vietnam wanted to, they
could send down 20,000 infiltrators in one
swoop and it would be 2 weeks before we
knew it."
Now let us review briefly the current sit-
uation in South Vietnam: (1) a national
leader who is unpopular and whose family
is detested; (2) a nation of discontented
people, two segments of which (Buddhists
and students) have overtly demonstrated
their unhappiness, another segment which
covertly demonstrates its unhappiness (by
siding with the Vietcong), a final segment
which remains for the time being passive
(popular passivity helps the Vietcong-for
the government needs active informers) ;
(3) a shaky, inflationary economy; (4) a war
that grows fiercer each week despite vast
American aid in both money, materiel and
personnel; and (5) "porous borders" with
three countries that permit a steady influx
of guerrillas.
Take these five elements, place them
against the stated American policy in South
Vietnam: "To win and get out," and it
should be starkly clear that the United
States is at a dead end. We cannot win,
But we do not necessarily have to lose.
That is, though an outright victory over the
guerrillas now seems impossible (and I be-
lieve that despite the borders it was once
possible), an outright defeat can still be
prevented. But U.S. thinking must undergo
some radical changes. Washington must
begin to consider the proposition that peace
to South Vietnam will come not on the bat-
tlefield but only at the conference table.
And I do not mean General de Gaulle's con-
ference table. Within the foreseeable future,
reunification of the North and South could
only result in a final Communist victory.
But there are other possibilities. To under-
stand them, one must be aware of the diffi-
cult position of the Democratic Republic of
(North) Vietnam.
An Asian Yugoslavia?
In the slow-seething years before Red
China and the Soviet Union split totally
asunder, North Vietnam's President Ho Chi
Minh tried to play the neutral moderator.
He preferred the Russians, but the proximity
of China did not permit him to take sides.
He knew that to become an oriental Albania
was to risk eventual destruction. Now, since
the split, Ho has, by necessity, leaned more
toward China. But the Chinese ruled Viet-
nam for almost 2,000 years, and China has
never ceased to look hungrily at Vietnam's
rice bowl, the Mekong Delta. In fact, it is
the Mekong Delta which the North itself
wants, and needs, to achieve a solid economy
(the North has always been industrial, the
South agricultural). All Vietnamese have a
natural dislike, suspicion, and fear of the
Chinese, and it is highly probable that Ho
Chi Minh and the other Communist leaders
of the North would do much to disengage
themselves from China's sphere of influence.
They could do this if they were able to trade
for food with South Vietnam and for mate-
rial with the West. And they likely would
be willing to enter into trade relations, cease
hostilities-become a sort of Asian Yugo-
slavia-providing they were convinced an
outright victory could not be gained in the
South within a reasonable length of time.
The United States must convince the North
it cannot win soon or easily.
This could be done if President Diem were
removed, a better leader emerged, popular
support gained to some degree, the morale
and efficiency of the Vietnamese Army im-
proved. As Diem obviously is not easily
removed, alternatives must be examined.
One alternative is to put a division or more
of American combat troops into action.
Coupled with this direct involvement would
be the establishment of a dual chain of
United States-Vietnamese Army commands
that ignored and bypassed the President.
We could continue to finance the Vietnamese
Army, but through nongovernmental chan-
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1964 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE
nels. We could also cut back on our budget-
ary support.
North Vietnam's response to this chal-
lenge could only be to heavily step up in-
filtration with large units of soldiers. The
moment it does, three important changes
occur in the nature of the war: (1) North
Vietnam will begin to suffer the financial
burden of war, a burden which it can ill af-
ford; (2) sooner or later one of these in-
filtrating units will be captured and North
Vietnam will be inextricably caught in the
act of aggression; and (3) with definite proof
of aggression, North Vietnam will leave itself
open to direct retaliation, as through bomb-
ing attacks. At such a point, would the war
escalate?
The North Vietnamese do not want to be
devastated, nor are they prepared to finance
a war the size of the Korean conflict. Nei-
ther is Red China in any financial position
to engage on a lengthy battlefield. The
Soviet Union not only has been detaching
itself from this part of the world, but also
seems to wish peace as much as the United
States. The conference table stands ready.
The contract for peace is comparatively sim-
ple: trade relations in exchange for non-
aggression.
To sum up: One solution now for the
United States appears to be a show of power
in South Vietnam which would pave the
way toward a compromising settlement. But
is the risk of a power play warranted?
Southeast Asia has been likened to a "set of
dominoes." If South Vietnam falls, the rest
of the blocks go too. It would seem, there-
fore, that it is in the high interest of the
United States, as a leader and a system of
government, to risk much in stabilizing that
tottering block.
CIA's "thirst for power"
In a scathing dispatch from Saigon dated
October 2, Richard Starnes of Scripps-Howard
reported that on two occasions the CIA in
Vietnam "flatly refused to carry out instruc-
tions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge."
In one instance, "the CIA frustrated a plan
of action Mr. Lodge brought with him from
Washington, because the Agency disagreed
with it." Mr. Starnes also said that:
"CIA 'spooks' (a universal term for secret
agents here) have penetrated every branch
of the American community in Saigon. ? ? ?
Few people other than John Richardson
[Chief of the CIA appartus In Vietnam] and
his close aides know the actual CIA strength
here, but a widely used figure is 600."
"For every State Department aid here
who will tell you 'Dammit, the CIA is sup-
posed to gather Information, not make policy,
but policymaking is what they're doing here'
there are military officers who scream over
the way the spooks dabble in military op-
erations.
"One very high American official here, a
man who has spent much of his life in the
service of democracy, likened the CIA's
growth to a malignancy, and added he was
not sure even the White House could control
it any longer."
The story of the CIA In South Vietnam,
said Mr. Starnes, "is a dismal chronicle of
bureaucratic arrogance, obstinate disregard
of orders, and unrestrained thirst for power."
NEGOTIATING WITH THE NORTH It
(By Ho Thong Minh 2)
When he returned to Vietnam in June 1954,
Ngo Dinh Diem asked me to work with him.
I resigned as Minister of National Defense
on April 29, 1955, end of a brief 9-month
2Ho Thong Minh, a 43-year-old civil en-
gineer, ndw lives in Paris where he is the
moving spirit behind the group Pour Le
Vietnam. His comments were first published
in Le Monde of September 19.
period during which, as a result of the Gen-
eva agreements, peace was temporarily re-
stored. After 16 years of war, it did not
seem to me that South Vietnam could con-
tinue moving toward its own reconstruction
in a spirit of unity and harmony. All hope
of positive advance had been made impossi-
ble by the nefarious activities of the Ngo
clan.
At present South Vietnam has a popula-
tion of 14 million (as many as the former
Belgian Congo). Inside the nation a facade
of republicanism conceals the sordid reali-
ties: corruption, informer tactics, stagnation,
the denial of all democracy. It is a dismal
and telling contrast to recall that under
Syngman Rhee in South Korea there were
some 90-odd opposition deputies in office at
Seoul, whereas Diem refuses to tolerate a
single one at Saigon. The Diem regime
claims to be anti-Communist, but its think-
ing and its actions are patterned after the
psychological warfare of the French colonels.
It has successively gotten rid of Bao-Dai, of
the various religious sects, of the French, of
all domestic opposition, of the Buddhists, of
the Vietnamese people themselves, and now,
finally, It is in difficulty with the Americans.
The amount of U.S. aid to South Vietnam
(and hence to the Ngo clan) is comparable to
the contribution which France was making
not so long ago to Algeria. Between direct
military and economic aid and its own ex-
penses for maintaining U.S. troops in Viet-
nam, the United States pours annually into
the yawning South Vietnamese pit the sum
of $700 million. This expenditure enables
the United States to equip an army of over
half a million Vietnamese (510,000, to be
precise) on territory only half the size of
the area where, in 1954, the French and
Vietnamese together mustered only 450,000
men. All that money and military man-
power-only to be held at bay by 50 Viet-
cong battalions all told.
The whole world has become aware of the
drama which is being enacted in South
Vietnam, and the Diem regime is as sharply
criticized abroad as at home. How is the
impasse to be got around? Although the
people of South Vietnam are resolutely com-
mitted to a program of defiance and insur-
rection, they aspire beyond this to surviv-
ing as a free and independent nation. They
are certain that the Ngo regime must end
and are already looking forward to the
prospect of peace. But by what road is this
peace to be achieved?
The current situation renders imperative
(first of all) the overthrow of the Diem
regime; for this the Vietnamese Army will be
the ineluctable instrument, and in this con-
nection, the Americans are increasing their
efforts to dissociate the army from the pre-
sent government at Saigon. Next should
come the cessation of foreign intervention-
in other words, both the Americans and the
infiltrators from the North should depart.
This, of course, can only be done by a truce,
a suspension of hostilities, with the Viet-
cong. Thirdly, after the foreign bases have
been eliminated, it will be necessary to have
solid international guarantees so as to make
the present SEATO troops unnecessary.
If these three steps could be taken, it
would then at last be possible for the two
Vietnams to sit down together and settle
their problems. Of course national reunifica-'
tion continues to be the ultimate goal of the
Vietnamese. But for the time being political
realities require compromise solutions.
Everyone knows that North Vietnam is di-
rected by a Communist regime which seeks
to maintain an attitude of neutrality as be-
tween ''eiping acid Moscow. Under these
circumstances and for the i nmediate pre-
sent, the next South Vietnamese government
can hardly be anything but non-Communist.
In fact, if it were anti-Communist, practi-
4673
tally nothing would be changed and there
would be a danger of the country being
swallowed up in Diemism without Diem. If,
on the other hand, the new regime were to
welcome Communists in the government, it
could no longer speak as equal to equal in
independent conversations with the North.
Furthermore, one need look only as far as
Laos to find an example of the very great dif-
ficulties which could rapidly become in-
surmountable if the Vietnamese Govern-
ment were to be a three-headed coalition-
and the example is still more compelling
when one considers that Laos is all one
country, not cut in two pieces like Vietnam.
A future non-Communist regime in Saigon
could, however, where domestic problems are
concerned, invite the participation of all
Vietnamese patriots, from the Buddhist
clergy to the National Liberation Front, pro-
vided they are not Communists.
In the international sphere, such a regime
could contribute to peace in southeast Asia
by adopting the same neutralist attitudes as
those of its neighbor, Cambodia. It would
certainly not oppose the diplomatic recogni-
tion of North Vietnam by France. In this
way, France would fulfill a privileged role-
providing a connecting link for economic
unity and, most particularly, for cultural
unity, the lines of which would be laid down
between the two Vietnams in their efforts
to establish the united and independent
Vietnam which General de Gaulle has re-
cently and rightly envisaged.
There remains the crucial problem of the
confrontation between China and the West
in southeast Asia. Here it is possible to be-
lieve that the present conflict between
Peiping and Moscow has been brought about
less by ideological differences than by dif-
ferences In the level of economic develop-
ment. When China attains the level of
economic development that now prevails in
the U.S.S.R., it too will surely feel that it
must protect the progress it has made by
practicing peaceful coexistence.
In any event, things being as they are, the
foregoing program and prospects are those
which seem to me within the realm of the
possible.
A TALK WITH HO CHI MINH-III
(By Bernard B. Fall)
As the second Indochina war now grinds
on into its 4th year, a large-scale reappraisal
is under way both among Americans in
Saigon and in Washington as to the ultimate
objectives and outcome of that war. For
the time being, no solution envisaged con-
siders seriously the possibility of talks with
the real enemy by proxy, North Vietnam. In
fact, it is not without significance that the
only open reference made to such negotia-
tions came from no one else but South
Vietnam's secret police chief, Ngo Dinh
Nhu, in his recent interview with an Amer-
ican columnist, Nhu, beyond a doubt seeks
to use at least the threat-if not the real-
ity-of such south-north contacts as a coun-
terblackmail against the United States
which has thus far (and with conspicuous
unsuccess) sought his and his wife's re-
moval from Vietnamese politics.
Thus, negotiating with North Vietnam-
or, for that matter, any kind of contact
with that country-has become another
bogey that, in the months to come, may
supplant Cuba and even Red China in the
public eye. Of course, as even a brief stay in
North Vietnam shows, that attitude cuts
both ways: in Hanoi, the only kind of dem-
onstration that is allowed is directed
against the United States, the Ngo family,
or, on occasion, against the Indian and Can-
adian (not the Polish, of course) members
of the lame-duck International Control
Commission which still supervises the im-
plementation of the civil liberties and dis-
armament provisions of the 1954 Indochina
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4674 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE March 10
cease-fire. The Commission's lack of effec-
tiveness makes it a permanent monument
to the impossibility of 'settling a dispute
when it directly involves the prestige or in-
terests of both of the major power blocs.
French non-Communist writers have been
able, over the years, to visit North Vietnam,
just as Canadian, Australian and British
writers have been able to visit Red China.
In my own case, the fact that I had writ-
ten a solidly-documented (and, hence, un-
flattering) book in French about North Viet-
nam, perhaps incited the North Vietnamese
leaders to be franker than usual. What fol-
lows is based on notes taken in the course
of a conversation which took place in JuTy
1962 supplemented by a tape recording made
during that conversation and by notes made
immediately afterward, while my memory
was fresh. It is a verbatim translation from
the original French, and leaves out only some
of the usual banter.
A brief note on the North Vietnamese
leaders involved: Prime Minister Pham Van
Dong, born in 1906 in Central Vietnam, Is
of senior mandarin origin; in fact, say some,
he outranks President Ngo Dinh Diem. While
Diem's father was chief of cabinet to Em-
perot Thauh-Thi, Dong's father held the
same post under Emperor Duy-Tan. A grad-
uate of Chiang Kai-shek's own Whampoa
Military Academy (class of 1925), Dong has
been Ho's Prime Minister and probably clos-
est associate since 1955.
Ho Chi Minh, born in 1890 in Central Viet-
nam, was a revolutionary since his age of
14, when to Europe in 1911, became a co-
founder of the French Communist Party in
1920 and a French delegate to the Komin-
tern.''in 1923. He founded the Indochinese
Communist Party in 1930 and became Pres-
ideRit of the Democratic Republic of Viet-
on September 2, 1945. He un-
questionably is the most important Asian
Communist leader after Mao Tse-tung, and
the last of the Old Bolsheviks in power any-
where in the Communist world.
All remarks made by bong are preceded by
"P11; those made by Ho by "H," and those
made by myself by "F." My own explana-
tions are placed in brackets.
(Pham Van Dong meets me in the corridor
of the presidential residence; wears a khaki
Mao'Tse-tung suit; invites me to a sitting
room overlooking the formal gardens.]
P, Please make yourself at home, Monsieur
Is 1 rofesseur, take,off your jacket [takes off
his o m jacket]. I know how it is here dur-
ing the rainy season. 'I hope you are enjoy-
ing'ydur trip thro-ughootit North Vietnam,
and that you ffnd us cooperative.
l ': Thank you, Monsieur Is Prime Minister,
your subordinates indeed have generally
been cooperative.
P. I remember, however, that you said in
your"book Le Viet-Minh that we are not a
demo&rat[e gountry. Do' you still feel the
saw W ay about this?
F " all Monsieur he Prime Minister, all
my'eblor films were impounded upon my ar-
rival "at Hanoi Airport. I don't think you
would call this in accordance with demo-
which apply to everybody. [While theoreti-
cally true, the rule obviously applies to
Westerners only. In addition, all black-and-
white film has to be exposed prior to de-
parture and the developed film submitted to
the Foreign Ministry for censorship. Eveh
so, the airport police again Inspected' my
films prior to departure.]
F. Monsieur is Prime Minister, North
Vietnam has had some serious economic dif-
ficulties. Do you believe that they have
been mastered?
P, As you know, the recent Seventh plenary
session of the [Vietnamese] Communist
Party's Central Committee has decided to
give priority to basic heavy Industries, al-
though attention will be paid to a proper
balance with agriculture and consumer goods
production. ,
We base ourselves upon the Marxist eco-
nomic viewpoint: heavy industrial develop-
ment is essential to Socialist construction,
but we also the "full belly." Intaany importance of
case, we do not seek
to bluff and will not put emphasis on "show-
piece" industries but on sound and useful
economic development.
Yes, we have made economic mistakes, due
mainly to our backwardness and ignorance
in the field of economic planning. Not all
of those errors have yet been corrected and
some of their effects are still felt, but we try
to overcome them rapidly thanks to help
from friendly countries.
F. Monsieur le Prime Minister, President
Ho Chi Minh made a declaration to the Daily
Express [London] in March 1962, referring
to the conditions under which North Viet-
nam would negotiate 'a settlement with the
South. Has anything happened in the
meantime which would change those condi-
tions?
P. Our position has remained largely un-
changed since President Ho Chi Minh's dec-
laration. What has changed, however, is
the extent of American intervention in South
Vietnam, which has eontinued to increase
and to take over increased responsibilities.
and control over the [Ngo Dinh] Diem
regime.
The real enemy is American intervention.
It is of little importance as to who the Amer-
ican agent in Vietnam might be.
F. Monsieur Is Prime Minister, the In-
ternational Control Commission [composed
of Indian, Polish, and Canadian members]
has recently accused the North Vietnamese
Republic of aiding and abetting the South
Vietnamese rebellion. What do you think of
that accusation?
P [deprecating gesture]. We understand,
Monsieur Is Professeur, under which outside
pressures the [Indian and Canadian] mem-
bers of the ICC labor. After all, India does
depend for development upon large-scale
American aid.
F. But would it not at least be conceiv-
able that some of the almost 100,000 South
Vietnamese who went north [of the 17th
parallel] in 1954 and whose relatives are
now fighting against South Vietnamese
forces, would attempt to slip across your
border back into South Vietnam in order to
help their relatives-even without the per-
mission of the North Vietnamese Govern-
ment? Wouldn't that be at least conceiv-
able?
P. Monsieur, in our country one does not
cross borders without permission.
F. Would not a spreading of the guerrilla
war entail a real risk of American reaction
against North Vietnamese territory You
have been to North Korea last year, Monsieur
Is Prime Minister; you saw what American
bombers can do.
P [very seriously]. We fully realize that
the American imperialists wish to provoke a
situation in the course of which they could
use the heroic struggle of the South Viet-
namese people as a pretext for the destruc-
tion of our economic and cultural achieve-
ments,
We shall offerthem no pretext which could
give rise to an American military interven-
tion against North Vietnam.
[Ho Chi Minh suddenly enters, unan-
nounced. Mao Tse-tung suit in suntan cot-
ton, . Spry and tanned looking, springy step,
arms swinging, firm handshake.]
F. I thought you were in Moscow on va-
cation.
H. You see, people say a lot of things that
aren't true. [Looks at my jacket, tape re-
corder, book, next to me on sofa.] My, you
have got a lot of things with you.
F. I am sorry, Monsieur is President [Push
things together. Ho sits down next to me,
humorous gleam on face, slaps me on thigh.]
H. So, you are the young man who is so
much interested in all the small details about
my life. [In my book "Le Viet-Minh" and
the forthcoming "Two Viet-Nams," I have at-
tempted to include as complete a biographi-
cal sketch of Ho Chi Minh as possible. Dur-
ing my stay in Hanoi, I also interviewed
many of Ho's old friends on Ho's life, and
he apparently had been informed of this.]
F. Monsieur le-President, you are after all
a public figure, and it certainly would not be
a violation of a military secret to know
whether you had a family, or were in Russia
at a given date.
H. Ah, but you know, I'm an old man, a
very old man [he's 73]. An old man likes to
have a' little air of mystery about himself.
I like to hold on to my little mysteries. I'm
sure you will understand that.
F. But-
H. Wait until I'm dead. [In spite of this,
I received just before I left Hanoi a letter
containing six manuscript pages of details
about Ho's life, filling in most of the gaps-
no doubt on his own orders.]
P. Monsieur Fall brought you a book on
the Indochina war which contains a draw-
ing of you by his wife.
H [With an old man's impatience].
Where? Where? Let me see it. Providing
she's got my goatee right. Providing the
goatee looks all right. [Unwraps and looks.]
Mmm-yes, that is very good. That looks
very much like me. [Looks around, grabs a
small flower bouquet from the table, :hands
it to me.] Tell her for me that the draw-
ing is very good and give her the bouquet
and kiss her on both cheecks for me.
P. Monsieur Fall is interested in the pres-
ent situation in South Vietnam.
F. Yes, Monsieur le President, how do you
evaluate the situation In South Vietnam?
H. Monsieur Ngo Dinh Diem is in a very
very difficult position right now and it is not
likely to improve in the future. He has no
popular support.
F. But would you negotiate with South
Vietnam?
P. The situation is not eyt ripe for a real
negotiation. They [South Vietnamese] don't
really want to negotiate.
H. That is absolutely true. They are show-
ing no intention to negotiate.
F. But are you not afraid that the situa-
tion might degenerate into a protracted war?
H [Earnestly, turning full face.] Mon-
sieur le Professeur, you have studied us for
10 years, you have written about the Indo-
china, war. It took us 8 years of bitter fight-
ing to defeat you French in Indochina. Now
the Diem regime is well armed and helped
by many Americans. The Americans are
stronger than the French. It might perhaps
take 10 years, but our heroic compatriots in
the south will defeat them in the end. We
shall marshal world public opinion about
this unjust war against the South Vietna-
mese people.
P. Yes, the heroic South Vietnamese peo-
ple will have to continue the struggle by its
own means but we watch its efforts with the
greatest sympathy.
H. I think, the Americans greatly under-
estimate the determination of the Viet-
namese people. The Vietnamese people has
always shown great determination when it
was faced with an invader .
F. But are you still willing to come to a
negotiated settlement if the occasion pre-
sented itself?
H. Yes, but only with people who are
willing to sit down with us at one and the
same table and "talk." [French word:
"causer" which means: "negotiate In good
faith."]
F. You mean you would negotiate with
any South Vietnamese Government?
H. Yes, with any.
F. But what kind of relations would you
envisage?
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1964 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE
H. Of whatever type they [South Viet-
namese] wish. After all, the East and West
Germans have flourishing trade relations in
spite of the Berlin Wall, haven't they?
[After some further amenities, Ito leaves.]
F. Monsieur 1e Prime Minister, what do
you think of Mr. Ngo Dinh Diem's personal
position as of right now?
P. It is quite difficult. He is unpopular,
and the more unpopular he is, the' more
American aid he will need to remain in
power. And the more American aid he gets,
the more as an American puppet he'll look
and the less likely is he to regain popularity.
F. That sounds pretty much like a vicious
circle, doesn't it?
P [humorous gleam]. No, Monsieur le Pro-
fesseur. It is a, descending spiral.
F. But you must understand, Monsieur le
Prime Minister, that South Vietnam is in a
different situation than the non-Commu-
nist parts of Germany and Korea. In the
latter two cases, the non-Communist part
is by far the more populated, whereas in
the case of Vietnam, the non-Communist
part has 13.8 million people against your 17
million. You can clearly see that they have
good reasons to fear North Vietnam which
also has the larger army, and one with a
fearsome reputation, as we French well know.
P. Certainly, we realize that we are in the
stronger position. Thus, we are also willing
to give all the guarantees necessary for the
South to be able to come our fairly [pour
que Is Sud trouve son Compte] in such a
negotiation.
You will recall President He's declara-
tion with regard to maintaining the South's
separate government and economic system.
The Fatherland Front embodies those points
in its program, and the South Vietnamese
Liberation Front likewise.
We do not envisage an immediate reuni-
fication and are willing to accept the verdict
of the South Vietnamese people with re-
gard to the institutions and policies of its
part of the country.
F. What, then, would be the minimal con-
ditions under which the Democratic Repub-
lie of Vietnam [North Vietnam] would ac-
cept a settlement of the conflict which at
present exists in South Vietnam?
P [makes a statement as below].
F. Would you object to my making a tape
recording of that answer? It is a reply that
I would like to have verbatim, if possible.
P [thinks it over, makes notes, agrees].
P. This is a very timely question: The
DRVN [North Vietnam] government has
made sufficiently explicit declarations on the
subject [but] let me underline what follows:
The underlying origin and immediate cause
of the extremely dangerous situation in the
South of 'our country is the armed interven-
tion of the USA and the fascist dictatorship
of Monsieur Ngo Dinh Diem, the creation
and instrument of that [American] inter-
vention,
It is obvious, then, that in order to nor-
malize the situation in our whole country,
those factors of dissension must disappear.
We support with determination the patriotic
struggle of our Southern compatriots and the
objectives of their struggle-I mean, the
program of the Southern Liberation Front.
We are certain that the massive help of all
classes of South [Vietnam's] society and the
active support of the peoples of the world,
shall determine the happy outcome of the
situation full of dangers which exist in the
South of our country.
The people of Vietnam and the DRVNX, gov-
ernment remain faithful to the Geneva ac-
cords [of July 1954) which establish our
basic national rights. We shall continue to
cooperate with the International Control
Commission on the basis of those accords,
and hope that this cooperation sha11 be
fruitful-providing that all members of the
Commission respect the accords,
F. Thank you, Monsieur le Prime Minister,
for that statement.
P. I would like to say something about a
remark you made in your book on our Re-
public about our alleged "isolationism" from
neutral and pro-Western countries, and from
international organizations. No, no and no,
we are not isolationists. On the contrary,
we seek "open windows" towards any coun-
try or organization that will deal with us on
a matter-of-fact basis. We are willing to
trade with them and make purchases from
them.
F. What would be the position of the for-
eign community in South Vietnam, if the
war worsens? There are still 15,000 French
citizens living there.
P. As you know, the Southern Liberation
Front has repeatedly shown that it does not
wish to hurt the legitimate interests of the
Europeans who live in South Vietnam. We
make a distinction between France's posi-
tion and that of American imperialists.
F. What is the 'attitude of the DRVN to-
wards Laos and Cambodia?
P. We shall respect the Laos accords [this
was stated briefly` after the signature of the
1962 Geneva accords on Laos. It has become
obvious since then that North Vietnamese
troops still operate in Laos to some extent,
or travel through South Vietnam], and shall
at all costs maintain good relations with
Cambodia.
EXHIBIT 6
[From the Reporter, Oct. 24, 19631
WHAT DE GAULLE ACTUALLY SAID ABOUT
VIETNAM
(Bernard Fall)
President de Gaulle is used to being mis-
understood by those to whom he directs his
more Delphic remarks, and he is particularly
used. to being misunderstood by Washington.
Indeed, there are times when one almost
suspects he likes being misunderstood by
Washington. The evidence is increasing that
this is more or less what happened in the
wake of Be Gaulle's recent affirmation of
France's abiding interest in the ultimate in-
dependence-"independence vis-a-vis the
outside," as he put it-of all of Vietnam,
North and South. These remarks prompted
considerable wringing of hands in Washing-
ton (even though Walter Lippmann thought
that De' Gaulle was right if he meant what
Lippmann thought he meant), and many
seemed to feel that his remarks were meant
as merely a nettlesome intrusion into U.S.
policy in Southeast Asia. As usual, almost
everybody was wrong.
The original version of the statement in
question was drawn up in August, just after
the Buddhist riots had begun in Hub and
Saigon and while the French Foreign Ministry
was working with a skeleton vacation-time
staff. At De Gaulle's request, the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs had drawn up a short note
on the subject of Vietnam. Most Foreign-
Ministry aids seemed to feel that what was
going on in Vietnam was far, far, away, and
that anyway for once it was something hap-
pening not to the French but to somebody
else. Thus the original note hardly went be-
yond voicing pious hopes about religious
tolerance, phrased in terms that were con-
siderably weaker than the Pope's statement
on the some subject.
At the Elysee, one of De Gaulle's civilian
aids redrafted the note for his chief, but
still without going much beyond the Qual
d'Orsay draft. The new version was submit-
ted to De Gaulle after his return from his
mid-August vacation and disappeared from
view until the President himself brought it
up at the council of ministers on August 29,
after Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de
Murville had made his oral report on recent
developments in Vietnam. The text which
De Gaulle then regri was a radical departure
from the Quai d'Orsay draft, with perhaps
4675
the sole exception of its initial phrases re-
ferring to the "attention and emotion" with
which "Paris views the grave events in Viet-
nam."
The operative paragraphs, which President
Kennedy considered sufficiently disturbing
to repeat 4 weeks later on the occasion of
the departure of Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor and
Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara
for Vietnam, were entirely in De Gaulle's
own hand:
"France's knowledge of the valor of the
(Vietnamese) people permits her to discern
the role they could play in Asia's present
situation, for their own progress and to the
benefit of international understanding; as
soon as they could deploy their activity in
independence vis-a-vis the outside, in peace
and unity at home, and in concord with
their neighbors.
"That is what France wishes, more than
ever today, to all of Vietnam. It naturally
is up to the (Vietnamese) people themselves,
and to themselves alone, to choose the
means of arriving (at that result) but any
national effort undertaken by Vietnam with
that aim will find France ready, within the
means at its disposal, to enter into cordial
cooperation with that country."
The statement, read to the assembled
journalists at the end of the council meeting
by Information Minister Alain Peyrefitte,
had the effect of a brick in a birdbath. Yet
it needs to be examined coolly to understand
De Gaulle's meaning.
He wants Vietnam to be reunified in inde-
pendence. That is a wish that every Western
statesman trots out whenever he visits a
divided country like Germany, Korea, and
Vietnam, or a city like Berlin. It is, in fact,
an explicit long-range aim of Western policy,
and the price of reunification will in all
likelihood be non-adherence to any bloc, as
in Austria, for example, or nominally in
Laos. In the case of Vietnam (as well as of
Germany) such reunification would actually
be dangerous to world peace if the reunified
country, far stronger regionally than its
neighbors, were to embark upon a policy of
nationalistic revanchism. For Vietnam, that
would mean starting where it left off when
the French arrived in 1858: gobbling up and
destroying Cambodia and Laos, presumably
in collusion with Thailand.
According to De Gaulle's statement, Viet-
namese Independence should be arrived at
by means chosen by the Vietnamese people
themselves, and by "themselves alone." Any
"national" effort, i.e., by the Vietnamese
nation as a whole, would find France willing
to give such support as it can afford. This
kind of vague promise is hardly designed to
commit France to immediate action in the
Far East. It simply says that if by some
unspecified miracle the Vietnamese arrive
at reunification-a reunification in which
both America and the Sino-Soviets would
lose their most obvious reasons for contin-
uing to pay the lavish bills of their respec-
tive Vietnamese client governments-France
would be willing to take up, as far as pos-
sible, the slack of the transitional crisis. In
quite a few cases where Russia or the United
States or France, for one reason or another.
cut a particular country off its payroll, an-
other country (or the United Nations) paid
the most urgent bills until an equilibrium of
sorts was established. That was about all
there was to the De Gaulle statement.
POOR HOMEWORK
It was downright amusing to see the be-
wilderment on the faces of French officialdom
in Paris as the storm broke. Washington
went into a flap and spoke unofficially but
loudly of yet another "De Gaulle betrayal"
of the West in general and the United States
in particular. French Ambassador Herve Al-
phand was hastily summoned to the State
Department and met with Secretary Rusk
for more than an hour. His subsequent
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD SENATE March 10
statement, which stuck pretty closely to the
text (always a sound policy when one tries
to interpret Gaullist prose), obviously con-
vinced no one, least of all the White House,
which seems to have written off De Gaulle
as Public Enemy No. 1. The American press,
on cue, took up the cudgels to transform
that two-hundred-word statement into an
explicit bid for a French takeover in Indo-
China, preferably in collusion with Hanoi, to
make the treachery even blacker.
Interviewed by Walter Cronkite on a CBS
television program on Labor Day, President
Kennedy voiced this reaction to the De
Gaulle statement on Vietnam: "It was an
impression of his general view, but he doesn't
have any forces there or any program of
economic assistance, so while these expres-
sions are welcome, the burden is carried, as
It usually is by the United States and the
people there. r ? * What, of course,
makes Americans somewhat impatient is
that after carrying this load for 18 years,
we are glad to get counsel, but we would
like a little more assistance, real assistance"
The words clearly showed how poorly the
President's entourage had done his home-
work for him. The flat assertion that the
French do not have any program of economic
assistance in Vietnam is simply incorrect.
Furthermore, it clearly shows that, on a
public level at least, the White House still
does not know Who exactly has a stake in
Vietnam, and for what reason.
In Paris, Mr. Kennedy's statement was re-
ceived with a shrug. "Obviously, the Ameri-
cans haven't understood, or they don't
choose to understand," was the reaction of
a seasoned newspaperman from Le Monde.
That paper and Agence France Presse had
spelled out the French stake In South Viet-
nam, about 17,500 French citizens still live
there, 60,000 of whom are French-born, the
others being of Asian, Eurasian, Indian, or
African origin; French investments in the
country, including important rubber planta-
tions, total close to $500 million; and there
is a fairly sizable French economic and
cultural-aid program.
In terms of actual dollar expenditures,
French aid is not large, but it affects some
politically important sectors. There are
more than 340 French teachers in Vietnam.
They are to be found from grade school
to the university level, but are concentrated
above all in the lycees, where tomorrow's
elite is being trained. Close to 30,000 Viet-
namese children go to schools staffed and
paid for by the French cultural mission, and
more Vietnamese are now passing the dif8-
cult French baccalaureate examinations than
at any time during the colonial period. But
French economic aid is also felt in another
key sector: agrarian reform. By a conven-
tion signed on September 10, 1958, France
agreed to advance funds to Vietnam for the
repurchase of more than half a million acres
of French-owned rice land...-This permitted
the Diem regime to redistribute land free to
the farmers without having to resort to the
expropriation of land belonging to the Viet-
namese landlords, many of whom were high
officials in the regime. The French also fi-
nanced the only working coal mine in South
Vietnam, the only indigenous source of fuel;
and they donated diesel locomotives for Viet-
nam's battered railroads.
But there is an even more important field
in which France plays a key role, and that is
Vietnam's trade. It is perhaps one of the
unique tragedies of that poor country that
it is more dependent now on France's taking
its export products than at any time during
the colonial era. The following table shows
the whole grim problem at a glance:
Exports to-
France-------------
32.2
67.5
42.0
United States------
12.0
18. 1
4.3
Imports from-
France-------------
55.7
24.5
11.8
United States_-----
4.2
28.0
37.0
France has been displaced in the import
field, since imports now are financed by
American aid; but in the export field few
others but the French, who are used to them,
seem to be willing to take Vietnamese goods.
This French magnanimity is easily explained:
Rubber, which in 1939 represented a healthy
21.4 percent of all Vietnamese exports, now
represents an unhealthy one-crop 89.6 per-
cent-and the rubber is produced largely by
the huge French plantations. Like their
counterparts in Malaya in the 1950's, French
rubber planters are paying a heavy toll in
lives and treasure to the insurgents. There
is not one plantation that has not been at-
tacked or partly pillaged several times by
the Vietcong during the past 5 years, and
which has not seen several of its French
personnel kidnapped and held for ransom
or killed. During the Indo-China War, the
plantations had been allowed to arm them-
selves and maintained militia forces at their
own expense. When Ngo Dinh Diem came
to power he ordered all plantations disarmed
and they thus became military liabilities.
The plantation managers now keep in
business by closing their eyes to the Viet-
cong emissaries who come to the workers'
villages and exact tribute; they silently pay
millions of piastres of ransom to the Viet-
cong-and as much again to bribe South
Vietnamese authorities .to allow them to
operate. Here and there, the Saigon-con-
trolled press announces that a French plan-
tation was fined tens of millions of piastres
(a million dollars or more) for "economic
violations." SEverybody knows what that
means, and business goes on as usual.
Those Frenchmen and their property are
hostages to both sides in South Vietnam's
messy war. A brief visit to the Syndicat des
Planteurs de Caoutchouc in Paris gives an
eloquent picture of what this means: "It
means," says one of the officials, "that we
are being told by the Vietcong that if we
don't cooperate, our trees will be slashed
and personnel killed. And when we do pay
our 'blood money,' the Government's district
chief comes and fines us exactly the same
amount. There will come the day when the
whole damned thing simply becomes too
expensive to carry on, and we'll all go home,
and Vietnam's last economic mainstay will
collapse. After all, should the Americans
pull out tomorrow, they'll simply create a
beachhead around Saigon and fly out their
military personnel and few local residents.
But our 17,000 Frenchmen are spread out all
over the country and there'll be a blood bath
like back in 1945 when the Vietminh took
over, or in 1960 in the Congo."
It is obvious, then, that renewed French
preoccupations with Vietnam stem from
reasons that are more realistic than the
desire to nettle the young men in Wash-
ington while their policies are in disarray.
BY NHU OUT OF ALSOP
But that first row had barely simmered
down when its second round broke out from
a not entirely unexpected quarter. Joseph
Alsop, who 'for the past 5 years has been a
self-appointed spokesman for the Ngo Dinh
Diem view of the outside world, arrived in
time in Saigon to discover evidence of ugly
stuff, to which he gave maximum play in his
syndicated column of September 18. Fur-
ther embroidering on the theme of De
Gaulle's alleged desire to inherit the Viet-
namese mess, Alsop interviewed Ngo Dinh
Nhu and came away with the following in-
telligence, all directly gathered from the
lips of Diem's official political adviser, head
of the secret police, and chief anti-Ameri-
can:
The French representative in North Viet-
nam, Jacques de Buzon, had seen Nhu to-
gether with French Ambassador Lalouette
and had brought him an offer from Ho Chi
Minh to negotiate-presumably via the
French and behind the back of the United
States.
The Polish member of the Indian-Cana-
dian-Polish International Control Commis-
sion (ICC) in Vietnam had come to see Nhu
at Lalouette's behest with a message from
North Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong.
Nhu had not even told his brother Diem
of all this for fear of causing a stir.
The reaction in France was immediate.
To the French, who know of Alsop's close
relations with President Diem, this seemed
one more deliberate attempt to blame the
French colonialists for everything that was
going wrong in Vietnam. Officially, the Quai
d'Orsay simply said the article "does not
even merit a denial." Unofficially, however,
the following facts soon came to light:
De Buzon, who had taken over his job
in Hanoi only very recently, had never been
to Saigon at all, as the flight records of'the
ICC aircraft testify, and there is no other way
of getting from Hanoi to Saigon except by
rowboat across the 17th parallel along the
coast of the South China Sea.
The Polish "ICC" member, after years of
being snubbed, had suddenly been invited
to Diem's receptions-a fact which American
newsmen had reported. Lalouette had never
presented the Pole to Nhu.
As noted in the semi-official La Nation,
the newspaper of De Gaulle's "UNR" party, if
Nhu wanted to keep the whole thing a
secret from his brother, why did he give
the story to Alsop to plaster all over the
world?
What had happened is that Nhu cleverly
used Alsop to strengthen his own bargaining
position in his life-and-death struggle with
the United States. This was obvious from
August 31, when Saigon almost immediately
hailed the De Gaulle statement as "not being
critical of our position" and chose to inter-
pret Diem's resistance to American demands
for reform as an aspect of its own policy of
struggle for "external independence." Nhu
sought (and still seeks) to bolster the myth
that he has two fallback positions: if the
Americans let him down, he can always turn
to the French; and if they let him down, he
can always make a deal with Hanoi where, he
says, he and his brother are greatly admired.
Alsop realized that he was out on a limb;
In his next column he backtracked by giving
the world a description of the Gia-Long
Palace in Saigon (where the Ngo Dinhs hide
from their people) which resembled H. R.
Tervor-Roper's description of Hitler's bunker
In its last days, and which makes both Diem
and Nhu look like paranoiacs. But having
said that Nhu's egotism goes "beyond normal
vanity" and that Diem has "lost his ability
to see events or problems in their true pro-
portions," Alsop nevertheless returns to his
idee fire that Paris has nothing else in mind
or in store for Saigon but a "Communist
takeover * * * by courtesy of the French."
It is certain that De Gaulle, and for that
matter any Frenchman seriously concerned
with southeast Asia, is less than happy with
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1964 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE
the way things have been going in South
Vietnam of lgte-but this is a view that many
Americans share with them, including some
leading personages in Washington. The real
problem (beyond the extremely serious one
of emotional overreaction in Washington
whenever the name "De Gaulle" comes up)
is that nothing better than "swimming with
Diem"-and Nhu, of course-has been pro-
posed anywhere. As a consequence, French
Ambassador Lalouette was placed in the
strange position of apparently lecturing
newly arrived U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot
Lodge on the merits of the present Saigon
rulers. In 1955, the French tried to get rid
of Diem; they got thrown out of Vietnam
for their pains and have not forgotten the
lesson.
Alsop's suggestion of French negotiations
on behalf,of Hanoi might be an interesting,
even a clever idea. But, as I was able to
judge there for myself, De Buzon's predeces-
sors In Hanoi were, in the words of Georges
Chaffard in Le Monde of September 3,
"filled with a visceral hatred of all that was
Communist." They were not even received
by Hanoi's top leaders, let alone used as mes-
sengers for negotiations. The French have
no illusions about what their role would be
in a reunified Vietnam dominated by Hanoi:
almost all their properties in North Vietnam,
worth close to $1 billion, have been confis-
cated, all their missionaries were expelled,
and for the privilege of being able to main-
tain two teachers of French and one school
administrator at one lycee, they must pay
for the upkeep of the whole establishment.
French trade with North Vietnam is $2 mil-
lion a year; with South Vietnam it is far
greater.
On the whole, it seems difficult thus far to
ascribe much more to De Gaulle's statement
than an understandable desire to be heard
on an issue in which the French feel, rightly
or wrongly, that they may once more become
the scapegoats; or worse, the victims.
EXHIBTT 7
[From the Washington Daily News,
Mar. 6, 1964]
MACV, MACT, MAAG: PAPERWORK Is A TIGER
TO UNITED STATES
(By Jim Lucas)
CAN THO, SOUTH VIETNAM, March 6.-To
understand anything at all about this
strange little war, it helps to examine some
of the organization problems.
For one thing, the command structure-
ours and the Vietnamese-is grotesque. Like
Topsy, it just growed.
On our part, we have MACV (Military
Assistance Command, Vietnam) headed by
Gen. Paul Harkins. General Harkins also is
MACT (Military Assistance Command, Thai-
land).
ADVISORY TEAMS
Then, we have MAAG (Military Advisory
Assistance Group) headed by Maj. Gen.
Charles Timmes. MAAG has been here since
the early 1950's. It controls the advisory
teams.
Then there is a support command, headed
by Brig. Gen. Joe Stilwell, Jr. It controls
the operating troops, such as the helicopter
crews. Theoretically, they are here to sup-
port the Vietnamese. In practice, they are
fighting a war.
On top of all this, we have a "country
team" headed by Ambassador Henry Cabot
Lodge, who is a major general in the Army
Reserve.
HORRENDOUS
Men in the field often work for all three
commands. They must submit reports to all
three. The paperwork is horrendous.
There are rumors that Lt. Gen. William
C. Westmoreland will abolish MACV or
MAAG when he succeeds General Harkins.
The troops devoutly hope this is true. Gen-
eral Westmoreland is now General Harkins'
deputy.
The Vietnamese have four categories of
troops in the field, some working for the
Ministry of Defense, others for the Ministry
of Interior.
At the lowest level, there is the hamlet
militia. They work in squads. They have,
at most, one automatic weapon. If they are
paid at all, it is by the people they protect.
Usually it is in rice.
Next, there is the Self-Defense Corps. It
is organized in platoons, and slightly better
armed. Its men are paid $9 a month.
THIRD ECHELON
Third echelon is the civil guard. Roughly
it compares with our National Guard. It is
organized into companies. Its men draw $12
a month.
Finally, there is the ARVIN (Army of the
Republic of Vietnam). It is organized into
regiments, divisions and corps. Its men qre
much better paid. They have fairly modern
weapons.
On top of this, there is the Vietnamese
JGS (Joint General Staff), comparable to our
Joint Chiefs of Staff. And to add to the con-
fusion, the Province Chiefs (Governors) are
majors, and the district chiefs under them
captains and first lieutenants. Each has his
own troops. Each Province Chief has a U.S.
Army major as his adviser.
BETTER PAID
Though the ARVIN Is better paid and bet-
ter armed, it is the civil guard that bears
the brunt of the war. The average ARVIN
battalion goes 2 weeks without making con-
tact with the Vietcong. An average civil
'guard company is fighting 2 days out of 3.
There are reasons for this contrast. The
civil guard is smaller (company-size units).
It has less fire power; no artillery. Its men
are sketchily trained. It does not have
enough good officers, consequently it is not
so well led.
But the big reason the guard sees more ac-
tion is psychological, and the Vietcong are
canny enough to exploit that. A civil guard
company is a local unit. These boys grew up
in the province where they're stationed.
Everybody knows them.
KILLED
If the Vietcong can chew up a civil guard
company, they effectively assert their rule
over that area. A man joins the civil guard
one week, and they bring his body home the
next. That night, the Vietcong slip In and
tell his widow, "we killed your man because
he opposed us."
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. President, will
the Senator Yield?
Mr. GRUENING. I yield.
Mr. McGOVERN. I regret that I did
not hear the entire address by the Sena-
tor from Alaska. I do not know whether
I am prepared to agree with all the con-
clusions he has drawn without having
had an opportunity to study the text of
his proposal. But as one Member of the
Senate who is much interested in the se-
curity of our country and the peace of
the world, I commend the Senator from
Alaska for the thoughtful questions that
he has raised today.
I wonder if the Senator is aware of
the fact that 10 years ago, almost to the
day, the then Senator John Kennedy, of
Massachusetts, made a similar speech
with reference to French involvement in
French Indochina. On that day, the
Senator from Massachusetts ticked off
a list of overly optimistic estimates that
had been made by French military lead-
ers about the success of the war in
French Indochina, some of those esti-
mates being shared by our own military
strategists. Senator Kennedy warned
against some of the sterile possibilities
that faced the French if they continued
what appeared to the Senator from Mas-
sachusetts to be a futile effort in South-
east Asia.
It is quite ironical that that speech
should have been made in April 1954.
Thirty days later, the French cause was
abandoned in French Indochina, and for
the past decade we have been seeking,
with questionable success, to carry on
the same policy.
Mr. GRUENING. I thank the Senator
from South Dakota for his valuable con-
tribution to the discussion. The fact is
that Senator Kennedy as Senator did not
make foreign policy. It was made by the
Eisenhower administration-by the Pres-
ident and by Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles. When John Kennedy be-
came President 6 years later, he in-
herited the situation and tried for 3
years to do something about it. Consid-
ering the experience of failure to rectify
what had been done during those 3 years,
there has now been a total failure for
a whole decade, with a steady loss of
American lives.
It is high time to reassess our policy
and ascertain why we are in Vietnam,
why we should continue to be there, and
why we should continue to sacrifice the
lives of American boys for people who
will not fight for themselves. We should
not remain there. We should make the
best deal possible before withdrawing,
but in any event we should withdraw our
men from the fighting front immediately.
We should supply the South Vietnamese
with all kinds of arms. But this is their
war. We should try, by reassessing our
policy, to bring an end to the tragedy
that has taken place in the last 10 years.
Mr. McGOVERN. I appreciate the
point the Senator has made. Speaking
for myself, I would view both our involve-
ment in Vietnam and any possible re-
evaluation of our position there as a bi-
partisan or nonpartisan matter. I would
hope we could take the Vietnamese issue
out of partisan politics and consider it
from the standpoint of what is best for
our country and what will make the most
likely contribution to the cause of peace.
I thank the Senator from Alaska for
yielding.
Mr. GRUENING. I agree that the
policy should be nonpartisan and should
remain nonpartisan. This issue is far
too serious to be permitted to deterio-
rate into a matter of partisan politics.
The reason this question is pertinent
is that President Johnson, only recently
arrived in office, is the heir of all these
policies, and now he has an opportunity
to reassess them. I believe he should
do so.
Mr. McGOVERN. I think the Senator
from Alaska will agree that it is impor-
tant to determine the best course for
us to follow now, rather than to attempt
to assess the blame for what has hap-
pened.
Mr. GRUENING. I agree that we
should not assess the blame. But we
should learn from experience.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. President, I
thank the Senator from Alaska for
yielding to me.
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE March 10
Mr. GRUENING. I thank the Sen-
ator from South Dakota.
Mr. SALTONSTALL. Mr. President,
will the Senator from Alaska yield
briefly to me?
Mr. GRUENING. I yield.
Mr. SALTONSTALL. The Senator
from Alaska has made a very thought-
ful speech, although I would not agree
with some of the conclusions he has
reached.
I certainly feel, as does the Senator
from South Dakota, that this is not a
partisan matter in any way, and that
what President Eisenhower and Secre-
tary Dulles did 10 and 12 years ago was
done under different conditions in the
Far East and also under different world
conditions. How well that policy finally
work out, we cannot say at the moment.
But I wish to point out that the pres-
ent administration has sent one of its
leading and most responsible officials to
Vietnam, to determine what we should
do now; I refer to Secretary McNamara.
In my opinion, our policy in regard to
Vietnam also involves our policies in re-
gard to other areas, including Malaysia,
New Zealand, Australia, and also our
concern in Korea, and even our relation-
ships with the Philippines. All those
questions and others are involved, as I
see the matter, in our policy in regard to
South Vietnam at the moment. Also in-
volved is our prestige in Panama, in
Cuba, and in the countries of South
America, if we quit South Vietnam.
So, as the Senator from Alaska has
said, the President has a very difficult
decision to make; and certainly it can-
not be made very quickly or with rela-
tion to only one situation.
All of us very much deplore the loss
of the lives of Americans in South Viet-
nam, and we hope no more Americans
will lose their lives there. However, I
believe we must give the present ad-
ministration an opportunity to view this
matter-particularly after sending the
Secretary of Defense there-in light of
all the conditions in the areas I have
named, as well as those existing in South
Vietnam alone.
I agree with the Senator from Alaska
that the people of South Vietnam must
fight for themselves; if they do not, we
cannot fight for them.
Mr. GRUENING. I confess that I
was shocked to read in the newspapers
of the extravagant promises which Sec-
retary McNamara has been making-
promises of all-out U.S. aid. In my
Judgment, he has no business to make
such commitments. He went there at
the direction of the President to study
and report to the President, and what
authority he has to make such promises,
I do not know.
If we are to have an all-out war there,
it is for Congress to declare such a war.
So I believe it unfortunate that Secre-
tary McNamara has spoken so freely. I
believe it would have been much better
if he had kept quiet, returned to this
country and had reported to his chief
and let him make the commitments.
I address this question to all Sena-
tors--not on a personal basis, because
the question is already answered insofar
as I am concerned: If a . Senator's son
were to be drafted in the current draft,
under the conscription act, and were sent
to Vietnam, and were killed there, would
that Senator feel that his son had died
in the defense of our country? Per-
sonally, I would not.
In South Vietnam we have been sup-
port corrupt and evil regimes and we
have done it all alone. We are losing
men there every day; while the South
Vietnamese people will not fight for
themselves.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
CIVIL RIGHTS ACT O;
of the motion of Mr. MANSFIELD to
proceed the consideration of the bill
(H.R. 7152) to enforce the constitutional
right to vote, to confer jurisdiction upon
the district courts of the United States
to provide injunctive relief against dis-
crimination in public accommodations, to
authorize the Attorney General to in-
stitute suits to protect constitutional
rights in public facilities and public edu-
cation, to extend the Commission on Civil
Rights, to prevent discrimination in fed-
erally assisted programs, to establish a
Commission on Equal Employment Op-
portunity, and for other purposes.
SPARKMAN DEBATES PROCEDURE ON H.R. 7152
Mr. SPARKMAN. Mr. President, we
now have before us a motion to proceed
with the consideration of H.R. 7152, the
so-called civil rights bill. As the dis-
tinguishedsenior Senator from Georgia
pointed out yesterday afternoon, in the
normal course of events in the Senate,
a motion to proceed to the consideration
of any specific bill on the calendar is
usually decided without debate. How-
ever, I could not agree more with the
same distinguished Senator's further re-
marks to the effect that there has been
nothing normal, usual, or ordinary about
the processes which have brought H.R.
7152 to the calendar of the Senate.
Rather, the contortions involved in the
parliamentary travels of this bill have
been as extraordinary as any that I have
witnessed since I first came to serve in
this august body.
Let us now consider briefly the strange
machinations which have brought this
bill to its present place on the calendar
of the Senate.
The first comprehensive hearings of
this proposed legislation were held by a
subcommittee of the House Judiciary
Committee. The members of this sub-
committee were specially selected pro-
ponents of this type of legislation, seem-
ingly chosen for their great support of
this cause. Then, in executive session,
that subcommittee wrote a bill which
has been discussed in some detail by the
full committee.
However, the proponents of the bill
had some controversy among themselves
as to where credit for the bill should go.
The essence of the matter was that,
overnight, the bill which the subcommit-
tee had considered for 6 months was
dropped like a hot potato. With no de-
bate, no careful examination, a new bill
was rammed through the committee.
With reference to this new bill, six mem-
bers of the House Judiciary Committee
stated :
This legislation fa being reported to the
House without the benefit of any considera-
tion, debate, or study of the bill by any
subcommittee or committee of the House
and without any member of any committee
or subcommitte being granted an opportu-
nity to Offer amendments to the bill. This
legislation is the most radical proposal in the
mmittee of the House or Senate. It was
awn in secret meetings held between cer-
certain select persons, to the exclusion of
other committee members.
Thus were the rights of the minority
trampled ruthlessly under foot.
I wish to make clear that that is not a
charge which I am making; I am merely
quoting from the minority views of the
members of the House Judiciary Com-
mittee.
It was just as bad on the floor of the
other body. The combined leadership of
the House supported the bill, despite its
unusual birth. Under this prod, along
with what has been described as the most
intensive and extensive lobbying seen in
Washington in many years, the House
passed the bill.
We all know that the bill went on the
calendar of the Senate by a procedure
which many of us felt to be in violation
of the rules of the Senate, and certainly
in disregard of the rules of the Senate.
However, the proponents of this legisla-
tion defeated us by sheer numbers.
Legislation similar to certain portions
of House bill 7152 has been given con-
sideration by committees of the Senate.
However, there has been no committee
consideration of most of this bill, which
is 55 pages long and has 11 titles.
Therefore, it is essential that the nu-
merous aspects of this proposed legisla-
tion be given more careful consideration.
If this consideration is not going to be
given in committee, I propose, along with
my teammates, to give it a thorough air-
ing on the Senate floor.
My concern over following proper Sen-
ate procedures is especially magnified
in view of the seriousnessof the measure
in question.
Mr. President, I digress to say that
while over the next several weeks of
debate on the long, intricate so-called
civil rights bill, involving many legal
and constitutional questions-questions
that have not had a thorough going-
over by committees, as is designed in our
legislative setup, while we must of ne-
cessity spend considerable time on the
floor of the Senate trying to find out
what the bill proposes and what the con-
stitutional questions involved are, there
will be piling up a logjam of badly
needed proposed legislation.
Today the Committee on Banking and
Currency meta Thre or four or five
bills are ready for consideration. There
is considerable interest in having some
of them passed. We decided that there
was no need to hold an executive ses-
sion of the committee to consider the
bills, because we knew they would be
held up during the entire time occupied
by the present debate.
There is a very important housing bill
upon which hearings have been com-
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