WHY VIETNAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01580R001603420034-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 29
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 15, 2014
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: August 20, 1965
• Content Type: MISC

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27 Aug 65
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Why Vietnam
THE ROOTS OF COMMITMENT
TOWARD PEACE WITH HONOR
THE TASKS OF DIPLOMACY
THE -TASKS OF DEFENSE
THE CHALLENGE OF HUMAN NEED
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\
Why Vietnam
THE ROOTS OF COMMITMENT
TOWARD PEACE WITH HONOR
THE TASKS OF DIPLOMACY
THE TASKS OF DEFENSE
THE CHALLENGE OF HUMAN NEED
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Foreword
My fellow Americans:
Once again in man's age-old struggle for a better
life and a world of peace, the wisdom, courage,
and compassion of the American people are being
put to the test. This is the meaning of the tragic
conflict in Vietnam.
In meeting the present challenge, it is essential
that our people seek understanding, and that our
leaders speak with candor.
I have therefore directed that this report to the
American people be compiled and widely dis-
tributed. In its pages you will find statements on
Vietnam by three leaders of your Government?by
your President, your Secretary of State, and your
Secretary of Defense.
These statements were prepared for different
audiences, and they reflect the differing responsi-
bilities of each speaker. The congressional testi-
mony has been edited to avoid undue repetition
and to incorporate the sense of the discussions that
ensued.
Together, they construct a clear definition of
America's role in the Vietnam conflict:
? the dangers and hopes that Vietnam holds
for all free men
? the fullness and limits of our national ob-
jectives in a war we did not seek
? the constant effort on our part to bring this
war we do not desire to a quick and honor-
able end.
AUGUST 20, 1965.
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Why Vietnam
Page
Foreword jjj
The Roots of Commitment vii
Toward Peace With Honor: President Lyndon B. Johnson 5
The Tasks of Diplomacy: Dean Rusk 9
The Tasks of Defense: Robert S. McNamara 19
The Challenge of Human Need: President Lyndon B. Johnson 25
(v)
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The ROots of Commitment
In the historic documents that follow, two American Presidents define
and affirm the commitment of the United States to the people of South
Vietnam.
In letters to Prime Minister Churchill in 1954 and to President Diem
in 1954 and 1960, President Eisenhower describes the issues at stake
and pledg es United States assistance in South Vietnam's resistance to
subversion and aggression.
And in December 1961 President Kennedy reaffirms that pledge.
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Extracts From Letter From President Eisenhower to Prime Minister Churchill,
April 4, 1954
(From Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953-
1956, New York, 1963)
Dear Winston:
I am sure . . . you are following with the
deepest interest and anxiety the daily reports of the
gallant fight being put up by the French at Dien
Bien Phu. Today, the situation there does not seem
hopeless.
But regardless of the outcome of this particular
battle, I fear that the French cannot alone see the
thing through, this despite the very substantial as-
sistance in money and materiel that we are giving
them. It is no solution simply to urge the French
to intensify their efforts. And if they do not see it
through and Indochina passes into the hands of the
Communists the ultimate effect on our and your
global strategic position with the consequent shift
in the power ratios throughout Asia and the Pacific
could be disastrous and, I know, unacceptable to
you and me. . . . This has led us to the hard
conclusion that the situation in Southeast Asia re-
quires us urgently to take serious and far-reaching
decisions.
Geneva is less than four weeks away. There the
possibility of the Communists driving a wedge be-
tween us will, given the state of mind in France, be
infinitely greater than at Berlin. I can understand
the very natural desire of the French to seek an end
to this war which has been bleeding them for eight
years. But our painstaking search for a way out
of the impasse has reluctantly forced us to the con-
clusion that there is no negotiated solution of the
Indochina problem which in its essence would not
be either a face-saving device to cover a French sur-
render or a face-saving device to cover a Commu-
nist retirement. The first alternative is too serious
in its broad strategic implications for us and for you
to be acceptable. . . .
Somehow we must contrive to bring about the
second alternative. The preliminary lines of our
thinking were sketched out by Foster [Dulles] in
his speech last Monday night when he said that
under the conditions of today the imposition on
Southeast Asia of the political system of Commu-
nist Russia and its Chinese Communist ally, by
whatever means, would be a grave threat to the
whole free community, and that in our view this
possibility should now be met by united action and
not passively accepted. . . .
I believe that the best way to put teeth in this
concept and to bring greater moral and material
resources to the support of the French effort is
through the establishment of a new, ad hoc group-
ing or coalition composed of nations which have a
vital concern in the checking of Communist expan-
sion in the area. I have in mind, in addition to our
two countries, France, the Associated States, Aus-
tralia, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines
The United States government would expect to play
its full part in such a coalition. . . .
The important thing is that the coalition must
be strong and it must be willing to join the fight if
necessary. I do not envisage the need of any appre-
ciable ground forces on your or our part. . . .
If I may refer again to history; we failed to halt
Hirohito, Mussolini and Hitler by not acting in
unity and in time. That marked the beginning of
many years of stark tragedy and desperate peril.
May it not be that our nations have learned some-
thing from that lesson? . . .
With warm regard,
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IKE.
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Letter From President Eisenhower to President Diem, October i, 1954
Dear Mr. President:
I have been following with great interest the
course of developments in Vietnam, particularly
since the conclusion of the conference at Geneva.
The implications of the agreement concerning
Vietnam have caused grave concern regarding the
future of a country temporarily divided by an arti-
ficial military grouping, weakened by a long and
exhausting war and faced with enemies without
and by their subversive collaborators within.
Your recent requests for aid to assist in the
formidable project of the movement of several
hundred thousand loyal Vietnamese citizens away
from areas which are passing under a de facto rule
and political ideology which they abhor, are being
fulfilled. I am glad that the United States is able
to assist in this humanitarian effort.
We have been exploring ways and means to
permit our aid to Vietnam to be more effective
and to make a greater contribution to the welfare
and stability of the Government of Vietnam. I
am, accordingly, instructing the American Ambas-
sador to Vietnam to examine with you in your
capacity as Chief of Government, how an intelli-
gent program of American aid given directly to
your Government can serve to assist Vietnam in
its present hour of trial, provided that your Gov-
ernment is prepared to give assurances as to the
standards of performance it would be able to main-
tain in the event such aid were supplied.
The purpose of this offer is to assist the
Government of Vietnam in developing and main-
taining a strong, viable state, capable of resisting
attempted subversion or aggression through mili-
tary means. The Government of the United
States expects that this aid will be met by perform-
ance on the part of the Government of Vietnam
in undertaking needed reforms. It hopes that such
aid, combined with your own continuing efforts,
will contribute effectively toward an independent
Vietnam endowed with a strong government.
Such a government would, I hope, be so responsive
to the nationalist aspirations of its people, so en-
lightened in purpose and effective in performance,
that it will be respected both at home and abroad
and discourage any who might wish to impose a
foreign ideology on your free people.
Sincerely,
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER.
Letter From President Eisenhower to President Diem, October 26, 1960
Dear Mr. President:
My countrymen and I are proud to convey our
good wishes to you and to the citizens of Vietnam
on the fifth anniversary of the birth of the Republic
of Vietnam.
We have watched the courage and daring with
which you and the Vietnamese people attained in-
dependence in a situation so perilous that many
thought it hopeless. We have admired the ra-
pidity with which chaos yielded to order and prog-
ress replaced despair.
During the years of your independence it has been
refreshing for us to observe how clearly the Govern-
ment and the citizens of Vietnam have faced the
fact that the greatest danger to their independence
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was Communism. You and your countrymen have
used your strength well in accepting the double
challenge of building your country and resisting
Communist imperialism. In five short years since
the founding of the Republic, the Vietnamese peo-
ple have developed their country in almost every
sector. I was particularly impressed by one ex-
ample. I am informed that last year over 1,200,-
000 Vietnamese children were able to go to elemen-
tary school; three times as many as were enrolled
five years earlier. This is certainly a heartening
development for Vietnam's future. At the same
time Vietnam's ability to defend itself from the
Communists has grown immeasurably since its suc-
cessful struggle to become an independent Republic.
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Vietnam's very success as well as its potential
wealth and its strategic location have led the Com-
munists of Hanoi, goaded by the bitterness of their
failure to enslave all Vietnam, to use increasing vio-
lence in their attempts to destroy your country's
freedom.
This grave threat, added to the strains and fa-
tigues of the long struggle to achieve and strengthen
independence, must be a burden that would cause
moments of tension and concern in almost any hu-
man heart. Yet from long observation I sense how
deeply the Vietnamese value their country's inde-
pendence and strength and I know how well you
used your boldness when you led your countrymen
in winning it. I also know that your determination
has been a vital factor in guarding that independ-
ence while steadily advancing the economic devel-
opment of your country. I am confident that these
same qualities of determination and boldness will
meet the renewed threat as well as the needs and
desires of your countrymen for further progress on
all fronts.
Although the main responsibility for guarding
that independence will always, as it has in the past,
belong to the Vietnamese people and their govern-
ment, I want to assure you that for so long as our
strength can be useful, the United States will con-
tinue to assist Vietnam in the difficult yet hopeful
struggle ahead.
Sincerely,
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER.
Letter From President Kennedy to President Diem, December 14,i 96
Dear M. President:
I have received your recent letter in which you
described so cogently the dangerous condition
caused by North Vietnam's efforts to take over your
country. The situation in your embattled country
is well known to me and to the American people.
We have been deeply disturbed by the assault on
your country. Our indignation has mounted as
the deliberate savagery of the Communist program
of assassination, kidnapping and wanton violence
became clear.
Your letter underlines what our own information
has convincingly shown?that the campaign of
force and terror now being waged against your peo-
ple and your Government is supported and directed
from the outside by the authorities at Hanoi. They
have thus violated the provisions of the Geneva Ac-
cords designed to ensure peace in Vietnam and to
which they bound themselves in 1954.
At that time, the United States, although not a
party to the Accords, declared that it "would view
any renewal of the aggression in violation of the
agreements with grave concern and as seriously
threatening international peace and security." We
continue to maintain that view.
In accordance with that declaration, and in re-
sponse to your request, we are prepared to help the
Republic of Vietnam to protect its people and to
preserve its independence. We shall promptly in-
crease our assistance to your defense effort as well
as help relieve the destruction of the floods which
you describe. I have already given the orders to
get these programs underway.
The United States, like the Republic of Vietnam,
remains devoted to the cause of peace and our pri-
mary purpose is to help your people maintain their
independence. If the Communist authorities in
North Vietnam will stop their campaign to destroy
the Republic of Vietnam, the measures we are tak-
ing to assist your defense efforts will no longer be
necessary. We shall seek to persuade the Commu-
nists to give up their attempts of force and subver-
sion. In any case, we are confident that the Viet-
namese people will preserve their independence and
gain the peace and prosperity for which they have
sought so hard and so long.
JOHN F. KENNEDY.
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Toward Peace With Honor
Press Conference Statement by the President, The White House, July 28, 1965
Not long ago I received a letter from a woman in
the Midwest. She wrote:
DEAR Mn. PRESIDENT: In my humble way I am writing
to you about the crisis in Vietnam. I have a son who is
now in Vietnam. My husband served in World War II.
Our country was at war, but now, this time, it is just some-
thing that I don't understand. Why?
I have tried to answer that question a dozen
times and more in practically every State in this
Union. I discussed it fully in Baltimore in April;
in Washington in May; in San Francisco in June.
Let me again, now, discuss it here in the East Room
of the White House.
Why must young Americans?born into a land
exultant with hope and golden with promise?toil
and suffer and sometimes die in such a remote and
distant place?
The answer, like the war itself, is not an easy
one. But it echoes clearly from the painful les-
sons of half a century. Three times in my life-
time, in two world wars and in Korea, Americans
have gone to far lands to fight for freedom. We
have learned at a terrible and brutal cost that re-
treat does not bring safety and weakness does not
bring peace.
THE NATURE OF THE WAR
It is this lesson that has brought us to Vietnam.
This is a different kind of war. There are no
marching armies or solemn declarations. Some
citizens of South Vietnam, at times with under-
standable grievances, have joined in the attack on
their own government. But we must not let this
mask the central fact that this is really war. It is
guided by North Vietnam and spurred by Commu-
nist China. Its goal is to conquer the South, to de-
feat American power, and to extend the Asiatic
dominion of communism.
THE STAKES IN VIETNAM
And there are great stakes in the balance.
Most of the non-Communist nations of Asia can-
not, by themselves and alone, resist the growing
might and grasping ambition of Asian communism.
Our power, therefore, is a vital shield. If we are
driven from the field in Vietnam, then no nation
can ever again have the same confidence in Amer-
ican promise, or in American protection. In each
land the forces of independence would be consid-
erably weakened. And an Asia so threatened by
Communist domination would imperil the security
of the United States itself.
We did not choose to be the guardians at the
gate, but there is no one else.
Nor would surrender in Vietnam bring peace.
We learned from Hitler at Munich that success
only feeds the appetite of aggression. The battle
would be renewed in one country and then another,
bringing with it perhaps even larger and crueler
conflict.
Moreover, we are in Vietnam to fulfill one of
the most solemn pledges of the American Nation.
Three Presidents?President Eisenhower, Presi-
dent Kennedy, and your present President?over
11 years, have committed themselves and have
promised to help defend this small and valiant
nation.
Strengthened by that promise, the people of
South Vietnam have fought for many long years.
Thousands of them have died. Thousands more
have been crippled and scarred by war. We can-
not now dishonor our word or abandon our com-
mitment or leave those who believed us and who
trusted us to the terror and repression and murder
that would follow.
This, then, my fellow Americans, is why we are
in Vietnam.
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INCREASED EFFORT TO HALT
AGGRESSION
What are our goals in that war-stained land?
First: We intend to convince the Communists
that we cannot be defeated by force of arms or
by superior power. They are not easily convinced.
In recent months they have greatly increased their
fighting forces, their attacks, and the number of
incidents. I have asked the commanding general,
General Westmoreland, what more he needs to
meet this mounting aggression. He has told me.
We will meet his needs.
I have today ordered to Vietnam the Air Mobile
Division and certain other forces which will raise
our fighting strength from 75,000 to 125,000 men
almost immediately. Additional forces will be
needed later, and they will be sent as requested.
This will make it necessary to increase our active
fighting forces by raising the monthly draft call
from 17,000 over a period of time, to 35,000 per
month, and stepping up our campaign for vol-
untary enlistments.
After this past week of deliberations, I have con-
cluded that it is not essential to order Reserve units
into service now. If that necessity should later be
indicated, I will give the matter most careful con-
sideration. And I will give the country adequate
notice before taking such action, but only after
full preparations.
We have also discussed with the Government of
South Vietnam lately the steps that they will take
to substantially increase their own effort?both on
the battlefield and toward reform and progress in
the villages. Ambassador Lodge is now formulat-
ing a new program to be tested upon his return to
that area.
I have directed Secretary Rusk and Secretary
McNamara to be available immediately to the
Congress to review with the appropriate congres-
sional committees our plan in these areas I have
asked them to be available to answer the questions
of any Member of Congress.
Secretary McNamara, in addition, will ask the
Senate Appropriations Committee to add a limited
amount to present legislation to help meet part of
this new cost until a supplemental measure is ready
and hearings can be held when the Congress as-
sembles in January.
6
In the meantime, we will use the authority con-
tained in the present Defense appropriations bill
now to transfer funds, in addition to the additional
money that we will request.
These steps, like our actions in the past, are care-
fully measured to do what must be done to bring
an end to aggression and a peaceful settlement.
We do not want an expanding struggle with con-
sequences that no one can foresee. Nor will we
bluster or bully or flaunt our power.
But we will not surrender. And we will not
retreat.
For behind our American pledge lies the deter-
mination and resources of all of the American
Nation.
TOWARD A PEACEFUL SOLUTION
Second, once the Communists know, as we know,
that a violent solution is impossible, then a peace-
ful solution is inevitable. We are ready now, as we
have always been, to move from the battlefield to
the conference table. I have stated publicly, and
many times, America's willingness to begin uncon-
ditional discussions with any government at any
place at any time. Fifteen efforts have been made
to start these discussions, with the help of 40 na-
tions throughout the world. But there has been
no answer.
But we are going to continue to persist, if per-
sist we must, until death and desolation have led
to the same conference table where others could
now join us at a much smaller cost.
I have spoken many times of our objectives in
Vietnam. So has the Government of South Viet-
nam. Hanoi has set forth its own proposal. We
are ready to discuss their proposals and our pro-
posals and any proposals of any government whose
people may be affected. For we fear the meeting
room no more than we fear the battlefield.
THE UNITED NATIONS
In this pursuit we welcome, and we ask for, the
concern and the assistance of any nation and all
nations. If the United Nations and its officials?
or any one of its 114 members?can, by deed or
word, private initiative or public action, bring us
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nearer an honorable peace, then they will have the
support and the gratitude of the United States of
America.
I have directed Ambassador Goldberg to go to
New York today and to present immediately to Sec-
retary-General U Thant a letter from me requesting
that all of the resources, energy, and immense pres-
tige of the United Nations be employed to find ways
to halt aggression and to bring peace in Vietnam.
I made a similar request at San Francisco a few
weeks ago.
FREE CHOICE FOR VIETNAM
We do not seek the destruction of any gov9rn-
ment, nor do we covet a foot of any territory. But
we insist, and we will always insist, that the people
of South Vietnam shall have the right of choice, the
right to shape their own destiny in free elections in
the South, or throughout all Vietnam under inter-
national supervision. And they shall not have any
government imposed upon them by force and terror
so long as we can prevent it.
This was the purpose of the 1954 agreements
which the Communists have now cruelly shattered.
If the machinery of those agreements was tragically
weak, its purposes still guide our action.
As battle rages, we will continue as best we can
to help the good people of South Vietnam enrich
the condition of their life?to feed the hungry, to
tend the sick?teach the young, shelter the home-
less, and help the farmer to increase his crops, and
the worker to find a job.
PROGRESS IN HUMAN WELFARE
It is an ancient, but still terrible, irony that while
many leaders of men create division in pursuit of
grand ambitions, the children of man are united in
the simple elusive desire for a life of fruitful and re-
warding toil.
As I said at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, I hope
that one day we can help all the people of Asia
toward that desire. Eugene Black has made great
progress since my appearance in Baltimore in that
direction, not as the price of peace?for we are
ready always to bear a more painful cost?but
rather as a part of our obligations of justice toward
our fellow man.
THE DIFFICULTY OF DECISION
Let me also add a personal note. I do not find
it easy to send the flower of our youth, our finest
young men, into battle. I have spoken to you today
of the divisions and the forces and the battalions
and the units. But I know them all, every one. I
have seen them in a thousand streets, in a hundred
towns, in every State in this Union?working and
laughing, building, and filled with hope and life.
I think that I know, too, how their mothers weep
and how their families sorrow. This is the most
agonizing and the most painful duty of your Presi?
dent.
A NATION WHICH BUILDS
There is something else, too. When I was
young, poverty was so common that we didn't know
it had a name. Education was something you had
to fight for. And water was life itself. I have
now been in public life 35 years, more than three
decades, and in each of those 35 years I have seen
good men, and wise leaders, struggle to bring the
blessings of this land to all of our people. Now I
am the President. It is now my opportunity to
help every child get an education, to help every
Negro and every American citizen have an equal
opportunity, to help every family get a decent home
and to help bring healing to the sick and dignity to
the old.
As I have said before, that is what I have lived
for. That is what I have wanted all my life. And
I do not want to see all those hopes and all those
dreams of so many people for so many years now
drowned in the wasteful ravages of war. I am
going to do all I can to see that that never happens.
But I also know, as a realistic public servant, that
as long as there are men who hate and destroy we
must have the courage to resist, or we will see it all,
all that we have built, all that we hope to build, all
of our dreams for freedom?all swept away on the
flood of conquest.
So this too shall not happen; we will stand in
Vietnam.
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The Tasks of Diplomacy
Statement by Secretary of State Dean Rusk
August
As the President has said, "there are great stakes
in the balance" in Vietnam today.
Let us be clear about those stakes. With its
archipelagos, Southeast Asia contains rich natural
resources and some 200 million people. Geo-
graphically, it has great strategic importance?it
dominates the gateway between the Pacific and
Indian Oceans and flanks the Indian subcontinent
on one side, and Australia and New Zealand on
the other. The loss of Southeast Asia to the Com-
munists would constitute a serious shift in the bal-
ance of power against the interests of the free
world. And the loss of South Vietnam would
make the defense of the rest of Southeast Asia much
more costly and difficult. That is why the
SEATO Council has said that the defeat of the
aggression against South Vietnam is "essential" to
the security of Southeast Asia.
But much more is at stake than preserving the
independence of the peoples of Southeast Asia and
preventing the vast resources of that area from be-
ing swallowed by those hostile to freedom.
THE TEST
The war in Vietnam is a test of a technique of ag-
gression: what the Communists, in their upside-
down language, call "wars of national liberation."
They use the term to describe any effort by Commu-
nists, short of large-scale war, to destroy by force
any non-Communist government. Thus the leaders
of the Communist terrorists in such an independent
democracy as Venezuela are described as leaders of
a fight for "national liberation." And a recent edi-
torial in Pravda said that "the upsurge of the na-
tional liberation movement in Latin American
countries has been to a great extent a result of the
activities of Communist parties."
Communist leaders know, as the rest of the world
knows, that thermonuclear war would be ruinous.
before the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
3, 1965
They know that large-scale invasions, such as that
launched in Korea 15 years ago, would bring great
risks and heavy penalties. So, they have resorted to
semi-concealed aggression through the infiltration
of arms and trained military personnel across na-
tional frontiers. And the Asian Communists them-
selves regard the war in Vietnam as a critical test
of that technique. Recently General Giap, leader
of North Vietnam's army, said:
If the special warfare that the U.S. imperialists are test-
ing in South Vietnam is overcome, then it can be defeated
everywhere in the world.
In Southeast Asia, the Communists already have
publicly designated Thailand as the next target.
And if the aggression against South Vietnam were
permitted to succeed, the forces of militant com-
munism everywhere would be vastly heartened and
we could expect to see a series of so-called "wars
of liberation" in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
International law does not restrict internal
revolution. But it does restrict what third powers
may lawfully do in sending arms and men to bring
about insurrection. What North Vietnam is doing
in South Vietnam flouts not only the Geneva
Accords of 1954 and 1962 but general interna-
tional law.
The assault on the Republic of Vietnam is,
beyond question, an aggression. It was organized
and has been directed by North Vietnam, with the
backing of Communist China. The cadres of
guerrilla fighters, saboteurs, and assassins who
form the backbone of the Viet Cong were specially
trained in the North. Initially, many of them were
men of South Vietnamese birth who had fought
with the Viet Minh against the French and gone
North in their military units after Vietnam was
divided in 1951. But that reservoir was gradually
exhausted. During 1964 and since, most of the
military men infiltrated from the North have been
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natives of North Vietnam. And near the end of
last year they began to include complete units of
the regular North Vietnamese army. In addition
to trained men and political and military direction,
the North has supplied arms and ammunition in
increasing quantities?in considerable part of
Chinese manufacture.
Between 1959 and the end of 1964, 40,000
trained military personnel came down from the
North into South Vietnam, by conservative esti-
mate. More have come this year. Had all these
crossed the line at once?as the North Koreans did
in invading South Korea 15 years ago?nobody
in the free world could have doubted that the as-
sault on Vietnam was an aggression. That the di-
viding line between North and South Vietnam was
intended to be temporary does not make the attack
any less of an aggression. The dividing line in
Korea also was intended to be temporary.
If there is ever to be peace in this world, aggres-
sion must cease. We as a nation are committed
to peace and the rule of law. We recognize also
the harsh reality that our security is involved.
We are committed to oppose aggression not only
through the United Nations Charter but through
many defensive alliances. We have 42 allies, not
counting the Republic of Vietnam. And many
other nations know that their security depends up-
on us. Our power and our readiness to use it to
assist others to resist aggression, the integrity of
our commitment, these are the bulwarks of peace
in the world.
If we were to fail in Vietnam, serious conse-
quences would ensue. Our adversaries would be
encouraged to take greater risks elsewhere. At the
same time, the confidence which our allies and
other free nations now have in our commitments
would be seriously impaired.
THE COMMITMENT
Let us be clear about our commitment in Viet-
nam.
It began with the Southeast Asia Treaty, which
was negotiated and signed after the Geneva agree-
ments and the cease-fire in Indo-China in 1954 and
was approved by the United States Senate by a vote
of 82 to 1 in February 1955. That Treaty protects
against Communist aggression not only its members
but any of the three non-Communist states growing
10
out of former French Indo-China which asks for
protection.
Late in 1954 President Eisenhower, with biparti-
san support, decided to extend aid to South Viet-
nam, both economic aid and aid in training its
armed forces. His purpose, as he said, was to "assist
the Government of Vietnam in developing and
maintaining a strong, viable state, capable of resist-
ing attempted subversion or aggression through
military means."
Vietnam became a Republic in 1955, was recog-
nized as an independent nation by 36 nations ini-
tially and is so recognized by more than 50 today.
Beginning in 1955, the Congress has each year
approved overall economic and military assistance
programs in which the continuation of major aid
to South Vietnam has been specifically considered.
During the next five years, South Vietnam made
remarkable economic and social progress?what
some observers described as a "miracle."
Nearly a million refugees from the North were
settled. These were the stout-hearted people of
whom the late Dr. Tom Dooley wrote so eloquently
in his first book, Deliver Us From Evil, and who led
him to devote the rest of his all too brief life to
helping the people of Vietnam and Laos.
A land reform program was launched. A com-
prehensive system of agricultural credit was set up.
Thousands of new schools and more than 3,500 vil-
lage health stations were built. Rail transportation
was restored and roads were repaired and im-
proved. South Vietnam not only fed itself but re-
sumed rice exports. Production of rubber and
sugar rose sharply. New industries were started.
Per capita income rose by twenty percent.
By contrast, North Vietnam suffered a drop of
ten percent in food production and disappointments
in industrial production.
In 1954, Hanoi almost certainly had expected to
take over South Vietnam within a few years. But
by 1959 its hopes had withered and the South was
far outstripping the heralded "Communist para-
dise." These almost certainly were the factors
which led Hanoi to organize and launch the assault
on the South.
I beg leave to quote from a statement I made at
a press conference on May 4, 1961:
Since late in 1959 organized Communist activity in the
form of guerrilla raids against army and security units
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of the Government of Vietnam, terrorist acts against local
officials and civilians, and other subversive activities in the
Republic of Vietnam have increased to levels unprece-
dented since the Geneva Agreements of 1954. During
this period the organized armed strength of the Viet Cong,
the Communist apparatus operating in the Republic of
Vietnam, has grown from about 3,000 to over 12,000 per-
sonnel. This armed strength has been supplemented by
an increase in the numbers of political and propaganda
agents in the area.
During 1960 alone, Communist armed units and terror-
ists assassinated or kidnapped over 3,000 local officials, mili-
tary personnel, and civilians. Their activities took the form
of armed attacks against isolated garrisons, attacks on newly
established townships, ambushes on roads and canals, de-
struction of bridges, and well-planned sabotage against pub-
lic works and communication lines. Because of Communist
guerrilla activity 200 elementary schools had to be closed
at various times, affecting over 25,000 students and 800
teachers.
This upsurge of Communist guerrilla activity apparently
stemmed from a decision made in May 1959 by the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of North Vietnam which
called for the reunification of Vietnam by all "appropriate
means." In July of the same year the Central Committee
was reorganized and charged with intelligence duties and
the "liberation" of South Vietnam. In retrospect this de-
cision to step up guerrilla activity was made to reverse the
remarkable success which the Government of the Republic
of Vietnam under President Ngo Dinh Diem had achieved
in consolidating its political position and in attaining signif-
icant economic recovery in the five years between 1954 and
1959.
Remarkably coincidental with the renewed Communist
activity in Laos, the Communist Party of North Vietnam at
its Third Congress on September 10, 1960, adopted a res-
olution which declared that the Vietnamese revolution has
as a major strategic task the liberation of the South from the
"rule of U.S. imperialists and their henchmen." This
resolution called for the direct overthrow of the Government
of the Republic of Vietnam.
Next door to South Vietnam, Laos was threat-
ened by a similar Communist assault. The active
agent of attack on both was Communist North
Vietnam, with the backing of Peiping and Moscow.
In the case of Laos, we were able to negotiate an
agreement in 1962 that it should be neutral and
that all foreign military personnel should be with-
drawn. We complied with that agreement. But
North Vietnam never did. In gross violation of
its pledge, it left armed units in Laos and continued
to use Laos as a corridor to infiltrate arms and
trained men into South -Vietnam.
There was no new agreement, even on paper, on
Vietnam. Late in 1961, President Kennedy there-
fore increased our assistance to the Republic of
Vietnam. During that year, the infiltration of arms
and military personnel from the North continued to
increase. To cope with that escalation, President
Kennedy decided to send more American military
personnel?to assist with logistics and transporta-
tion and communications as well as with training
and as advisers to South Vietnamese forces in the
field. Likewise we expanded our economic assist-
ance and technical advice, particularly with a view
to improving living conditions in the villages.
During 1962 and 1963 Hanoi continued to in-
crease its assistance to the Viet Cong. In response,
President Kennedy and later President Johnson in-
creased our aid.
Hanoi kept on escalating the war throughout
1964. And the Viet Cong intensified its drafting
and training of men in the areas it controls.
Last August, you will recall, North Vietnamese
forces attacked American destroyers in interna-
tional waters. That attack was met by appropriate
air response against North Vietnamese naval in-
stallations. And Congress, by a combined vote of
504 to 2, passed a resolution expressing its support
for actions by the Executive "including the use of
armed force" to meet aggression in Southeast Asia,
including specifically aggression against South
Vietnam. The resolution and the Congressional
debate specifically envisaged that, subject to con-
tinuing Congressional consultation, the armed
forces of the United States might be committed
in the defense of South Vietnam in any way that
seemed necessary, including employment in com-
bat.
In summary, our commitment in Vietnam has
been set forth in:
? The Southeast Asia Treaty, which was al-
most unanimously approved by the United
States Senate;
? The pledges made with bipartisan support
by three successive Presidents of the United
States;
? The assistance programs approved annual-
ly, beginning in 1955, by bipartisan ma-
jorities in both Houses of Congress;
? The declarations which we joined our
SEATO and ANZUS allies in making at
their Ministerial Council Meetings in 1964
and 1965;
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? The joint Congressional resolution of Au-
gust 1964, which was approved by a com-
bined vote of 504 to 2.
Our commitment is to assist the government and
people of South Vietnam to repel this aggression,
thus preserving their freedom. This commitment
is to the South Vietnamese as a nation and people.
It has continued through various changes of gov-
ernment, just as our commitments to our NATO
allies and, in various forms, to many other nations
remain unaltered by changes in government.
Continued escalation of the aggression by the
other side has required continued strengthening of
the military defenses of South Vietnam. Whether
still more American military personnel will be
needed will depend on events, especially on whether
the other side continues to escalate the aggression.
As the President has made plain, we will provide the
South Vietnamese with whatever assistance may be
necessary to ensure that the aggression against them
is effectively repelled?that is, to make good on our
commitment.
THE PURSUIT OF A PEACEFUL
SETTLEMENT
As President Johnson and his predecessors have
repeatedly' emphasized, our objective in Southeast
Asia is peace?a peace in which the various peoples
of the area can manage their own affairs in their
own ways and address themselves to economic and
social progress.
We seek no bases or special position for the
United States. We do not seek to destroy or over-
turn the Communist regimes in Hanoi and Peiping.
We ask only that they cease their aggressions, that
they leave their neighbors alone.
Repeatedly, we and others have sought to achieve
a peaceful settlement of the war in Vietnam.
We have had many talks with the Soviet au-
thorities over a period of more than four years.
But their influence in Hanoi appears to be limited.
Recently, when approached, their response has
been, in substance: You have come to the wrong
address?nobody has authorized us to negotiate.
Talk to Hanoi.
We have had a long series of talks with the Chi-
nese Communists in Warsaw. Although Peiping
is more cautious in action than in word, it is un-
12
bending in its hostility to us and plainly opposed
to any negotiated settlement in Vietnam.
There have been repeated contacts with Hanoi.
Many channels are open. And many have volun-
teered to use them. But so far there has been no
indication that Hanoi is seriously interested in
peace on any terms except those which would as-
sure a Communist take-over of South Vietnam.
We and others have sought to open the way for
conferences on the neighboring states of Laos and
Cambodia, where progress toward peace might be
reflected in Vietnam. These approaches have
been blocked by Hanoi and Peiping.
The United Kingdom, as Co-chairman of the
Geneva conferences, has repeatedly sought a path
to a settlement?first by working toward a new
Geneva conference, then by a visit by a senior
British statesman. Both efforts were blocked by
the Communists?and neither Hanoi nor Peiping
would even receive the senior British statesman.
In April, President Johnson offered uncondi-
tional discussions with the governments concerned.
Hanoi and Peiping called this offer a "hoax."
Seventeen nonaligned nations appealed for a
peaceful solution, by negotiations without precon-
ditions. We accepted the proposal. Hanoi and
Red China rejected it with scorn, calling some of
its authors "monsters and freaks."
The President of India made a constructive
proposal for an end to hostilities and an Afro-Asian
patrol force. We welcomed this proposal with
interest and hope. Hanoi and Peiping rejected it
as a betrayal.
In May, the United States and South Vietnam
suspended air attacks on North Vietnam. This
action was made known to the other side to see
if there would be a response in kind. But Hanoi
denounced the pause as "a worn-out trick" and
Peiping dcnounced it as a "swindle." Some say
the pause was not long enough. But we knew the
negative reaction from the other side before we
resumed. And we had paused previously for more
than four years while thousands of armed men in-
vaded the South and killed thousands of South
Vietnamese, including women and children, and
deliberately destroyed school houses and play-
grounds and hospitals and health centers and other
facilities that the South Vietnamese had built to
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improve their lives and give their children a chance
for a better education and better health..
In late June, the Commonwealth Prime Min-
isters established a mission of four of their members
to explore with all parties concerned the possibil-
ities for a conference leading to a just and lasting
peace. Hanoi and Peiping made it plain that they
would not receive the mission.
Mr. Harold Davies, a member of the British
Parliament, went to Hanoi with the approval of
Prime Minister Wilson. But the high officials
there would not even talk with him. And the
lower-ranking officials who did talk with him made
it clear that Hanoi was not yet interested in nego-
tiations, that it was intent on a total victory in
South Vietnam. As Prime Minister Wilson re-
ported to the House of Commons, Mr. Davies met
with a conviction among the North Vietnamese
that their prospects of victory were too imminent
for them to forsake the battlefield for the confer-
ence table.
We and others have made repeated efforts at
discussions through the United Nations. In the
Security Council, after the August attacks in the
Gulf of Tonkin, we supported a Soviet proposal
that the Government of North Vietnam be invited
to come to the Security Council. But Hanoi
refused.
In April, Secretary General U Thant considered
visits to Hanoi and Peiping to explore the possi-
bilities of peace. But both those Communist
regimes made it plain that they did not regard the
United Nations as competent to deal with that
matter.
The President's San Francisco speech in June
requested help from the United Nations' member-
ship at large in getting peace talks started.
In late July the President sent our new Ambas-
sador to the United Nations, Arthur J. Goldberg,
to New York with a letter to Secretary General U
Thant requesting that all the resources, energy and
immense prestige of the United Nations be em-
ployed to find ways to halt aggression and to bring
peace in Vietnam. The Secretary General has al-
ready accepted this assignment.
We sent a letter to the Security Council calling
attention to the special responsibility in this regard
of the Security Council and of the nations which
happen to be members of the Council. We have
considered from time to time placing the matter
formally before the Security Council. But we
have been advised by many nations?and by many
individuals?who are trying to help to achieve a
peaceful settlement that to force debate and a vote
in the Security Council might tend to harden posi-
tions and make useful explorations and discussions
even more difficult.
President Johnson has publicly invited any and
all members of the United Nations to do all they
can to bring about a peaceful settlement.
By these moves the United States has intended
to engage the serious attention and efforts of the
United Nations as an institution, and its members
as signatories of its Charter, in getting the Com-
munists to talk rather than fight?while continuing
with determination an increasing effort to demon-
strate that Hanoi and the Viet Cong cannot settle
the issue on the battlefield.
We have not only placed the Vietnam issue before
the United Nations, but believe that we have done
so in the most constructive ways.
THE CONDITIONS FOR PEACE
What are the essential conditions for peace in
South Vietnam?
In late June, the Foreign Minister of South Viet-
nam set forth the fundamental principles of a "just
and enduring peace." In summary, those principles
are:
? An end to aggression and subversion.
? Freedom for South Vietnam to choose and
shape for itself its own destiny "in conform-
ity with democratic principles and without
any foreign interference from whatever
sources."
? As soon as aggression has ceased, the ending
of the military measures now necessary by
the Government of South Vietnam and the
nations that have come to its aid to defend
South Vietnam; and the removal of foreign
military forces from South Vietnam.
? And effective guarantees for the freedom of
the people of South Vietnam.
We endorse those principles. In essence, they
would constitute a return to the basic purpose of the
Geneva Accords of 1951. Whether they require re-
affirmation of those Accords or new agreements em-
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bodying these essential points, but with provision in
either case for more effective international ma-
chinery and guarantees, could be determined in dis-
cussions and negotiations.
Once the basic points set forth by South Viet-
nam's Foreign Minister were achieved, future re-
lations between North Vietnam and South Vietnam
could be worked out by peaceful means. And this
would include the question of a free decision by the
people of North and South Vietnam on the matter
of reunification.
When the aggression has ceased and the freedom
of South Vietnam is assured by other means, we
will withdraw our forces. Three Presidents of the
United States have said many times that we want
no permanent bases and no special position there.
Our military forces are there because of the North
Vietnamese aggression against South Vietnam and
for no other reason. When the men and arms
infiltrated by the North are withdrawn and Hanoi
ceases its support and guidance of the war in the
South, whatever remains in the form of indigenous
dissent is a matter for the South Vietnamese them-
selves. As for South Vietnamese fighting in the
Viet Cong or under its control or influence, they
must in time be integrated into their national so-
ciety. But that is a process which must be brought
about by the people of South Vietnam, not by for-
eign diplomats.
Apart from the search for a solution in Vietnam
itself, the United States Government has hoped that
discussions could be held on the problems concern-
ing Cambodia and Laos. We supported the pro-
posal of Prince Sihanouk for a conference on Cam-
bodia, to be attended by the governments that par-
ticipated in the 1954 conference, and noted the joint
statement of the Soviet Union and the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam, in April, to the effect that
both favored the convening of conferences on Cam-
bodia and Laos. Subsequently, however, Hanoi ap-
peared to draw back and to impose conditions at
variance with the Cambodian proposal.
We look beyond. a just and enduring peace for
Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia, to the day when
Peiping will be ready to join in a general settle-
ment in the Far East?a general settlement that
would remove the threat of aggression and make
it possible for all the peoples of the area to devote
themselves to economic and social progress.
14
Several of the nations of Asia are densely popu-
lated. And high rates of population growth make
it difficult for them to increase per capita incomes.
The solution to these problems cannot be found
through external aggression. They must be
achieved internally within each nation.
As President Johnson has said, the United States
stands ready to assist and support cooperative pro-
grams for economic development in Asia. Already
we are making available additional funds for the
development of the Mekong Valley. And we are
taking the lead in organizing an Asian Development
Bank, which we hope will be supported by all the
major industrialized nations, including the Soviet
Union. We would welcome membership by North
Vietnam, when it has ceased its aggression.
Those arc our objectives?peace and a better
life for all who are willing to live at peace with
their neighbors.
THE PRESENT PATH
I turn now to the specific actions we are taking to
convince Hanoi that it will not succeed and that it
must move toward a peaceful solution.
Secretary McNamara is appearing before the ap-
propriate committees of the Congress to discuss the
military situation within South Vietnam in detail.
In essence, our present view is that it is crucial to
turn the tide in the South, and that for this purpose
it is necessary to send substantial numbers of addi-
tional American forces.
The primary responsibility for defeating the Viet
Cong will remain, however, with the South Viet-
namese. They have some 545,000 men in military
and paramilitary forces. Despite losses, every
branch of the armed forces of South Vietnam has
more men under arms than it had six months ago.
And they are making systematic efforts to increase
their forces still further. The primary missions of
American ground forces are to secure the air bases
used by the South Vietnamese and ourselves and to
provide a strategic reserve, thus releasing South
Vietnamese troops for offensive actions against the
Viet Cong. In securing the air bases and related
military installations, American forces are pushing
out into the countryside to prevent build-ups for
surprise attacks. And they may be used in emer-
gencies to help the South Vietnamese in combat.
But the main task of rooting out the Viet Cong will
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continue to be the responsibility of the South Viet-
namese. And we have seen no sign that they are
about to try to shift that responsibility to us. On the
contrary, the presence of increasing numbers of
American combat troops seems to have stimulated
greater efforts on the part of the fighting men of
South Vietnam.
At the same time, on the military side, we shall
maintain, with the South Vietnamese, our program
of limited air attacks on military targets in North
Vietnam. This program is a part of the total
strategy. We had never expected that air attacks
on North Vietnam alone would bring Hanoi to a
quick decision to cease its aggression. Hanoi has
been committed to its aggression too long and too
deeply to turn around overnight. It must be con-
vinced that it faces not only continuing, and per-
haps increased, pressure on the North itself, but
also that it simply cannot win in the South.
The air attacks on the North have also had spe-
cific military effects in reducing the scale of in-
creased infiltration from the North. Finally, they
are important as a warning to all concerned that
there are no longer sanctuaries for aggression.
It has been suggested in some quarters that
Hanoi would be more disposed to move to negotia-
tions and to cease its aggression if we stopped bomb-
ing the North. We do not rule out the possibility
of another and longer pause in bombing, but the
question remains?and we have repeatedly asked
it: What would happen from the North in re-
sponse? Would Hanoi withdraw the 325th Divi-
sion of the regular army, which is now deployed in
South Vietnam and across the line in Laos? Would
it take home the other men it has infiltrated into
the South? Would it stop sending arms and am-
munition into South Vietnam? Would the cam-
paign of assassination and sabotage in the South
cease? We have been trying to find out what would
happen if we were to suspend our bombing of the
North. We have not been able to get an answer or
even a hint.
Those who complain about air attacks on mili-
tary targets in North Vietnam would carry more
weight if they had manifested, or would manifest
now, appropriate concern about the infiltrations
from the North, the high rate of military activity
in the South and the ruthless campaign of terror
and assassination which is being conducted in the
South under the direction of Hanoi and with its
active support.
THE SITUATION IN SOUTH VIETNAM
Let me now underline just a few points about
the political and economic situation in South Viet-
nam. For we know well that, while security is
fundamental to turning the tide, it remains vital
to do all we can on the political and economic
fronts.
All of us have been concerned, of course, by the
difficulties of the South Vietnamese in developing
an effective and stable government. But this fail-
ure should not astonish us. South Vietnam is a
highly plural society striving to find its political
feet under very adverse conditions. Other na-
tions?new and old -NN ith fewer difficulties and
unmolested by determined aggressors have done no
better. South Vietnam emerged from the French
Indo-China war with many political factions, most
of which were firmly anti-Communist. Despite
several significant initial successes in establishing a
degree of political harmony, the Government of
President Diem could not maintain a lasting unity
among the many factions. The recent shifting and
reshuffling of Vietnamese governments is largely
the continuing search for political unity and a vi-
able regime which can overcome these long-evident
political divisions.
And we should not forget that the destruction of
the fabric of government at all levels has been a
primary objective of the Viet Cong. The Viet Cong
has assassinated thousands of local officials?and
health workers and school teachers and others who
were helping to improve the life of the people of
the countryside. In the last year and a half, it has
killed, wounded, or kidnapped 2,291 village officials
and 22,146 other civilians?these on top of its thou-
sands of earlier victims.
Despite the risks to themselves and their families,
Vietnamese have continued to come forward to fill
these posts. And in the last six years, no political
dissenter of any consequence has gone over to the
Viet Cong. The Buddhists, the Catholics, the sects,
the Cambodians (of whom there are about a million
in South Vietnam), the Montagnards?all the prin-
cipal elements in South Vietnamese political life
except the Viet Cong itself, which is a very small
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minority?remain overwhelmingly anti-Commu-
nist.
The suggestion that Ho Chi Minh probably
could win a free election in South Vietnam is di-
rectly contrary to all the evidence we have. And
we have a great deal of evidence, for we have
Americans?in twos and threes and fours and
sixes?in the countryside in all parts of Vietnam.
In years past Ho Chi Minh was a hero throughout
Vietnam. For he had led the fight against the
Japanese and then against the French. But his
glamor began to fade when he set up a Communist
police state in the North?and the South, by con-
trast, made great progress under a non-Communist
nationalist government. Today the North Viet-
namese regime is badly discredited. We find the
South Vietnamese in the countryside ready to co-
operate with their own government when they can
do so with reasonable hope of not being assassinated
by the Viet Cong the next night.
At the present time, somewhat more than 50
percent of the people of Vietnam live in areas under
control of their government. Another 25 percent
live in areas of shifting control. And about 25
percent live in areas under varying degree of Viet
Cong control. But even where it succeeds in im-
posing taxes, drafting recruits and commandeering
labor, the Viet Cong has not usually been able to
organize the area. We have a good deal of evi-
dence that Viet Cong tax exactions and terrorism
have increasingly alienated the villagers. And
one of the problems with which the South Viet-
namese government and we have to deal is the
large scale exodus from the Central Highlands to
the coastal areas of refugees from the Viet Cong.
It is of the greatest significance that, despite
many years of harsh war, despite the political in-
stability of the central government, and despite
division of their country since 1954, the people
of South Vietnam fight on with uncommon deter-
mination. There is no evidence among politicians,
the bureaucracy, the military, the major religious
groups, the youth, or even the peasantry of a desire
for peace at any price. They all oppose surrender
or accommodation on a basis which would lead
to a Communist take-over. The will to resist the
aggression from the North has survived through
periods of great stress and remains strong.
16
The central objective of our foreign policy is a
peaceful community of nations, each free to choose
its own institutions but cooperating with one an-
other to promote their mutual welfare. It is the
kind of world order envisaged in the opening sec-
tions of the United Nations Charter. But there
have been and still are important forces in the world
which seek a different goal?which deny the right
of free choice, which seek to expand their influ-
ence and empires by every means, including force.
THE BULWARK OF PEACE
In defense of peace and freedom and the right
of free choice:
? We and others insisted that the Soviets
withdraw their forces from Iran.
? We went to the aid of Turkey and Greece.
? We joined in organizing the European
Recovery Program and in forming the
North Atlantic Alliance.
? We and our allies have defended the free-
dom of West Berlin.
?We and 15 other nations joined in repel-
ling the aggression in Korea.
? We have joined defensive alliances with
many other nations and have helped them
to strengthen their defensive military
forces.
? We supported the United Nations in its
efforts to preserve the independence of the
Congo.
? We insisted that the Soviet Union with-
draw strategic weapons from Cuba.
Had we not done these things?and others?the
enemies of freedom would now control much of the
world and be in a position to destroy us or at least
to sap our strength by economic strangulation.
For the same basic reasons that we took all those
other measures to deter or to repel aggression, we
are determined to assist the people of South Viet-
nam to defeat this aggression.
In his last public utterance, recorded only half an
hour before his death, a great and beloved Amer-
ican, Adlai Stevenson, said:
There has been a great deal of pressure on me in the
United States from many sources to take a position?a pub-
lic position?inconsistent with that of my Government. Ac-
tually, I don't agree with those protestants. My hope in
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Vietnam is that resistance there may establish the fact that
changes in Asia arc not to be precipitated by outside forces.
I believe, with the President, that "once the Com-
munists know, as we know, that a violent solution is
impossible, then a peaceful solution is inevitable."
The great bulwark of peace for all free men?and
therefore of peace for the millions ruled by the ad-
versaries of freedom?has been, and is today, the
power of the United States and our readiness to
use that power, in cooperation with other free na-
tions, to deter or to defeat aggression, and to help
other free nations to go forward economically,
socially, and politically.
We have had to cope with a long series of danger-
ous crises caused by the aggressive appetites of
others. But we are a great nation and people. I
am confident that we will meet this test, as we have
met others.
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The Tasks of Defense
Statement by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara before the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate
Appropriations Committee, August 4, 1965
The issue in Vietnam is essentially the same as it
was in 1954 when President Eisenhower said:
I think it is no longer necessary to enter into a long argu-
ment or exposition to show the importance to the United
States of Indochina and of the struggle going on there. No
matter how the struggle may have started, it has long since
become one of the testing places between a free form of gov-
ernment and dictatorship. Its outcome is going to have the
greatest significance for us, and possibly for a long time into
the future.
We have here a sort of cork in the bottle, the bottle being
the great area that includes Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, all
of the surrounding areas of Asia with its hundreds of mil-
lions of people. . . .
THE NATURE OF THE CONFLICT
What is at stake in Vietnam today is the ability of
the free world to block Communist armed aggres-
sion and prevent the loss of all of Southeast Asia, a
loss which in its ultimate consequences could drasti-
cally alter the strategic situation in Asia and the
Pacific to the grave detriment of our own security
and that of our Allies. While fifteen years ago, in
Korea, Communist aggression took the form of an
overt armed attack, today in South Vietnam, it has
taken the form of a large scale intensive guerrilla
operation.
The covert nature of this aggression, which
characterized the earlier years of the struggle in
South Vietnam, has now all but been stripped
away. The control of the Viet Cong effort by the
regime in Hanoi, supported and incited by Com-
munist China, has become increasingly apparent.
The struggle there has enormous implications
for the security of the United States and the free
world, and for that matter, the Soviet Union as
well. The North Vietnamese and the Chinese
Communists have chosen to make South Vietnam
the test case for their particular version of the so-
called "wars of national liberation." The extent
to which violence should be used in overthrowing
non-Communist governments has been one of the
most bitterly contested issues between the Chinese
and the Soviet Communists.
Although the former Chairman, Mr. Khru-
shchev, fully endorsed wars of national liberation as
the preferred means of extending the sway of com-
munism, he cautioned that "this does not necessar-
ily mean that the transition to Socialism will every-
where and in all cases be linked with armed upris-
ing and civil war. . . . Revolution by peaceful
means accords with the interests of the working
class and the masses."
The Chinese Communists, however, insist that:
Peaceful co-existence cannot replace the revolutionary
struggles of the people. The transition from capitalism to
socialism in any country can only be brought about through
proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the prole-
tariat in that country. . . . The vanguard of the prole-
tariat will remain unconquerable in all circumstances only
if it masters all forms of struggle?peaceful and armed,
open and secret, legal and illegal, parliamentary struggle
and mass struggle, and so forth. (Letter to the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,
June 14,1963.)
Their preference for violence was even more em-
phatically expressed in an article in the Peiping
People's Daily of March 31, 1964:
It is advantageous from the point of view of tactics to
refer to the desire for peaceful transition, but it would be
inappropriate to emphasize the possibility of peaceful transi-
tion. . . . the proletarian party must never substitute par-
liamentary struggle for proletarian revolution or entertain
the illusion that the transition to socialism can be achieved
through the parliamentary road. Violent revolution is a
universal law of proletarian revolution. To realize the
transition to socialism, the proletariat must wage armed
struggle, smash the old state machine and establish the dicta-
torship of the proletariat. . . .
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"Political power," the article quotes Mao Tse-tung
as saying, "grows out of the barrel of a gun."
Throughout the world we see the fruits of these
policies and in Vietnam, particularly, we see the
effects of the Chinese Communists' more militant
stance and their hatred of the free world. They
make no secret of the fact that Vietnam is the test
case, and neither does the regime in Hanoi. Gen-
eral Giap, head of the North Vietnamese Army, re-
cently said that "South Vietnam is the model of the
national liberation movement of our time. . . .
If the special warfare that the U.S. imperialists are
testing in South Vietnam is overcome, then it can be
defeated everywhere in the world." And, Pham
Van Dong, Premier of North Vietnam, pointed out
that "The experience of our compatriots in South
Vietnam attracts the attention of the world, espe-
cially the peoples of South America."
It is clear that a Communist success in South Viet-
nam would be taken as proof that the Chinese Com-
munists' position is correct and they will have made
a giant step forward in their efforts to seize control
of the world Communist movement.
Furthermore, such a success would greatly in-
crease the prestige of Communist China among the
non-aligned nations and strengthen the position of
their followers everywhere. In that event we would
then have to be prepared to cope with the same
kind of aggression in other parts of the world wher-
ever the existing governments are weak and the so-
cial structures fragmented. If Communist armed
aggression is not stopped in Vietnam, as it was in
Korea, the confidence of small nations in America's
pledge of support will be weakened and many of
them, in widely separated areas of the world, will
feel unsafe.
Thus, the stakes in South Vietnam are far greater
than the loss of one small country to communism.
Its loss would be a most serious setback to the cause
of freedom and would greatly complicate the task
of preventing the further spread of militant Asian
communism. And, if that spread is not halted,
our strategic position in the world vill be weakened
and our national security directly endangered.
CONDITIONS LEADING TO THE PRESENT
SITUATION IN SOUTH VIETNAM
Essential to a proper understanding of the present
situation in South Vietnam is a recognition of the
20
fact that the so-called insurgency there is planned,
directed, controlled and supported from Hanoi.
True, there is a small dissident minority in South
Vietnam, but the Government could cope with it
if it were not directed and supplied from the outside.
As early as 1960, at the Third Congress of the North
Vietnamese Communist Party, both Ho Chi Minh
and General Giap spoke of the need to "step up"
the "revolution in the South." In March 1963 the
party organ Hoc Tap stated that the authorities in
South Vietnam "are well aware that North Viet-
nam is the firm base for the southern revolution and
the point on which it leans, and that our party is
the steady and experienced vanguard unit of the
working class and people and is the brain and factor
that decides all victories of the revolution."
Through most of the past decade the North Viet-
namese Government denied and went to great ef-
forts to conceal the scale of its personnel and
materiel support, in addition to direction and en-
couragement, to the Viet Cong.
It had strong reasons to do so. The North
Vietnamese regime had no wish to force upon the
attention of the world its massive and persistent
violations of its Geneva pledges of 1954 and 1962
regarding non-interference in South Vietnam and
Laos.
However, in building up the Viet Cong forces
for a decisive challenge, the authorities in North
Vietnam have increasingly dropped the disguises
that gave their earlier support a clandestine char-
acter.
Through 1963, the bulk of the arms infiltrated
from the North were old French and American
models acquired prior to 1954 in Indochina and
Korea.
Now, the flow of weapons from North Vietnam
consists almost entirely of the latest arms acquired
from Communist China; and the flow is large
enough to have entirely reequipped the Main Force
units, despite the capture this year by government
forces of thousands of these weapons and millions
of rounds of the new ammunition.
Likewise, through 1963, nearly all the personnel
infiltrating through Laos, trained and equipped in
the North and ordered South, were former South-
erners.
But in the last eighteen months, the great ma-
jority of the infiltrators?more than 10,000 of
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them?have been ethnic Northerners, mostly
draftees ordered into the People's Army of Vietnam
for duty in the South. And it now appears that,
starting their journey through Laos last December,
from one to three regiments of a North Vietnamese
regular division, the 325th Division of the North
Vietnamese Army, have deployed into the Central
Highlands of South Vietnam for combat along-
side the Viet Cong.
Thus, despite all its reasons for secrecy, Hanoi's
desire for decisive results this summer has forced
it to reveal its hand even more openly.
The United States during the last four years has
steadily increased its help to the people of South
Vietnam in an effort to counter this ever-increasing
scale of Communist aggression. These efforts
achieved some measure of success during 1962.
The South Vietnamese forces in that year made
good progress in suppressing the Viet Cong insur-
rection.
Although combat deaths suffered by these forces
in 1962 rose by 11 percent over the 1961 level (from
about 4,000 to 4,450), Viet Cong combat deaths
increased by 72 percent (from about 12,000 to
21,000).Weapons lost by the South Vietnamese
fell from 5,900 in 1961 to 5,200 in 1962, while the
number lost by the Viet Cong rose from 2,750 to
4,050. The Government's new strategic hamlet
program was just getting underway and was show-
ing promise. The economy was growing and the
Government seemed firmly in control. Therefore,
in early 1963, I was able to say:
. . . victory over the Viet Cong will most likely take
many years. But now, as a result of the operations of the last
year, there is a new feeling of confidence, not only on the
part of the Government of South Vietnam but also among
the populace, that victory is possible.
But at the same time I also cautioned:
We are not unmindful of the fact that the pressures on
South Vietnam may well continue through infiltration via
the Laos corridor. Nor are we unmindful of the possibility
that the Communists, sensing defeat in their covert efforts,
might resort to overt aggression from North Vietnam.
Obviously, this latter contingency could require a greater
direct participation by the United States. The survival of
an independent government in South Vietnam is so impor-
tant to the security of all of Southeast Asia and to the free
world that we must be prepared to take all necessary
measures within our capability to prevent a Communist
victory.
Unfortunately, the caution voiced in early 1963
proved to be well founded. Late in 1963, the Com-
munists stepped up their efforts, and the military
situation began to deteriorate. The Diem Govern-
ment came under increasing internal pressure, and
in November it was overthrown. As I reported in
February 1964:
The Viet Cong was quick to take advantage of the grow-
ing opposition to the Diem Government and the period of
uncertainty following its overthrow. Viet Cong activities
were already increasing in September and continued to in-
crease at an accelerated rate in October and November, par-
ticularly in the Delta area. And I must report that they have
made considerable progress since the coup.
Following the coup, the lack of stability in the
central Government and the rapid turnover of key
personnel, particularly senior military commanders,
began to be reflected in combat operations and
throughout the entire fabric of the political and
economic structure. And, in 1964, the Communists
greatly increased the scope and tempo of their sub-
versive efforts. Larger scale attacks became more
frequent and the flow of men and supplies from the
North expanded. The incidence of terrorism and
sabotage rose rapidly and the pressure on the
civilian population was intensified.
The deteriorating military situation was clearly
reflected in the statistics. South Vietnamese com-
bat deaths rose from 5,650 in 1963 to 7,450 in 1964
and the number of weapons lost from 8,250 to
14,100. In contrast, Viet Cong combat deaths
dropped from 20,600 to 16,800 and, considering
the stepped-up tempo of activity, they experienced
only a very modest rise in the rate of weapons lost
(from 5,400 to 5,900).
At various times in recent months, I have called
attention to the continued buildup of Communist
forces in South Vietnam. I pointed out that al-
though these forces had not been committed to
combat in any significant degree, they probably
would be after the start of the monsoon season. It
is now clear that these forces are being committed
in increasing numbers and that the Communists
have decided to make an all-out attempt to bring
down the Government of South Vietnam.
The entire economic and social structure is under
attack. Bridges, railroads and highways are being
destroyed and interdicted. Agricultural products
are being barred from the cities. Electric power
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plants and communication lines are being sabo-
taged. Whole villages are being burned and their
population driven away, increasing the refugee
burden on the South Vietnamese Government.
In addition to the continued infiltration of in-
creasing numbers of individuals and the accelera-
tion of the flow of modem equipment and supplies,
organized units of the North Vietnamese Army have
been identified in South Vietnam. We now esti-
mate the hard core Viet Cong strength at some
70,000 men, including a recently reported increase
in the number of combat battalions. In addition,
they have some 90,000 to 100,000 irregulars and
some 30,000 in their political cadres, i.e., tax col-
lectors, propagandists, etc. We have also identified
at least three battalions of the regular North Viet-
namese Army, and there are probably considerably
more.
At the same time the Government of South Viet-
nam has found it increasingly difficult to make a
commensurate increase in the size of its own forces,
which now stand at about 545,000 men, including
the regional and local defense forces but excluding
the national police.
Combat deaths on both sides have been mount-
ing?for the South Vietnamese from an average of
143 men a week in 1964 to about 270 a week for
the four-week period ending July 24 this year. Viet
Cong losses have gone from 322 a week last year to
about 680 a week for the four-week period ending
July 24.
Most important, the ratio of South Vietnamese
to Viet Cong strength has seriously declined in the
last six or seven months from about five to one to
about three or three-and-a-half to one; the ratio
of combat battalions is substantially less. This is
far too low a ratio for a guerrilla war even though
the greater mobility and firepower provided to the
South Vietnamese forces by the United States help
to offset that disadvantage.
The South Vietnamese forces have to defend
hundreds of cities, towns and hamlets while the Viet
Cong are free to choose the time and place of their
attack. As a result, the South Vietnamese are
stretched thin in defensive positions, leaving only
a small central reserve for offensive action against
the Viet Cong, while the latter are left free to con-
centrate their forces and throw them against select-
22
ed targets. It is not surprising, therefore, that the
Viet Cong retains most of the initiative.
Even so, we may not as yet have seen the full
weight of the Communist attack. Presently, the
situation is particularly acute in the northern part
of the country where the Communists have mobil-
ized large military forces which pose a threat to
the entire region and its major cities and towns.
Our air attack may have helped to keep these forces
off balance but the threat remains and it is very
real.
Clearly, the time has come when the people of
South Vietnam need more help from us and other
nations if they are to retain their freedom and in-
dependence.
We have already responded to that need with
some 75,000 U.S. military personnel, including
some combat units. This number will be raised
to 125,000 almost immediately with the deploy-
ment of the Air Mobile Division and certain other
forces. But, more help will be needed in the
months ahead and additional U.S. combat forces
will be required to back up the hard-pressed Army
of South Vietnam. Two other nations have pro-
vided combat forces?Australia and New Zealand.
We hope that by the end of this year others will join
them. In this regard, the Koreans have just re-
cently approved a combat division for deployment
to Vietnam, which is scheduled to arrive this fall.
ROLE OF U.S. COMBAT FORCES IN
SOUTH VIETNAM
As I noted earlier, the central reserve of the
South Vietnamese Army has been seriously de-
pleted in recent months. The principal role of
U.S. ground combat forces will be to supplement
this reserve in support of the front line forces of
the South Vietnamese Army. The indigenous
paramilitary forces will deal with the pacification
of areas cleared of organized Viet Cong and North
Vietnamese units, a role more appropriate for them
than for our forces.
The Government of South Vietnam's strategy,
with which we concur, is to achieve the initiative,
to expand gradually its area of control by breaking
up major concentrations of enemy forces, using to
the maximum our preponderance of air power,
both land and sea-based. The number of "fixed-
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wing" attack sorties by U.S. aircraft in South Viet-
nam will increase many fold by the end of the year.
Armed helicopter sorties will also increase dra-
matically over the same period, and extensive usc
will be made of heavy artillery, both land-based
and sea-based. At the same time our Air and Naval
forces will continue to interdict the Viet Cong sup-
ply lines from North Vietnam, both land and sea.
Although our tactics have changed, our objective
remains the same.
We have no desire to widen the war. We have
no desire to overthrow the North Vietnamese re-
gime, seize its territory or achieve the unification of
North and South Vietnam by force of arms. We
have no need for permanent military bases in South
Vietnam or for special privileges of any kind.
What we are seeking through the planned mili-
tary buildup is to block the Viet Cong offensive, to
give the people of South Vietnam and their armed
forces some relief from the unrelenting Communist
pressures?to give them time to strengthen their
government, to re-establish law and order, and to
revive their economic life which has been seriously
disrupted by Viet Cong harassment and attack in
recent months. We have no illusions that success
will be achieved quickly, but we are confident that
it will be achieved much more surely by the plan
I have outlined.
INCREASES IN U.S. MILITARY FORCES
Fortunately, we have greatly increased the
strength and readiness of our military establish-
ment since 1961, particularly in the kinds of forces
which we now require in Southeast Asia. The
active Army has been expanded from 11 to 16
combat-ready divisions. Twenty thousand men
have been added to the Marine Corps to allow
them to fill out their combat structure and at the
same time facilitate the mobilization of the
Marine Corps Reserve. The tactical fighter
squadrons of the Air Force have been increased
by 51 percent. Our airlift capability has more
than doubled. Special Forces trained to deal with
insurgency threats have been multiplied eleven-
fold. General ship construction and conversion
has been doubled.
During this same period, procurement for the
expanded force has been increased greatly: Air
Force tactical aircraft?from $360 million in 1961
to about $1.1 billion in the original fiscal year 1966
budget; Navy aircraft?from $1.8 billion to $2.2
billion; Army helicopters?from 286 aircraft to
over 1,000. Procurement of ordnance, vehicles
and related equipment was increased about 150
percent in the fiscal years 1962-1964 period, com-
pared with the preceding three years. The ton-
nage of modern non-nuclear air-to-ground
ordnance in stock tripled between fiscal year 1961
and fiscal year 1965. In brief, the military estab-
lishment of the United States, today, is in far
better shape than it ever has been in peacetime to
face whatever tasks may lie ahead.
Nevertheless, some further increases in forces,
military personnel, production and construction
will be required if we are to deploy additional
forces to Southeast Asia and provide for combat
consumption while, at the same time, maintaining
our capabilities to deal with crises elsewhere in the
world.
To offset the deployments now planned to
Southeast Asia, and provide some additional forces
for possible new deployments, we propose to in-
crease the presently authorized force levels. These
increases will be of three types: (1) Additional
units for the active forces, over and above those
reflected in the January budget; (2) military per-
sonnel augmentations for presently authorized
units in the active forces to man new bases, to
handle the larger logistics workload, etc.; and (3)
additional personnel and extra training for
selected reserve component units to increase their
readiness for quick deployment. We believe we
can achieve this buildup without calling up the
reserves or ordering the involuntary extension of
tours, except as already authorized by law for the
Department of the Navy. Even here the exten-
sion of officer tours will be on a selective basis and
extensions for enlisted men will be limited, in
general, to not more than four months.
The program I have outlined here today and the
$1.7 billion amendment to the fiscal year 1966 De-
fense Appropriation Bill now before the Commit-
tee will, in the collective judgment of my principal
military and civilian advisers and myself, provide
the men, materiel and facilities required to fulfill
the President's pledge to meet the mounting aggres-
sion in South Vietnam, while at the same time
maintaining the forces required to meet commit-
ments elsewhere in the world.
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The Challenge of Human Need
Address by the President to the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, The White House,
May 13, 1965
THE THIRD FACE OF THE WAR
The war in Vietnam has many faces.
There is the face of armed conflict?of terror
and gunfire?of bomb-heavy planes and campaign-
weary soldiers. . . .
The second face of war in Vietnam is the quest
for a political solution?the face of diplomacy and
politics?of the ambitions and the interests of other
nations. . . .
The third face of war in Vietnam is, at once, the
most tragic and most hopeful. It is the face of
human need. It is the untended sick, the hungry
family, and the illiterate child. It is men and
women, many without shelter, with rags for cloth-
ing, struggling for survival in a very rich and a very
fertile land.
It is the most important battle of all in which we
are engaged.
For a nation cannot be built by armed power or
by political agreement. It will rest on the expec-
tation by individual men and women that their
future will be better than their past.
It is not enough to just fight against something.
People must fight for something, and the people
of South Vietnam must know that after the long,
brutal journey through the dark tunnel of conflict
there breaks thc light of a happier day. And only
if this is so can they be expected to sustain the en-
during will for continued strife. Only in this way
can long-run stability and peace come to their land.
And there is another, more profound reason. In
Vietnam communism seeks to really impose its
will by force of arms. But we would be deeply
mistaken to think that this was the only weapon.
Here, as other places in the. world, they speak to
restless people?people rising to shatter the old
ways which have imprisoned hope?people fiercely
and justly reaching for the material fruits from
the tree of modern knowledge.
It is this desire, and not simply lust for conquest,
which moves many of the individual fighting men
that we must now, sadly, call the enemy.
It is, therefore, our task to show that freedom
from the control of other nations offers the surest
road to progress, that history and experience testify
to this truth. But it is not enough to call upon
reason or point to examples. We must show it
through action and we must show it through ac-
complishment, and even were there no war?either
hot or cold?we would always be active in human-
ity's search for progress.
This task is commanded to us by the moral values
of our civilization, and it rests on the inescapable
nature of the world that we have now entered.
For in that world, as long as we can foresee, every
threat to man's welfare will be a threat to the wel-
fare of our own people. Those who live in the
emerging community of nations will ignore the
perils of their neighbors at the risk of their own
prospects.
COOPERATIVE DEVELOPMENT IN
SOUTHEAST ASIA
This is true not only for Vietnam but for every
part of the developing world. This is why, on your
behalf, I recently proposed a massive, cooperative
development effort for all of Southeast Asia. I
named the respected leader, Eugene Black, as my
personal representative to inaugurate our partici-
pation in these programs.
Since that time rapid progress has been made, I
am glad to report. Mr. Black has met with the top
officials of the United Nations on several occasions.
He has talked to other interested parties. He has
found increasing enthusiasm. The United Na-
tions is already setting up new mechanisms to help
carry forward the work of development.
In addition, the United States is now prepared to
participate in, and to support, an Asian Develop-
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ment Bank, to carry out and help finance the eco-
nomic progress in that area of the world and the
development that we desire to see in that area of the
world.
So this morning I call on every other industrial-
ized nation, including the Soviet Union, to help
create a better life for all of the people of Southeast
Asia.
Surely, surely, the works of peace can bring men
together in a common effort to abandon forever
the works of war.
But, as South Vietnam is the central place of
conflict, it is also a principal focus of our work to
increase the well-being of people.
It is that effort in South Vietnam, of which I
think we are too little informed, which I want to
relate to you this morning.
STRENGTHENING VIETNAM'S ECONOMY
We began in 1954, when Vietnam became in-
dependent, before the war between the North and
the South. Since that time we have spent more
than $2 billion in economic help for the 16 million
people of South Vietnam. And despite the rav-
ages of war, we have made steady, continuing gains.
We have concentrated on food, and health, and
education, and housing, and industry.
Like most developing countries, South Vietnam's
economy rests on agriculture. Unlike many, it has
large uncrowded areas of very rich and very fertile
land. Because of this, it is one of the great rice
bowls of the entire world. With our help, since
1954, South Vietnam has already doubled its rice
production, providing food for the people as well as
providing a vital export for that nation.
We have put our American farm know-how to
work on other crops. This year, for instance, sev-
eral hundred million cuttings of a new variety of
sweet potato, that promises a sixfold increase in
yield, will be distributed to these Vietnamese
farmers. Corn output should rise from 25,000
tons in 1962 to 100,000 tons by 1966. Pig pro-
duction has more than doubled since 1955. Many
animal diseases have been eliminated entirely.
Disease and epidemic brood over every Viet-
namese village. In a country of more than 16 mil-
26
lion people with a life expectancy of only 35 years,
there are only 200 civilian doctors. If the Viet-
namese had doctors in the same ratio as the United
States has doctors, they would have not the 200
that they do have but they would have more than
5,000 doctors.
We have helped vaccinate, already, over 7 mil-
lion people against cholera, and millions more
against other diseases. Hundreds of thousands of
Vietnamese can now receive treatment in the more
than 12,000 hamlet health stations that America
has built and has stocked. New clinics and sur-
gical suites are scattered throughout that entire
country; and the medical school that we are now
helping to build will graduate as many doctors in
a single year as now serve the entire civilian popu-
lation of South Vietnam.
Education is the keystone of future development
in Vietnam. It takes trained people to man the
factories, to conduct the administration, and to
form the human foundation for an advancing
nation. More than a quarter million young Viet-
namese can now learn in more than 4,000 class-
rooms that America has helped to build in the last
2 years; and 2,000 more schools are going to be
built by us in the next 12 months. The number of
students in vocational schools has gone up four
times. Enrollment was 300,000 in 1955, when we
first entered there and started helping with our
program. Today it is more than 1,500,000. The
8 million textbooks that we have supplied to Viet-
namese children will rise to more than 15 million
by 1967.
Agriculture is the foundation. Health, educa-
tion, and housing are the urgent human needs.
But industrial development is the great pathway to
their future.
When Vietnam was divided, most of the in-
dustry was in the North. The South was barren
of manufacturing and the foundations for industry.
Today more than 700 new or rehabilitated fac-
tories?textiles mills and cement plants, electronics
and plastics?are changing the entire face of that
nation. New roads and communications, railroad
equipment, and electric generators are a spreading
base on which this new industry can, and is,
growing.
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PROGRESS IN THE MIDST OF WAR
All this progress goes on, and it is going to con-
tinue to go on, under circumstances of staggering
adversity.
Communist terrorists have made aid programs
that we administer a very special target of their
attack. They fear them, because agricultural sta-
tions are being destroyed and medical centers are
being burned. More than 100 Vietnamese malaria
fighters are dead. Our own AID officials have
been wounded and kidnapped. These are not just
the accidents of war. They are a part of a delib-
erate campaign, in the words of the Communists,
"to cut the fingers off the hands of the government."
We intend to continue, and we intend to increase
our help to Vietnam.
Nor can anyone doubt the determination of the
South Vietnamese themselves. They have lost
more than 12,000 of their men since I became your
President a little over a year ago.
But progress does not come from investment
alone, or plans on a desk, or even the directives
and the orders that we approve here in Washing-
ton. It takes men. Men must take the seed to
the farmer. Men must teach the use of fertilizer.
Men must help in harvest. Men must build the
schools, and men must instruct the students. Men
must carry medicine into the jungle, and treat the
sick, and shelter the homeless. And men?brave,
tireless, filled with love for their fellows?are doing
this today. They are doing it through the long,
hot, danger-filled Vietnamese days and the sultry
nights.
The fullest glory must go, also, to those South
Vietnamese that are laboring and dying for their
own people and their own nation. In hospitals
and schools, along the rice fields and the roads, they
continue to labor, never knowing when death or
terror may strike.
How incredible it is that there are a few who still
say that the South Vietnamese do not want to con-
tinue the struggle. They are sacrificing and they
are dying by the thousands. Their patient valor
in the heavy presence of personal physical danger
should be a helpful lesson to those of us who, here in
America, only have to read about it, or hear about
it on the television or radio.
We have our own heroes who labor at the works
of peace in the midst of war. They toil unarmed
and out of uniform. They know the humanity of
their concern does not exempt them from the
horrors of conflict, yet they go on from day to
day. They bring food to the hungry over there.
They supply the sick with necessary medicine.
They help the farmer with his crops, families to find
clean water, villages to receive the healing miracles
of electricity. These are Americans who have
joined our AID program, and we welcome others
to their ranks.
A CALL FOR AID
For most Americans this is an easy war. Men
fight and men suffer and men die, as they always
do in war. But the lives of most of us, at least those
of us in this room and those listening to me this
morning, are untroubled. Prosperity rises, abun-
dance increases, the nation flourishes.
I will report to the Cabinet when I leave this
room that we are in the 51st month of continued
prosperity, the longest peacetime prosperity for
America since our country was founded. Yet our
entire future is at stake.
What a difference it would make if we could
only call upon a small fraction of our unmatched
private resources?businesses and unions, agricul-
tural groups and builders?if we could call them to
the task of peaceful progress in Vietnam. With
such a spirit of patriotic sacrifice we might well
strike an irresistible blow for freedom there and for
freedom throughout the world.
I therefore hope that every person within the
sound of my voice in this country this morning will
look for ways?and those citizens of other nations
who believe in humanity as we do, I hope that they
will find ways to help progress in South Vietnam.
This, then, is the third face of our struggle in
Vietnam. It was there?the illiterate, the hun-
gry, the sick?before this war began. It will be
there when peace comes to us?and so will we?not
with soldiers and planes, not with bombs and bul-
lets, but with all the wondrous weapons of peace
in the 20th century.
And then, perhaps, together, all of the people
of the world can share that gracious task with all
the people of Vietnam, North and South alike.
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