Vietnam Debate
DIRKSEN, EVERETT & FULBRIGHT, J. W.
Vietnam Debate The current Senate debate over Vietnam erupted in a heated controversy on October 3 when Minority Leader Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois, a fervent supporter of the conduct of...
...Fulbright: I think the Senator is making a real contribution...
...I think history will bear this out: that Lincoln met aboard ship two of them who had been brought through the lines...
...Fulbright: Why not...
...I am sure they did not kill anything like as many people, nor disrupt the economy and the life of the people in Vietnam as much...
...We put him in office, he was "our boy...
...That does not mean the Soviets are intending to use South Vietnam or North Vietnam as a steppingstone to attack us...
...One lesson in history is enough and with 450,000 men, and perhaps more over there now, no sir...
...Do we retreat...
...It was minor in Albania, Rumania, and Poland...
...We in the Senate ought to be able to come to a resolution and a high degree of agreement as to where our interests are...
...That is our left flank...
...Dirksen: Before the Senator gets too far away from Ridgway and Gavin, I think we have got to keep our history straight here...
...Dirksen: I saw a little subhead on it...
...Why is it that there is such a great question now...
...They did not always send troops, but there were other kinds of assistance that they sent...
...What kind of posture does it put us in...
...1 believe, finally relented and supported the Consular Treaty this year...
...I think there is evidence, not just in the Senate, but in the polls and the statements of recognized and respectable people??they are not all peculiar people who are evidencing dissent in this matter??that there is great confusion and much difference of opinion...
...Then, too, of course, there had to be a leader to take over somewhere along the line...
...Not procedural...
...Fulbright: The fact is that he created such a dictatorship that we had to come to his aid and support him all the time...
...The most responsible and intelligent young people of this country do not support this war, by and large...
...The idea that Vietnam would threaten the security of this country by bombs or other means is not realistic...
...Dirksen: Why not ask...
...We do not wish them to stay there...
...I cannot see that it is crucial to our nation's security...
...I do not know what other reason would lead us to say that what happens in South Vietnam is a real and direct threat to the security of the United States...
...Fulbright: I wish the Senator would explore that a little further...
...As for setting up a base there, if I know the meaning of the word...
...You have been quarreling for the last year about the conduct of the war...
...Dirksen: It was not a sign at all...
...I was trying to develop it...
...We did not agree the last time at the last minute...
...Fulbright: I think the Senator is quite correct...
...Fulbright: No...
...Fulbright: In what country...
...Dirksen: We undertook to fulfill a commitment under the seato Treaty...
...What is the answer...
...Fulbright: I do not see why the Senator thinks that they are behind Vietnam, and that this is a step intended to attack us...
...I would put it this way to see if it comes closer to the Senator's thought...
...Fulbright: He thought he should have...
...It was a colony, and they were trying to maintain it as a possession which they exploited for its wealth...
...But it is not minor any more...
...There was agreement to it, and we refused to agree...
...Dirksen: What does the Senator want to do...
...Dirksen: I did not say anything about the previous government...
...May I be the last ever to approach that kind of task...
...We have made considerable progress in various ways in adjusting to the Russians...
...Fulbright: Are we going to leave Vietnam...
...What about this area in Southeast Asia...
...The Senator does not deny that...
...How good is it for the morale of the troops...
...But, we could not get them...
...In a recent speech, it was stated that we should end our search-and-destroy operations...
...He then said: "Gentlemen, you fill in the rest of it, the disposition of the horses, the military material, the feed stocks, all of that...
...But I think, since then, there has been a lessening of pressure, a relaxation of that conflict, that they are moving themselves internally more toward a different and more relaxed system...
...Indochina, as it was then known, was under French tutelage for more than 90 years...
...I think that is very healthy...
...I was in Hanoi...
...They have no air force worthy of the name??the Chinese...
...In France and Italy it is still a major party...
...Fulbright: I think it does...
...That in itself is not decisive, but it is indicative of a lack of justification for this war...
...1 think history will prove him right...
...They have had a thousand years of history fighting the Chinese to avoid becoming a satellite, and they succeeded in that up until the French took them on...
...A great point was made about taking all this to the Security Council...
...Surely just what kind of government they may have in South Vietnam is not of such importance to us as to justify our risking 500,000 men...
...But they are helping an ally, in the same way we have helped allies...
...It is not a government...
...Perhaps the Senator does not...
...I think we have had some lessons in that field...
...We have intervened in a civil war, a war between Vietnamese...
...I heard the distinguished chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee ask these questions...
...Dirksen: I did not say we are going to have a base there...
...In that tender and gentle poem he said: We are the Dead...
...The Senator knows how much we are spending...
...Fulbright: They are to cooperate with the other members of the Southeast Asian Treaty as to what course we should take...
...Dirksen: What does the Senator want to do...
...Fulbright: I agree, and that is the reason why I think what I consider an obsolete concept of colonial bases is no longer adequate for security in this kind of world...
...Why, we were so circumspect about it that when the King and Queen were our guests, we set up a scaffolding in the Capitol rotunda so that the cameras would not catch the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga and the surrender of Lord Cornwallis...
...The matter was argued in this chamber for hours, as if it had not been up there...
...Then what...
...I would like to see a return to the principles of the Geneva Conference...
...And he does not wish us to be there permanently...
...Why, if that is so, do we not leave or turn it over to them...
...Do we de-escalate...
...There are 50 members of the Parliament who are still in jail...
...They are being hurt, and they are beginning to yelp...
...I would like to see that, and a negotiation under the co-chairmanship of Great Britain and Russia...
...I do not believe that would promote the security of this country...
...In some areas they reported that President Truman had issued a standstill order...
...Dirksen: We did not put him in...
...It means we have done something to dispel fears in Vietnam, and in shoving back the Vietcong so that life can pursue its normal course...
...This is an important difference...
...And I do not think we have yet given it a real try, partly because of the feeling that it is futile...
...I am not disposed to argue it...
...Fulbright: What 1 would like to see happen??whether it will happen this way I do not know??is a reconvening of the Geneva Conference, and our agreeing to abide by the result...
...You have not heard me quarreling with what we have done...
...And I do not like to see it go on the dispatch wires into every corner of the earth to make a headline...
...What would you deduce from it...
...I think this is the proper role of the minority party in any government, to take that position, to refine the issues...
...I do not mean that we have done this because of bad motives...
...One woman refused to print a newspaper under censorship and they threatened her with arrest...
...Dirksen: That is a different thing...
...The rate is going up, and will continue to go up if the war is intensified, one would suppose...
...Dirksen: It is still a speculation?1 have seen these figures put on a blackboard in a good many places?as to how many people will be killed if they unleash nuclear exchanges, and whose people will be killed in greater numbers...
...It is a ghastly feeling, I can tell you, and sometimes I had it on the Western front...
...He listened very carefully and then took a piece of paper...
...It is a speculation into the future, as to whether there will be a nuclear clash...
...They exploited it as they always have and as most colonial powers do...
...Vietnam would have been a Communist country, but an independent country...
...Fulbright: I did not even know they had an election in France...
...Dirksen: No commitment as to self-determination...
...Let me say that I was not made a Senator to preside over the liquidation of the holy fabric of freedom...
...Fulbright: All we tried to do in the South, since the Senator referred to Lincoln, was to set up our own government, if the North would leave us alone...
...I believe at that time there was the question of landing in North Vietnam, but, anyway, it was in the general area of Vietnam, and he decided not to go to the aid of the French...
...The Chinese have no navy worthy of the name...
...I think we are...
...Fulbright: The Senator mentions freedom...
...Here is one of our old allies, and suddenly freedom is snuffed out, like that...
...This is a great undertaking and a great risk...
...But there is something else that ought to engage our recollection and that is what happened in Korea in 1951...
...I saw our Navy planes, which we had given to the French, take off in the hope that they could save Dienbienphu, the last French stronghold, as the Senator knows...
...At least 15 or 30 million people have an election...
...I read just recently in the newspaper that a former minister there made a statement critical of the government and the next day they arrested him...
...Oh, yes, they begin to wonder whether they are the forgotten men, and are forgotten back home...
...I am sure that we can imagine the man who sat in my office and brought us all that information which I could not even discuss...
...Fulbright: I do not know that it was different from all the other French possessions...
...General MacArthur had made a statement??not under these same circumstances, but after what had been his experience in the same area ??to the effect that it would be very foolish to engage in a land war on the continent of Asia...
...I tried to emphasize my concept of our security line from Saigon and Vietnam to Korea...
...Fulbright: Just as Lincoln thought he should have...
...I am speaking of now, not South Vietnam...
...Fulbright: I was trying to develop what the Senator did say...
...I do not think we have looked all the way down that road...
...We took exception to Calhoun's Doctrine of Nullification and said that the South just could not walk out...
...To conquer South Vietnam...
...Dirksen: Oh, no...
...I think we are...
...But always it has to be within the framework of Congress' constitutional power, and we must not arrogate to ourselves the conduct of an external struggle...
...Do not misunderstand me, I thought this was a sign of a degree of relaxation of the kind of fear and apprehension that afflicted us at the height of the Stalin era...
...But General Eisenhower at least made a decision not to go into that precise area, Vietnam...
...They were content to leave their neighbors to the north alone...
...They did not even train people to run the government...
...Dirksen: Yes...
...That is not the kind of objective to justify this...
...It is certainly a sharp difference in principle...
...The people of South Vietnam put him there...
...If you do not, the chances are that you are right...
...The Senator himself...
...Inquiry leads me to believe that our Ambassador to the United Nations, Arthur Goldberg, has not been wanting in trying to get some kind of action in the Security Council...
...Dirksen: I thought it was in France...
...I think in the Kremlin and in Eastern Europe there are signs of it...
...We remember that Churchill said he was not made the King's first minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire...
...Does the Senator want to quit now and pull out...
...Fulbright: That is what Ho Chi Minh said to Diem...
...I do not...
...Fulbright: Does the Senator mean to say that Diem was elected in a free election...
...They are being hit...
...We could not energize the members of the Council to take a real interest in it...
...1 do not know what is going to be done about the tax bill, but the news in the papers every day says it will have very hard sledding...
...Just because they have a military junta for a specific purpose for a little while to shove back the Communist influence...
...No, you do not demean the ruler...
...That is the stinger...
...Could it not be possible that the feeling of those who oppose this war has some validity...
...As for freedom, it is an indivisible as well as a holy fabric...
...Does that mean anything...
...We can neither claim rights under it nor claim other people's rights under it...
...They are all part of it...
...and that they come to an agreement as to a way to have elections, full and free elections, throughout South Vietnam to create their government...
...Fulbright: Where...
...Therefore, I think we should return to the Geneva Conference and liquidate this war on the same basis the parties really involved??the French and the Vietnamese??agreed to in 1954, which we had a major part in disrupting and preventing from being carried out...
...and see what the reaction is...
...And what we are doing in assuming the mantle of the British Empire, and in beginning to accumulate bases such as Vietnam, is exposing ourselves to the same kind of troubles the British had??to a gradual erosion of our power and of our influence...
...I listened to him when he was on the platform at the time...
...These are all basically Vietnamese...
...That is one reason why our boys are in Vietnam...
...This is what 1 would like to see happen...
...That is our outside security line...
...Fulbright: I do not think so...
...Let freedom slip, and it begins to slip everywhere...
...I say, what will happen when freedom goes...
...I want to be sure only that I comport myself according to my own convictions and my own conscience, because I have a responsibility to myself, to my country, and to those boys who are out there in Vietnam now...
...It is an intolerable situation for the most powerful country in the world, with all the vast resources at its disposal, to be in this position, apparently not able to make up its mind...
...Dirksen: I do not think there is any doubt...
...Fulbright: That is a pertinent question...
...It was said the other day that our programs and our policies were suspect by friend and foe alike...
...Dirksen: If I said that, I would have opened up the whole subject of colonialism, which is as alien as anything I know of to our concept of government...
...We have already suffered, this year, more casualties than in all of last year...
...Am I correct...
...There was very little question in Korea...
...I am content to go along in the interest of our troops with the position that does not forfeit our leverage??in the hope that there can be negotiation??and put it on thicker and thicker if necessary...
...It depends on whether or not you take a global view of security...
...What happened...
...Obviously, it would take a long military lecture of global dimensions to persuade my friend from Arkansas...
...But coming back to the matter of security??which is certainly involved in the long term??i think that we are weakening this country...
...for when you do, you demean the prestige of this Republic, the one remaining great, free republic on the face of the earth today...
...At the top he wrote: "No...
...When it is impaired in one place, that impairment continues...
...If that does not involve security, I have no understanding of the word...
...There has been a difference of opinion among the highest branches of the military establishment on this particular problem...
...It has swallowed up all those countries...
...just leave No...
...This is a Communist threat...
...1. The Union must be preserved...
...Dirksen: No, sir...
...Indeed not...
...You just said we are going to have a base...
...Dirksen: Yes, I do...
...I do not want him to invade our responsibility and I do not want to invade his...
...So what we are arguing about is not the objective...
...A defensive posture...
...But 1 daresay they did not cause nearly the destruction, in the 90 years they were there, that we have caused in two years...
...Is that what we want to do...
...he put himself in...
...Even though the President has control, he cannot carry on indefinitely without the real support of the country...
...The President is not our ruler, but you do not demean him in the eyes of people abroad...
...I have not heard him say yet that they have been deluded of their freedom...
...Have you any doubt about Soviet weapons over there...
...Fulbright: What is a speculation...
...The person who then corresponded to the Republican national chairman today besought Lincoln with every talent he had to try to do something to get the soldiers back before the November election, and to receive some negotiators from the South...
...The Chinese first stated this thought, and I think it has some validity: If we were not there, they could not challenge the United States...
...Have you heard it from Korea...
...That did not satisfy Ho Chi Minh??not on your life...
...Dirksen: Certain it is that any war develops stresses, spiritual, moral and emotional, that very often impel many people to take a given course of action...
...Fulbright: That was the trouble...
...Fulbright: We have re-examined it...
...The Senator said "No...
...I have been to the command staff school as a lieutenant, but I am no tactician, I am no strategist...
...You see, we are up against a decision of the same kind...
...There was no question of this sort in the Second World War...
...And those who cry "appease, appease," Are hanged by those they sought to please...
...Dirksen: I certainly did not...
...Even in the War Between the States it was so...
...The suggestions about using the United Nations, it seems to me, are entirely appropriate...
...But I do know this from those with whom I have associated in government: that our outer defense perimeter started in Korea and went to South Vietnam...
...So, I grant the right of criticism, but I hope always it will be within due bounds...
...Dirksen: Tell the Senate...
...Are we there to stop aggression...
...Fulbright: I think it is very important to clarify what our purposes are in Vietnam...
...I think it was General Grant who said that the greatest aid for him was from none other than Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, because he was interferring with Robert E. Lee and his tactics and strategy...
...Yesterday I said I thought our security was best protected by maintaining a strong country, and not wasting or spending our resources, manpower, and money in South Vietnam...
...But the word went out that we were going to settle for the 38th parallel and that de-energized the drive, and as a result it cost us 90,000 casualities...
...Is that a good sentiment to utter, that we are suspect by friend and foe alike...
...I think you are trying to have it both ways...
...I will never forget as I think of the thousands who have now died, in addition to the thousands who have been wounded, the lines of Colonel McCrae, that Canadian doctor who had a field dressing station on the banks of the Ypres River in France [where I served 50 years ago...
...I have not heard J. Edgar Hoover say recently that he was as much disturbed about it as he was 20 years ago...
...I believe there are other leading military men who have taken that view...
...It seems to me that it could only be worth the cost if this is a very strategic area, from the viewpoint of the security of this country...
...Then there is the division within our country, the lack of unity and cooperation among our citizens...
...What is it that we wish to achieve that is worthy of what we are doing...
...Andrew Fasseas of Chicago, returned from Greece...
...Do not misunderstand me...
...He had not...
...I am not going to expose them to that sort of thing and rue the day that I do it...
...I am not going to forget them...
...The President has never said that...
...What about those who could become the forgotten men...
...Dirksen: What are the commitments...
...Does the Senator think the United States security requires us to have a permanent presence in Southeast Asia or South Vietnam...
...I think it is something to give the Senate pause...
...Is it to have a permanent base...
...We did not put him in...
...What does the Senator say about Greece...
...Fulbright: I saw a report on the elections in Bremen, Germany, where the Right wing gained a little there...
...They were really there to subdue them...
...I am sure we were willing and I am sure that sentiment was conveyed...
...We are threatening the security of the strongest country in the world, on which other countries depend economically, politically, and morally...
...Is it in the interest of this country to pursue the war indefinitely with the escalating cost of money and lives...
...it is now estimated at the rate of $30 billion a year...
...Thirty countries are helping us now...
...Fulbright: No, I mean what concrete effect would result in Vietnam...
...If the Communists are as dangerous a menace as you would lead us to believe because of Vietnam, then, surely, we could have no assurance that they would not use nuclear weapons...
...Fulbright: That means we stay...
...Dirksen: Just coming to grips with naked reality...
...The South walked out on it...
...Have you heard the British demean their King and Queen...
...Fulbright: The reason is that he feels he has been unjustly attacked...
...Fulbright: The strength of these parties, for example, in Western Europe, is not so powerful now as it used to be...
...I merely meant to say I thought this was a sign that he accepted a change or an evolution taking place in the Communist world...
...The confrontation, which we have adapted for publication below, marked the most spontaneous discussion of the United States military involvement in Vietnam yet to take place on Capitol Hill...
...They gave other reasons...
...I think the Senator was right...
...With due respect, I do not see how what the Senator thinks will happen in South Vietnam is a threat to us...
...The Senator says that we do not have in mind maintaining a permanent presence there, and that it will not be a colony...
...Dirksen: Did I not recite the right of those people to decide their destiny for themselves, particularly their political destiny...
...yes, I did...
...Let me state my version...
...Yesterday, this whole question about security came up...
...He was going to bring all of what was ancient Indochina into the fold, no matter what it cost...
...Dirksen: Do we have any commitment under the Southeast Asian Treaty...
...They did not save it...
...If I understand the Senator, he thinks we should have a permanent presence there...
...Dirksen: Did the Senator get that idea from Kosygin's visit...
...We are spending our money, we are disrupting our economy, we are threatened with inflation, we are confronted with an enormous deficit...
...I cannot see that the proponents of the war have made a case...
...Dirksen: You have an enemy up there and you have to make sure...
...Dirksen: I am sorry to say that case has been badly exaggerated...
...If you have, show me the day and the time...
...Suppose the left flank of your line is turned and you lose Vietnam...
...Then it will run from Alaska to Hawaii, and you tell me how far you are from San Francisco and Los Angeles, as to whether or not our security is involved out there in Asia...
...What does he want to achieve in Vietnam...
...Are we there in the interest of peace so that the thing will not spread...
...And is it not strange that in the Presidential election in September a half-million more people voted than had voted in the earlier election...
...I think it was in World War I that Woodrow Wilson said in time of war we need more criticism, not less...
...Fulbright: No, but I have not heard us either...
...What is that old ditty...
...There is no place short of Singapore...
...Fulbright: It was not...
...You ought to be out there on the front on a lonely night, when the bombs are dropping or the mortar shells are coming over, and see whether it makes a difference...
...If ever there was a devotee of freedom, he is...
...Dirksen: I think you had better re-examine that...
...Fulbright: But it is clear that the Senator does not wish us to incorporate South Vietnam as a colony or a military base...
...Vietnam Debate The current Senate debate over Vietnam erupted in a heated controversy on October 3 when Minority Leader Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois, a fervent supporter of the conduct of the war, and Democrat 3. William Fulbright of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as well as a long-time critic of the Administration's policy, clashed in a two-hour exchange...
...It would have to be substantive...
...All the other matters that we have before us seem to be connected with Vietnam...
...But President Eisenhower decided against it...
...They were there to conquer, not to preserve the freedom of a humble people...
...I did not mean to criticize him...
...that we intended South Vietnam to be a permanent base for the United States...
...Those figures simply do not prove that it has...
...Fulbright: Do I then understand that the Senator believes a permanent base there is necessary for our security...
...We used the Hanoi embassy in Moscow, people in Warsaw, and elsewhere, but strangely enough these things have not produced anything yet...
...And Ho Chi Minh was then the leader of the nationalist forces which really defeated the French...
...It seems to me that this would be quite similar to having a rule in Arkansas that only Democrats could be elected...
...I saw that in this morning's paper...
...Fulbright: What does the Senator have in mind as the final outcome in this area...
...Project a day, sharpen up your forces, then say to all the world, "On this day we stop...
...Fulbright: But we did set up a Confederacy, yet the North insisted on conquering us anyhow...
...What does Ho Chi Minh have at stake...
...He has been in my office...
...I can only hope that Congress does not wander too far afield so that, somehow, we go across that yet undefined line under which we might arrogate to ourselves the conduct of the war...
...We are expending this for what...
...I agree with what the Senator said about the recent election and that the votes were cast, but most people agree that the conditions for the voting were determined by us and our proteges...
...And you have in the past said our security is not involved at all...
...The Senator intimates, in one section of his speech, that our security is involved...
...There is a great troop risk involved when they counsel that kind of action...
...There are men from every State represented in this body, and we are all getting, almost daily, notices of their deaths and injuries...
...Dirksen: Once upon a time it was minor...
...Is it worth it...
...I do not think even the Senator from Illinois is pleased with our present situation, even though he supports the present policy...
...Fulbright: That may have been their motive...
...Fulbright: Oh, no...
...I cannot believe that mankind has so sloughed off its compassion and its commonsense as to get into that kind of a hole??yet...
...I mentioned, and I presume the Senator was present, that I probably have a different military concept, involving an outside perimeter that runs from Korea to Vietnam...
...Dirksen: It is only within the last two weeks that the newly elected Supreme of the American Hellenic Organization, which is referred to as ahepa, Mr...
...Dirksen: You stated why the French troops were there...
...I hear it said that we ought to stop bombing immediately...
...I think we were quite justified in being apprehensive because Stalin was a very determined and resourceful man...
...Dirksen: I am glad I do not have to speculate on that...
...That was done after the most prayerful deliberation...
...How do we get a substantive matter out of the Council, with the Soviet Union sitting there with a veto...
...You will not find it in history books or papers...
...Where I would like to know...
...Fulbright: That is right...
...We have already, I think, lost the sympathy of Western Europe in this policy??not because they do not have great respect for us as a great country, but because they question our judgment in pursuing this war, which they believe is undermining the strength of this country...
...I think he is wrong for his benefit and for our benefit...
...I do not know what the answer is...
...The President himself, at about the time of his speech at Johns Hopkins, said that was a proper basis...
...Is it not...
...When he wants counsel, he can call??and he does...
...I still believe in the general field of global strategy that is our defense line, and if we lose it by having the flank turned, that means the line is shortened and the Pacific will no longer be a real defense to our country...
...Fulbright: Nobody was...
...Might that not be indicated by the fact that it is shared by so many people in this country...
...Fulbright: I was mentioning only that it was approved by the Senate...
...That is how circumspect we were...
...Dirksen: All that has exactly nothing to do with it...
...But I did not realize that Communism is on the march, so to speak, nearly so much now as it was under Stalin...
...Oh, I rather think so...
...That is not what happened...
...Fulbright: We have rarely got into wars deliberately...
...Can we not do that without undertaking to police the entire world...
...That is not lost on the leaders anywhere in the world, and I cannot imagine that they are going to blunder into that sort of thing...
...The best men rot in filthy jails...
...You can have a new government move in without there being a Communist government...
...In 1956, when President Eisenhower was in office, this matter was presented to him...
...Dirksen: Basically, yes...
...If only those three crack divisions they had at the demilitarized zone would stay in their place, but Ho Chi Minh and his associates would give no such assurance...
...Dirksen: No...
...Well, some boys are lying out there...
...He was a very popular person...
...We have to get nine votes...
...Fulbright: The Senator has not mentioned anything yet to make me believe that this is worth what we are doing...
...Do you want to go down that anxious road again...
...I take a different view, because we have conquered time, space, and distance to the point where this is a pretty small world...
...Fulbright: Of course it is...
...But we did not put him in...
...Diem went around the countryside, talking to South Vietnamese farmers, rice farmers, and everyone else...
...At least we understand each other...
...1 think we can agree to that...
...Under the serious conditions that now exist, I do not believe that we should refrain from doing anything possible ??and I do not think we have??to obtain the agreement of the Security Council to put this matter on the agenda and have it discussed...
...That is about the sum and substance of it...
...I feel just as strongly that the pursuit of this war under the conditions that exist is more likely to liquidate the holy fabric of freedom because it could well be a war of indefinite tenure, indefinite existence, and possibly involve China...
...I think this is bound to bring a clash, bound to bring a nuclear exchange, which will not be in the interest of this country or any other country...
...The very Capitol where we sit in the Senate wing was destroyed in the War of 1812 because there was too much civil interference with the conduct of that war...
...Fulbright SENATOR DIRKSEN Ihave no hostility toward criticism...
...the question which I think is central, and which we are really interested in, is what policy really serves the interests of this country...
...So you have to see this in perspective...
...But the North would not do that...
...The foreign aid program has been affected by it, and almost all the other matters that have come before my committee...
...Well, I can imagine how he feels about a statement like that...
...Dirksen: It may not be as minor as the Senator thinks...
...If it is determined on such an attack, I do not know why it withdrew those missiles in Cuba...
...SENATOR FULBRIGHT I have not the slightest doubt that the Senator from Illinois has the deepest conviction when he says he is not a Senator to liquidate the holy fabric of freedom...
...You write that in there...
...We are over there to help South Vietnam preserve their Republic, their freedom, their self-determination, and, over and above everything else, freedom from aggression...
...Fulbright: Not to do what we are doing...
...Are we there in the interest of self-determination, a phrase Woodrow Wilson used so often...
...Then we knew, I think, a little better, for our own comfort and the stability of our soul, what we should do...
...And its mind is not made up...
...I learned long ago that it is the hit dog that yelps...
...Yes, there is no veto power where a procedural matter is involved, and this would be procedural...
...Does he want a colony...
...Fulbright: I do not think it is done deliberately...
...Dirksen: The North did not try to conquer the South...
...Perhaps the Senator does not share my conviction that this is a Red threat...
...And what about the Marines on the outside and north of the demilitarized zone...
...follow policies as misguided as the present one, it will grow...
...And we will have to include Australia, New Zealand, Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Laos, and Cambodia...
...He is the guy being pushed around...
...Fulbright: Does the Senator think the Communists are threatening this country...
...2 at the top, and I will sign it...
...Dirksen: No...
...Neither am I, but I think the course we are following will do it in the bitter end...
...We have already suffered 15,000 deaths, and nearly 85,000 casualties...
...Fulbright: Before I sit down, I should like to have a clarification...
...I think we are...
...It is here...
...I do not want to see that line broken so that all of the rest of Southeast Asia is exposed, because if it is, then the whole Pacific coastline of this country will be exposed...
...And when it was done, they picked up the pieces, assessed the damage, saw how many people were killed, and how by nuclear weapons you can convert a cool, placid river into a boiling stream...
...Suppose, however, we did get nine votes...
...Dirksen: Would the Senator like to tell the rest of the story about the Consular Treaty...
...They were willing to train doctors only because of tropical diseases...
...I understood the Senator to say that we needed a base...
...What is the objective of this Vietnam policy...
...Fulbright: There are people who say we have set up bases there...
...Fulbright: And we do not live there, and it is a foreign country, and we intervened...
...If it is Russia that is the threat, I do not see how Russia needs Vietnam to be a threat to the United States...
...There is no holding line between Saigon and Singapore...
...You cite to me a holding station where you can hold if we lose Vietnam...
...Dirksen: I mentioned security...
...We have used a good many countries, like Britain...
...Fulbright: It is a civil war...
...I was under the impression Dirksen: What were the gains reported in the press made by the Communists in France...
...Have you heard it from New Zealand...
...He saw the bodies roll down into the door of his dressing room tent out there on the front, and he finally committed his soul to paper...
...Fulbright: What would have been the situation if the Chinese had sent a hundred thousand men over here during our Civil War...
...So that is the whole story...
...Have you heard it from Australia...
...I do not want our boys in Vietnam to become the forgotten men...
...on this day a ceasefire will stop everything...
...That's why they were there...
...I am not insensible to the fact that there is a limitation to our capacity in manpower, in finances, and in any other field you want to mention...
...Lincoln did not brook any interference from a committee that was set up on the conduct of the war...
...In France and Italy, about 25 percent of the electorate is Communist, although both countries have been making substantial economic and political progress...
...We were not a signatory...
...I would feel that I would come out pretty well under those conditions and we could count the votes as they were cast...
...This gets us into a very involved matter as to motives...
...Dirksen: How often must I say that we do not go in for colonializa-tion at all...
...We helped to create that body...
...By way of background, a moment ago it was stated that this area of Indochina was a colony of France...
...General Ridgway recommended against it, although there were powerful people in that Administration, including the Secretary of State, and Admiral Radford, who were for it...
...I regret very much that he has not responded to these offers we have made...
...If that is there, what about the rest of Southeast Asia...
...1 think we have to find new ways, particularly ways of working with countries such as Russia, rather than competing with them for bases in outposts such as South Vietnam...
...Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields...
...Dirksen: Does it need any explanation...
...That is what you need for the security of the country...
...Fulbright: It is a minor one, I think...
...we have done it through lack of wisdom, I will say...
...That was the conflict...
...They have, we presume, a very primitive nuclear weapon, but no delivery system as of now...
...China is in a class by itself...
...Dirksen: It was a local election...
...Fulbright: Communist influence...
...He has not been successful...
...Dirksen: We were not even a signatory...
...We cannot do all of this...
...Dirksen: Ho Chi Minh had nothing to say...
...Fulbright: Is the Senator saying that the previous government was a Communist government...
...Lincoln was guided by the Constitution, which applied to the Senator's state as well as it applied to his own state...
...Not that the treaty is significant in itself, but it is an indication...
...The Senator expressed his very deep feeling for the men in Vietnam...
...1 want to be sure, if I can, that it is not a vanity and that I fully recognize my responsibility in an anxious hour like this...
...To compare that loss to our interest in the form of government in a little country that has never before had a representative government, and say that we must give them precisely what we think they ought to have, does not make any sense to me...
...That will depend, of course, a great deal upon the way we conduct ourselves in regard to China...
...Dirksen: No...
...This is not a part of the world which, it seems to me, has ever before been regarded as strategic and as of vital importance to the United States...
...But judging from recent speeches by responsible members of this body, I particularly think it is significant that some Republican members are reflecting their own maturity of judgment, and also, presumably, that of their constituents...
...We did not blunder into it in Hiroshima or Nagasaki...
...Fulbright: There is a very grave difference of opinion as to the historical fact...
...If that does not come through, there will be a deficit of some $28 or $30 billion...
...I think we made a great mistake in intervening there...
...Dirksen: We are not over there to conquer anybody...
...All of us share that...
...It has been said that the President was brainwashed by a military-industrial complex...
...While we did not ask for much in Geneva in 1954, I think we came away from there somewhat with the idea that if they had to have help and asked us for it, we would help...
...I do not know whether the Senator means to say that or not, but I gather that he did say that...
...Also, we believe it is not in the national interest for them to remain...
...I think it should be given a real try...
...Who besides bonnie Charles de Gaulle has been so bold as to affront us in this field...
...It seems to me the question is narrowed a bit if we get down to some of the issues...
...We have Communists in this country, do we not...
...Who shall say what the outcome of that War would have been if that great general from the South had been let alone...
...What does the Senator say is the objective of our war in Vietnam...
...That will cause further disruption here...
...I may say that the Secretary of State never used that as an excuse until about a year and a half ago...
...And if we do, I think that we throw away whatever leverage we have...
...that neither South Vietnam nor North Vietnam have anything they could attack us with is self-evident...
...Dirksen: Yes...
...What would be the next step...
...Fulbright: That was only involved in a minor way until we began to escalate the number of troops...
...Dirksen: Of course, that is a speculation...
...Dirksen: No, Lincoln did not...
...I have not heard them...
...Is it in the interest of this country and the preservation of our national strength...
...Dirksen: What you just said...
...The Senator's expression of a moment ago reassured me, when he said he was not a Senator to liquidate the holy fabric of freedom...
...The Senator says that we guarantee the right of self-determination, that they had an election, and that it was a good election...
...Fulbright: I do not want to prolong the discussion, but I should like to clarify the question...
...That is all you need...
...The French got licked, notwithstanding the fact that we poured 700 million American dollars into their effort...
...Dirksen: I see no reason for continuing this...
...And when you are in Singapore, you are at one of the clogged water courses that I am confident, as surely as I am standing here, the Soviets are going to try to control...
...Yet, the Assistant Attorney General went before the committee and said there are 100 cases over at the Department of Justice that should be submitted to the Control Board...
...Fulbright: As a relative matter, it is not so aggressive as it used to be...
...Now, you see, Saigon, in South Vietnam, is at the lower end...
...For freedom's reasons...
...Dirksen: It was colonialism at its very worst...
...We had a Constitution...
...I will look it up...
...To me, that is just an indication...
...Dirksen: He is the guy taking the pasting...
...Dirksen: It seems to me that from the very days of Ngo Dinh Diem?and I had many meetings with him when I was there??they were just trying to set up a republic to suit themselves...
...2. Slavery must be abolished...
...Well, have we not said some of that already...
...France took it about 1870 or thereabouts, and held it until it was forced out in 1954...
...They undertook a study of the landing problems in support of the French in Vietnam...
...Do we quit...
...This is a Communist threat that proposes to liquidate freedom in South Vietnam...
...That is the opinion of a number of experts who appeared before our committee...
...I do not agree with that view at all...
...If I may come back to it...
...I think we can...
...We have been its principal sponsor...
...Dirksen: Maybe there was not an occasion for it...
...I am not going to see that kind of punishment visited upon them because suddenly we felt we had to stop this bombing business as a kind of last, desperate resort...
...1 and No...
...But what we are doing is sending our men over there and having them slaughtered...
...Now, if you, the enemy, fail to desist in your hostility, then we shall feel free to use everything at our command in order to bring you to heel...
...how many times we have been to the White House looking over the maps and the charts to see where we are and get some better ideas about direction...
...Who was a more natural leader than Ngo Dinh Diem...
...Dirksen: I cannot believe that mankind will blunder into this sort of thing...
...Fulbright: I have said it...
...There was certainly none in the First World War...
...Fulbright: It was a colony of France...
...This, of course, leads to different conclusions...
...Thus, I want to abide by that Constitution...
...I do not know where it is, and I want to see the proof...
...I think this whole operation from the beginning has been afflicted with this weakness...
...Dirksen: I said it...
...If it is not, then why this imbroglio in Vietnam...
...If we continue to that since the death of Stalin, the drive of that branch??not the Chinese??was receding...
...The North Vietnamese have said that was a proper basis...
...Control Panama, control Singapore, the two ends of the Gulf of Aden and Suez, and you have just about command of the world...
...We were at that time in the false position of supporting a colonial power, which is contrary to the tradition of this country...
...I think that after stability is restored at long last, they can set up their own military requirements in order to meet this threat...
...A little God-forsaken country of 15 million or 16 million people...
...There is surely something more that the Senator has in mind...
...Where was our security...
...Unless we can resolve this, it is like a cancer eating into all our other policies...
...Dirksen: No, I mean that he undertook, by going around the country, to get the trust and confidence of the people there...
...Dirksen: The party of Lincoln, when it came time to hold a convention, decided that there would be a rump convention and that it would not nominate the Commander in Chief...
...Fulbright: Well, of course, I need not tell you about this idea of aggression??the other side believes we are the aggressor...
...The press said??and I do not want to misquote without checking??that the Senator from Illinois did not positively oppose it...
...You blunder into these wars...
...1 think the objective of the Senator from Illinois and that of myself and those of us who disagree with the current policy in Vietnam are identical...
...The difference is, I think, that those of us who would like to liquidate this war believe that we are acting in the interest of those men in Vietnam...
...It is a rather interesting thing??i have run down many legal cases before the Supreme Court??that I have found as yet no delimitation on the powers of the Commander in Chief under the Constitution...
...Dirksen: No, we did not...
...It is based upon having been in North Vietnam in 1953...
...At any rate, not so long ago Russia had missiles in Cuba and withdrew them...
...Dirksen: They know that nobody ever won an earthquake, and they are not going to blunder into this...
...Dirksen: I say that Communism is threatening the world...
...Or is it in the interest of this country to bring the war to a close by some kind of compromise...
...Suppose it fails...
...Dirksen: No, it is not...
...Very wisely, after a thorough examination...
...Fulbright: It is a minor affair...
...The tragedy of it is that I think we have gone pretty far, but we could get no reciprocal assurances...
...Fulbright: Well, of course, I wish I had the same faith the Senator has...
...Suppose we take all of Vietnam...
...He said that...
...Nobody knows, but that interference was helpful, and Grant recognized it and paid testimony to it...
...Fulbright: Does the Senator think there is a free government in Greece now...
...Now, why were they there...
...They made a real endeavor...
...We do have this difference of judgment, and it is a judgment based upon similar facts, as to the best way to go about preserving our freedom...
...There was no guarantee that we were to come to their aid in South Vietnam...
...I am having trouble trying to take the bill off the calendar to re-energize the Subversive Activities Control Board, only to be met with resistance in this chamber...
...I am not disposed to quarrel with men who have gone through our military schools, who have worked with worldwide maps, and who are expected to plot this thing in the large...
...We refused to agree...
...What I am coming to is what do we have in mind...
...That is the difference...
...Dirksen vs...
...Anybody who has some perspective knowledge of tactics can tell you that...
...The figures run up into the millions...
...I do not know what I would say to the shades of those who made that sacrifice...
...It certainly has become less aggressive...
...Dirksen: Yes...
...They have given every evidence of it in practically every university in the country...
...If I did not think it was, I guess I would take another good long look at this whole business...
...and the assumption that everybody believes that this is an outright aggression by one national state or another is open to question...
...But these are ideals and these are objectives that I think we can probably serve, and I think we are serving them now...
...Fulbright: The Senator has not heard them...
...1 assume that the Senator is saying that Russia and/or China will use it as a base to attack us...
...The influence, however, is here...
...The distinguished Senator from Hawaii can certainly tell us how close it is from the Philippines to Malaysia and Indonesia...
...Dirksen: You say there are people...
...Fulbright: You did...
...Fulbright: Yes, and so are we...
...Is that what we want to say to General Westmoreland and our troops out there...
...The Senator is correct...
...It has been said we have not emphasized the political needs and aspects of this controversy in the face of the fact that maybe we cannot get a military solution...
...Dirksen: Has the Senator heard Ho Chi Minh ask for a reconvening of the Geneva Conference...
...No man escapes when freedom fails...
...Then, suddenly, a kind of inertia came into it...
...He very carefully selected his Chiefs of Staff, General Ridgway and General Gavin...
...Dirksen: Surely, and it has been trying to move into Greece...
...Now, why is the Soviet Union helping North Vietnam...
...I thought they had an election out there to pick a constituent assembly...
...I do not think the suggestions that have been made should be dismissed because in the past the United Nations has not been able to solve all these problems...
...Dirksen: It has never been off the march...
...Fulbright: You mean if we do not find a way to get along with Russia it is speculation that there will be a clash...
...It has not been made a self-evident fact of life that it is in our interest to pursue this war...
...If you would stop the only leverage we have now, those troops would have moved...
...We had a brilliant offensive mounted there and we were doing exceedingly well...
...I believe that the security of this country would be better promoted, not by establishing a colony there in place of the French, but by a strong, independent country...
...Has that been neglecting the political fabric...
...In addition, while we have apparently built up great fear and apprehension about it, there is nothing, really, in the record, in our hearings, or anywhere else that I have heard of, indicating any fervent desire on the part of the Chinese to attack us in the foreseeable future...
...Fulbright: Did not Diem ask us for help...
...Not me, not me...
...When they speak about the fall of Southeast Asia, they are not kidding...
...Dirksen: They are certainly behind North Vietnam...
...The nations have been there in our corner...
...I believe the analogy of Yugoslavia is a very sound one...
...The price we are paying for this is all out of proportion to anything we can gain...
...Dirksen: I said nothing about a permanent presence...
Vol. 50 • October 1967 • No. 21
