through that period. The number of ships which went into North Vietnamese ports last August through December-the monthly totals-ranged from 11 to 17, and the great bulk of them were these British ships.

Of these ships putting into North Vietnam, approximately half or at least a substantial number, went in in ballast in order to bring goods out, rather than take goods in. I do not have at my fingertips, but I will be glad to put into the record the answer to your question as to what it was they were carrying in, to the best of our knowledge. (The following was subsequently furnished for the record:)

FREE WORLD SHIPPING TO NORTH VIETNAM

The majority of free world ships calling at North Vietnamese ports arrive in ballast to pick up outgoing cargoes consisting primarily of anthracite, apatite, fruits, and vegetables. Those free world ships carrying goods into North Vietnam are laden with nonstrategic cargoes principally of foodstuffs, raw materials, fertilizers, and soft coal.

Senator WILLIAMS. If the Senator will yield for just one moment, that argument was used the other day. But to the extent that these ships move into Hanoi and take the exports of North Vietnamese

out

Mr. BELL. Yes, sir.

Senator WILLIAMS (continuing). They can convert that into currency with which they can buy strategic weapons of war and bring them in some other way.

Mr. BELL. Yes. I did not mean

Senator WILLIAMS. So it gives them an exchange, and it is just as equally important to stop that.

Mr. BELL. I do not mean to argue there is no economic benefit. You are quite right.

Senator MORSE. Are any of the ships Russian ships?

Mr. BELL. What I was looking at was the table showing free-world shipping.

In addition to the ships from the free world, I assume there are, perhaps, larger numbers of ships from Communist countries.

Senator MORSE. Do you know whether or not our intelligence service has been able to give us any indication?

Mr. BELL. Yes, sir. We have some data on that. I do not have it right here, but I will put it in the record, if I may.

Senator MORSE. I would appreciate that.

(The information referred to is classified and in the committee files.)

BLOCKADE OF NORTH VIETNAMESE PORTS

Senator MORSE. The reason I asked the Senator from Delaware to tarry, both he and Mr. Bell know my oft-repeated and longstanding view in regard to lack of justification of my Government fighting a war without a declaration of war. I cannot imagine our trying to prosecute a war under a declaration of war without imposing a blockade.

But it is an accurate statement of fact, my statement, and I would be justified in making it, that there would be a blockade of North Vietnam, and that raises the question of what foreign country would respect that blockade.

Her Majesty's Government has never, to my knowledge, in the history of the British Empire lowered the Union Jack to a blockade that it did not support. I do not think it takes much argument, may I say to the Senator from Delaware, to point out that if you put a blockade around North Vietnam, the Russian flag is not going to lower to it, and the first Russian ship you sink we are at war with Russia, and it won't be fought in Asia but New York City and Washington, D.C., and Chicago and Moscow and Stalingrad. That is why, Mr. Bell, to be professional about it, the senior Senator from Oregon finds himself so unhappy and concerned about his differences with his Government in connection with the prosecution of the war on the basis you are testifying today.

We have an honest professional difference of opinion. But I think your whole case, and the case of all of the people in the administration, is to support the prosecution of an illegal war.

We speak about commitments, and we will go into that in depth as the examination proceeds with you and other witnesses, but we have no legal commitment that justifies our making war.

But I wanted to give my friend from Delaware an opportunity to make any comment he wanted because he knows how concerned I am about our fighting a war and killing American boys without a war message ever having come to the Congress of the United States.

Senator WILLIAMS. I appreciate the concern of the Senator from Oregon, and I appreciate his also yielding in order that I can ask these questions, because there are a lot of people back home who are asking the question why they are still supplying them, and I get asked the question quite often to what extent the fact that our so-called friends have their ships in these North Vietnamese ports, to what extent is that determining our policy not to bomb those ports for fear we may hit some of our friends.

I think that this is a problem which should be recognized by the administration, and I wish that they would take just a little more affirmative steps to persuade some of our allies, those who should be on our side, that we should at least stop giving aid and comfort to the people who are killing American citizens.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Pell, do you have a question?
Senator PELL. On my own time.

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

CIVILIAN CASUALTIES OF THE WAR

Senator PELL. Mr. Bell, going back to the point we were touching on, casualties, a little while ago, I would like to insert in the record an article in the Washington Star a few weeks ago. It states that the head of the U.S. medical aid program in South Vietnam said the war is causing more casualties to civilians than to the military because of the nature of the fighting. And in connection with the figures you submit for the record, I hope you will develop the point as to how the civilians have been killed. It is equally unpleasant to be tortured, assassinated, or to be burned to death by napalm. But from the viewpoint of an impact in the country where, as the democratic forces are naturally horrified at the assassination of city leaders and rural leaders and our allies, I wonder if that horror might not be more than balanced

by the horror of those who are related or friends of those who are killed by napalm or killed for military reasons, and this is the figure I am groping for. I do not know the answer myself. Do you, in general terms, not specifics?

Mr. BELL. No, I do not. There are obviously civilian casualties from the military actions of both sides.

As you know, there have been very strong instructions issued to our troops designed to minimize civilian casualties. They have not been eliminated and cannot be eliminated in this kind of war.

I am surprised to hear-I take it the quotation you have given us is from General Humphreys, who is

Senator PELL. It is a news story based on an interview with him which I would like to put in the record.

Mr. BELL. Right. General Humphreys, who is chief of the health section in our aid mission there, on leave to us from the Air Force, is a first-class man. I am nevertheless surprised at that comment. My own impression was that while there were substantial civilian casualties, they were not larger than those of the military troops. But he is a competent witness, and he may well be right. I will try to get a firmer statement if I can for insertion in the record.

Senator PELL. I must add, to make the record clear, that the paragraph I read is not in quotation marks. It is the conclusion that Mr. Lewis Gulick, the writer, drew from the interview.

[From the Evening Star, Jan. 6, 1966]

VIET MEDICAL AID TO INCREASE-U.S. GENERAL CITES CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

(By Lewis Gulick, Associated Press staff writer)

The head of the U.S. medical aid program in South Vietnam says the war is causing more casualties to civilians than to the military because of the nature of the fighting.

In outlining a large step-up in U.S. medical assistance, Maj. Gen. James W. Humphreys, Jr., said yesterday that "many thousands" of civilians are killed and wounded as the war is waged in populated areas.

He did not give the exact number of civilian casualties.

CAN'T BE SEPARATED

"Unless there is a very sharp fight the number of civilian casualties exceeds the military" when one side hits a village it believes occupied by the other, Humphreys said.

"All they (the civilian inhabitants) can do to get out from under, if they can, is to run out. You cannot separate the civilian from the military in this war," he said.

Humphreys, an Air Force surgeon, spoke at a news conference before heading back to Saigon today.

He has been going over plans here for a $10 million program to improve medical services for the civilian population in South Vietnam. The military forces have their own doctors.

The 50-year-old general made headlines last November with the removal of a live grenade from a farmer's back.

Humphreys said there is only about one doctor in Vietnam for each 100,000 population, which he likened to the situation in the United States a century and a half ago.

He said there are far too few doctors, health services, and facilities now to deal with disease and with war casualties, which can be expected to increase if the fighting grows.

American doctors, nurses, and other health personnel in his program totaled 110 last June. This number will be increased to 4,500 by this June 30 under the expanded U.S. medical aid effort, he said.

Other free world countries were reported contributing some 500 medical personnel.

SEEK BARE MINIMUMS

Humphrey said the U.S. program is designed to put "a bare minimum of medical personnel into the South Vietnamese provinces, build up a basic minimum of drugs and facilities, establish a means of transporting medical supplies, train Vietnamese medical aids and increase the number of physicians and dentists graduated from Vietnamese medical schools."

He said that "of course" the Communist Vietcong are given medical help when they come to the South Vietnamese Government hospitals and aid stations. "This is bound up in the philosophy of medicine," he said. "You treat the injured and the sick and the indigent regardless of who they are."

Mr. BELL. Right.

Senator PELL. But I would be interested in those figures.

Would you bear with me, too, if one finds that the number of deaths, quantitative not qualitative, in quantitative terms, is larger on the civilian side as a result of our military activities than it is from the Vietcong military activities and assassinations, it would seem to me that the prosecution of the war can from a political viewpoint and in quantitative terms be hurting us.

Mr. BELL. Well, first of all, I doubt very much if that is the case. Secondly, it is quite clear to the villager in Vietnam that there is a difference between organized campaigns of assassination and inadvertent, accidental casualties.

I agree that the person involved is equally dead in either case. But the villagers and we have plenty of evidence on this from conversations all over the country-the villagers, are quite aware that they are in the line of fire because of Vietcong aggression. They have in many cases bitterly opposed the entry of the Vietcong into their villages, and when the Vietcong come in they frequently flee.

Many of the refugees are exactly of this kind. The Vietcong have entered their villages and the villagers have left because they know in the effort to reach and destroy the Vietcong, the village itself will be damaged.

Senator PELL. I would agree with you there is a tremendous difference. One is premeditated, it is like murder and homicide, one is premeditated-and one is not. But I am thinking more particularly of those who are bombed from the air. I am not thinking of the land portion.

Mr. BELL. Incidentally, Senator, I am advised by one of my staff who was at the conference reported by Gulick, that General Humphreys' reference was not to war casualties only but to deaths due to illness and disease as well. He referred to the general problem of health of the civilian population in a wartime situation.

Senator PELL. But this is why I think it would be of interest to the American people and the world to know how many civilians in North Vietnam have been killed by bombings, and if we could only get this from the enemy-unfortunately, they will probably exaggerate itbut we still have not seen an estimate, and I personally would like to see it if you could get it.

EXPLANATION OF LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT ITEM

On another point here, in the pamphlet or the information you sent up for us prepared by the executive branch under the heading "Counter Insurgency, Rural Construction," you have as your largest item logistics management. It is a new item, not in the previous program, and it calls for, I do not know how many zeroes go at the end, I imagine it means millions, $20 million.

Mr. BELL. Yes.

Senator PELL. Could you define that a little more?

Mr. BELL. Yes. This is all sorts of things. It is barges and vessels and sheet piling for piers. It is vehicles of various kinds to transport items. It is the rental of aircraft, to transport materials either from the United States to Vietnam or within Vietnam.

It is, generally, the cost of moving goods and-to a lesser extentof moving people to Vietnam and within Vietnam--primarily within Vietnam. Those costs are high.

Senator PELL. I do not mean this line of questioning to in any way be hostile to you personally or the economic side of the program, which I have found to be the most economical. It is the most popular in my own State of Rhode Island. But I wondered why we did not have any of these same requirements last year? Why did they suddently crop up this year?

Mr. BELL. We did.

Senator PELL. No. It says zero current year.

Mr. POATS. Senator, may I explain that? We did not last year break out elements of this program to the same degree we have this year. But last year we did, for example, buy some dredges which would have fallen into this same categorization of funding. This year we greatly expanded our logistics support because the strain on Vietnam's facilities has increased largely by the introduction of major military forces.

Mr. BELL. What did we call it last year when be bought a barge? Mr. POATS. It was included in the general procurement for the counterinsurgency support program; called counterinsurgency support services.

Senator PELL. You have Cam Ranh Bay zero last year.

Mr. BELL. Not for last year.

Senator PELL. Counterinsurgency, rural construction, I am reading from the paper you gave us.

Mr. BELL. Doesn't it say current programs, excluding supplemental? Senator PELL. Yes.

Mr. BELL. Meaning for fiscal year 1966 prior to this.

Mr. POATS. Not last year.

Mr. BELL. 1965 was last year's.

Mr. POATS. The add-on to this year's program is reflected in this

program.

Mr. BELL. The question is a legitimate question. I just wanted to make plain that what you are asking, I take it, is why did we have nothing in the 1966 budget as submitted for Cam Ranh Bay.