Official relations with another government, as I see it, should be regarded as a convenience-particularly in that they serve as a relatively reliable and sophisticated channel of communication and source of information. There are, of course, times when it is no less important to be able to communicate with an adversary than with a friend. Where this is the case, and where the other party is prepared to be coopertaive and to extend decent facilities for diplomatic representation, there is no reason in principle for not having such representation, even though the political relationship may be one of sharp antagonism. One may well have doubts about the propriety of accrediting a full-fledged Ambassador-a personal representative, that is, of the President of the United States-to a government whose attitude toward us is contemptuous and offensive. But the exchange of more junior representatives, on a de facto basis, does not have the same overtones; and I would know of no reason of principle why this should not be done even in the case of a politically hostile country. Whether to do it or not is simply a question of expediency. When it comes to membership in the U.N., the situation is, of course, different. Such membership confers certain rights and duties relating to the good order and conduct of the international community. It presupposes a certain spirit of tolerance and good will. It presupposes a desire on the part of the member government to see the affairs of the community ordered on a basis of peace and mutual collaboration, not of deadly struggle. It is hard to believe that the regime in Peiping qualifies, at the present moment, under these standards; and I do not see how we could vote today in good conscience for its admission. I am also inclined to doubt, in the light of what we read about the experiences of others, that we would have much satisfaction from an exchange of official representatives with that regime. But about both U.N. membershipand diplomatic recognition there are two things it is important to remember. First, while we may hold an adverse position, we will be unwise to try to put heavy pressure on other governments which may see things differently and may wish to act in a different manner. To do so will only irritate them; and in the end they will probably act as they please, anyway. It is one thing for us to decline to share the responsibility for bringing Peiping into the U.N. It is another thing to conduct a campaign to keep it out-and to risk unnecessary prestige defeats for ourselves in the event the decisions eventually go against our wishes. We must remember that over the long run, after all, both diplomatic recognition and U.N. membership are the normal conditions of international life for a great nation such as China, and both must be expected to ensue, sooner or later. We will be ill-advised to place ourselves too demonstratively in the path of the inevitable. Second, neither of these questions is of such a nature that disagreements over them in our public and private debates should be allowed to become the occasion for personal aspersions or reflection. I am, as you see, not enthusiastic either about exchanging representatives with Peiping or which, in the long run, they stand to gain no less than the islanders themselves. It remains to mention the Chinese-Soviet conflict and its relation to the problems I have been discussing. This conflict is perfectly genuine. It is the most momentous event that has overtaken world communism since the Chinese revolution. The removal of Khrushchev may serve, for the present at least, to halt further deterioration in relations between the two great Communist powers: but the causes of the conflict are profound, and will not be overcome at any early date. Meanwhile, the conflict cannot fail to have, and already has be gun to have, a profound effect on the calculations and behavior of the various Communist governments throughout the world, including that of the Chinese Communists. It would be foolish, of course, for us to fold our hands and look to the operation of the Chinese-Soviet conflict to solve all our problems in Asia. This conflict will affect the Red Chinese regime, but there is no reason at this time to suppose that it will put an end to it. And nothing, least of all an ideological triumph of one of these powers over the other, is going to cure in any short space of time the troubled state of Asia in which our problems are rooted. On the other hand, it would be equally foolish of us to disregard the Chinese-Soviet conflict entirely and to fail to take advantage of any favorable effects it may have. The basic fact that world communism is becoming a pluralistic rather than a monolithic phenomenon represents, unquestionably, the most hopeful thing that has come over the world situation in the last 20 years. To ignore this circumstance, and above all to choose this particular moment, when change is in the air, to lose patience entirely and to embrace policies based on a total despair and involving risks of incalculable enormity would be the behavior of men who had lost all sense of reality. This effort of containment has been going on now, in one way or another, for a decade and a half. Nowhere, except briefly during the Korean war, could the main burden of the effort be borne even primarily by our own forces and resources. Elsewhere, as we have already noted, the main question has been not what we ourselves could do but what we could assist and encourage others to do. We have had a great deal of loyal and effective collaboration in this effort. But we have found ourselves wedded, throughout, not just to the virtues of our associates in the threatened countries, but also to their weaknesses. There has been more than one occasion when it has seemed that our own efforts were fruitless-that we were getting nowhere, that our interest was simply being exploited; and yet it had always to be recognized that the prospective consequences of withdrawal were worse than those of continued effort. And we have thus had no choice but to stagger along, relying at times on faith and luck and on such rewards as international life occasionally has for those who refuse to admit defeat. Unquestionably, we have made mistakes. We have wasted a great deal of motion. We have spent stupendous sums of our substance. The effort has cost many American lives. Undoubtedly, we could have done it cheaper and more effectively had we been better set up, institutionally and by national tradition, to conduct this curious sort of military-political operation in time of peace. We are, God knows, not out of the woods. In South Korea we have formidable problems. In southeast Asia, things have obviously come to a crucial pass. It may well happen that we suffer further reverses, or even defeats, here and there on the long periphery of this political front. No one can guarantee that this will not occur, for it is not just our own efforts that are involved. But, by and large, we have not done too badly. Our adversary has not disappeared from the face of the globe-but neither has he gained his objectives. The Japanese archipelago, South Korea, Taiwan, and most of southeast Asia still remain outside his grasp. We are learning daily, by experience. Our efforts are plainly more serious and more realistic than they were some years ago. In these circumstances, I think our Government, as it struggles with this unpleasant and unaccustomed task, deserves our continued good wishes and support. The judgment on which its decisions have been taken have been, in overwhelming proportion, ones based on calculations of national interest and not of domestic political advantages; and that goes for all the administrations that have borne this responsibility since the Chinese revolution. And I think we owe it to the men who are now risking their lives in southeast Asia to place the same limitation on the standards of our criticism. It is right that the Government should be required to explain the general rationale of its actions, but it should not be asked to spell out publicly the tactical considerations that govern at any particular moment. It needs the consciousness of having behind it an inquiring and critical public opinion; but the delicacy of the tasks it has in hand just at present, particularly in Vietnam, is such that it cannot stand much joggling of the elbow. It will not be helped by demands that it abandon the effort altogether, in what would necessarily be a panicky and ignominious withdrawal that could only present our adversaries with a gratuitous bonanza. On the other hand, it will also not be helped by demands that it lose all sense of measure and restraint and try to solve the limited problems of the moment by opening up new ones without limit. The complex and unhappy situation we have before us in Asia is one out of which, I fear, there are no laurels to be picked, no triumphs to be won, for American statesmanship. The best we can hope is that time and change will work for us, and that it will gradually dawn on our opponents that, even from the standpoint of their own interests, there are better ways to pursue their purposes than by the methods of violence and subversion. And if the question be placedWill this day ever come?--I can only say: I think it can come; and the prospects for its coming are still not so poor as to iustify any of us in yielding to the counsels of impatience or despair. The CHAIRMAN. Senator from Oregon. Senator MORSE. Mr. Ambassador, before I ask you my next question I want to buttress your impression as to what our military policy in South Vietnam is when you speak about it as a policy of victory or to win. I completely share that impression. I only want to point out we started out with 20,000 and 50,000, and 75,000, and then 100,000, 150,000, now 200,000 men in Vietnam, who haven't been sent over there to play checkers. Now we hear the Pentagon Building and this military headquarters in South Vietnam talking about 400,000 men, and we have a chairman of a Senate subcommittee talking about 600,000. THE HONOLULU DECLARATION AND OTHER STATEMENTS But I want to find out what the President says in what I consider to be the very unfortunate welcoming speech he made at the airport in Honolulu. He said in part and I am going to put the whole speech in the record: If we allow the Communists to win in Vietnam, it will become easier and more appetizing for them to take over other countries in other parts of the world. He goes on to say: "We will leave here"-Mr. Ky and Mr. Thieu there with him-"We will leave here determined not only to achieve victory over aggression, but to win victory over hunger, disease, and despair." He said later in his speech, "In all these endeavors we will give all the support possible to the energetic effort of our Vietnamese allies." (The entire statement referred to is as follows:) [From the Washington Post, Feb. 7, 1966] TEXT OF PRESIDENT'S WELCOME HONOLULU, February 6.-Here is the text of President Johnson's welcome to South Vietnam's Prime Minister, Nguyen Cao Ky, and head of state, Nguyen Van Thieu. I welcome these two brave leaders of the Vietnamese Republic and their colleagues to American soil. We meet in a time of testing and trial. But we will talk also of hope and harvest. Our friends in Korea, Australia, and New Zealand have sent their own men to join with Vietnamese and Americans in a conflict to decide if aggression and terror are the way of the future or whether freemen are to decide their own course. It is a question of the gravest importance to all other nations, large or small, whose people seek to walk in peace and independence. For were the Communist aggressors to win in Vietnam, they would know they can accomplish through socalled wars of national liberation what they could not accomplish through naked aggression in Korea-or insurgency in the Philippines, Greece, and Malaya-or the threat of aggression in Turkey-or in a free election booth anywhere in the world. WHY THEY FIGHT ON During the past year more than 1,300 Americans have lost their lives from Communist action in Vietnam. But more than 11,000 of our Vietnamese brothers-inarms died last year to protect their homeland. Why do the Vietnamese fight on? Because they are not going to let others enslave them or rule their future. And with their soldiers are the administrators and civil officials, and the villagers themselves-to many of whom each darkness of the evening is filled with fear-and to many of whom each noise in the night may be a terrorist bomb or an assassin's grenade. And yet they fight on. They fight for dreams beyond the din of battle-the dream of security in their village-a teacher for their children-food for their bodies-medicine for their sick-the right to worship in the way they choose. They fight for the essential rights of human existence and only the callous or timid can ignore their cause. OUR STAND IS FIRM There are special pleaders who counsel retreat in Vietnam. They belong to a group that has always been blind to experience and deaf to hope. We cannot accept their logic that tyranny 10,000 miles away is not tyranny to concern us—or that subjugation by an armed minority in Asia is different from subjugation by an armed minority in Europe. Were we to follow their course, how many nations might fall before the aggressor? Where would our treaties be respected, our word honored, our commitment believed? In the forties and fifties, we took our stand in Europe to protect the freedom of those threatened by aggression. If we had not then acted, what kind of Europe might there be today? Now the center of attention has shifted to another part of the world where aggression is on the march and enslavement of freemen is its goal. Our stand must be as firm as ever. REALITY OUT OF HOPES If we allow the Communists to win in Vietnam, it will become easier and more appetizing for them to take over other countries in other parts of the world. We will have to fight again someplace else at what cost no one knows. That is why it is vitally important to every American family that we stop the Communists in South Vietnam. To these beautiful islands and newest of our States have come the leaders of South Vietnam and the United States-to talk of our resolution to defend the peace and to build a decent society for the people of South Vietnam. Because we are here to talk especially of the works of peace, we will leave here determined not only to achieve victory over aggression, but to win victory over hunger, disease, and despair. We are making reality out of the hopes of the common people-hope for a better life. We will talk of health and education, agriculture and economics— and those other important aspects of a vital future for the people of Vietnam. In all of these endeavors we will give all the support possible to the energetic efforts of our Vietnamese allies, As leaders of our two nations, engaged in this struggle, it is appropriate that we should meet together in order that we may best move forward together. And so I extend today to these two friends and allies, a warm welcome to our country. I find nothing there but the conclusion we are out to win. Then we have in today's press in a statement attributed to the President. The President said: In South Vietnam Chief of State Thieu and Ky understand and we understand that the war we are helping them fight must be won on two fronts: one front is military and the other front is the struggle against social justice. Then we have the communique, a most unfortunate historical document in my judgment because I think in this document the President exceeded his constitutional power. I think he flaunted constitutional processes, and I do not think that he has the constitutional right to make the commitments that he has made in this communique. He says in it: "We must defeat the Vietcong and those illegally fighting with them on our soil"-it has become our soil now. "We are the victims of an aggression directed and supported from Hanoi. That aggression-so-called war of national liberation, is part of the Communist plan for the conquest of all southeast Asia"-on which they buttress their argument that we are going to stop communism wherever we, unilaterally, decide it ought to be stopped. He also says, or he agreed, "it is a military war, a war for the hearts of our people. We cannot win one without winning the other." I don't think there is any question about the fact of what our present course is, and I happen to think we ought to change that present course. We ought to follow the constitutional processes; we ought to follow the course of action such as you and General Gavin have told the American people. I think that in a democracy, if you are going to have full public disclosure of the public's business, you need just this kind of a forum; and this kind of a forum, in my judgment, backs up the boys in South Vietnam because it may lead to stopping the killing of them in the increasing numbers that they are going to suffer if we continue to escalate the war which in my judgment will go along with the Honolulu communique. I am at a loss that my President has yet to repudiate this statement of Ky in Honolulu. The South Vietnam leaders are not going to sit down in any negotiations with the Vietcong. I want to say, as one member of this committee, that I do not propose to let Ky-and I do not share a very high opinion of Mr. Ky, being a great lover of Hitler as he said to the London Mirror he was-tell us how many boys are going to die in South Vietnam because of any refusal on their part to negotiate with the Vietcong who are a real force in South Vietnam or are part of the negotiations. If that is the position of the South Vietnamese I have no doubt what our policy should be, "Get out." CONSTITUTIONAL PROCESSES I come to the question of constitutional processes. You mention on page 6 of your statement this morning: I fail to understand how it was possible to enter into any such commitmentYou were speaking about the commitment- to bypass the processes of senatorial advice and consent which were meant to come into play when undertakings of even lesser import than this were entered into. You have no doubt, do you, that the President admits we are at war in Vietnam ? Mr. KENNAN. It seems to me this has been said many times. Do you know of any declaration of war against any country in Asia that we have taken through our constitutional processes? Mr. KENNAN. I do not, Senator Morse. Senator MORSE. Are you at all disturbed or concerned about the fact that article I, section 8 of the Constitution hasn't been complied with by the President and by the Congress? The President has sent no war message, as did Woodrow Wilson on the night of April 17, 1917, to the Congress in which he said that he lacked constitutional authoritythat is his language-to make war in the absence of a declaration of war, and that Franklin Roosevelt, after Pearl Harbor, sent a war message to the Congress asking for a declaration of war. Does it concern you that we have boys dying in South Vietnam in a war which I have called an executive war without a declaration of war? Mr. KENNAN. It has puzzled me. And the whole situation has concerned me. |