COMPARISON OF KENNAN AND GAVIN VIEWS The CHAIRMAN. Earlier in this testimony the witness stated his position almost as General Gavin did the day before yesterday. He said he did not advocate retiring or retreating. It was to hold a position that we now have. You, earlier in your testimony, said that. Senator Symington said that you advocated retiring; you had not said that previously. You said to hold the position we now have with what we have. That is what General Gavin said the other day. Mr. KENNAN. Senator, perhaps if I were to define my position I would do best by saying I would gladly identify myself with what Mr. Walter Lippmann said in the column published in the Washington paper this morning about this, namely, that we should regard this as a limited war, a war for limited objectives, and not for unlimited ⚫ ones. The CHAIRMAN. All I meant is I think you, perhaps, were responding to that question in a little different way than you did previously, and as General Gavin did, because he stated that he had been grossly misrepresented. Senator GORE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to put Mr. Lippmann's .column in the record. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection so ordered. (The document referred to follows:) [From the Washington Post, Feb. 10, 1966] LIMITED AND UNLIMITED WAR (By Walter Lippmann) The declaration from Honolulu consists of a web of ringing generalities about the hopes, the good intentions, the high-minded purposes of the Johnson administration and the Ky government. What it all means concretely and in practice has to be inferred. If the inferences that are drawn are wrong, as I devoutly hope they are, the fault lies with the calculated opaqueness of the document. I read it as a refusal by the President to put limits on our war aims and on our military commitments in Vietnam. The declaration is tantamount to the rejection of a negotiated peace beween General Ky and his adversaries in the Vietcong and in North Vietnam. We are committed to win the war and to defeat and liquidate the enemy forces, and then to reconstruct the country as it is regained for the Saigon government. The indispensable condition of a negotiated peace that there be negotiation with the enemy in the field-was loudly rejected in a press conference at Honolulu by General Ky without any noticeable reservations by the President. The big objective which the words of the document declare is a total victory for General Ky. To accomplish this enormous objective, very large forces will be needed. The declaration must therefore be read as a commitment of American forces limited not by considerations of policy but only by our ability to break the logistical bottlenecks which hold down the number of troops we can land and support. If these are not the political and military decisions on which the Honolulu Conference agreed, no time should be lost in making clear to our people what in fact the commitments are. As it happened, on the day the Honolulu Declaration was issued, General Gavin was testifying before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. As a result of his testimony the central issue in the whole great controversy can now be seen. It is whether we are fighting a limited or an unlimited war in Vietnam. The Gavin position, as it emerged from the questioning by the Senators, is that our strategic planning and our diplomatic objectives should be tailored to the fact that we cannot—because of our other responsibilities around the world— commit an unlimited force to the war in South Vietnam. General Gavin made it clear enough that we cannot withdraw until after there is a political settlement and that we should no escalate much beyond the force already committed. If this is the limitation on the kind of war we can fight, it follows that our strategic purpose will have to be to hold fast in the areas we already occupy and which are within reach of our seapower. This is not a strategical plan for winning the war. It is a strategical plan for not losing the war dishonorably and unnecessarily. Those of us who support this strategical principle are convinced that a war on the Asian mainland cannot be won by a white Western power. For 20 years this belief has been tested on the battlefields of Indochina, and there is no reason to think that we are in sight of the objectives once again reiterated in the Honolulu Declaration. The most serious criticism that has been made of the proposed holding strategy is that the American forces are not able to hold and make secure enclaves in South Vietnam. No doubt it would be difficult to do so. But to admit that the military forces of the United States are not powerful enough to do this is a radical and spectacular admission that American military power is very feeble indeed on the Asian mainland. If what we decided to hold were an island, it could be protected as effectively as Formosa or even the islands of Quemoy and Matsu. If our Gibraltar were on a peninsula like Korea, or on an isthmus like the Kra, the stronghold could be made secure. The serious defect of the enclave strategy is that it attempts to hold territory which is not an island, a peninsula or an isthmus but is rather on the continent of Asia. It would therefore be subject to infiltration and to siege. But the total opponents of the holding strategy are left with the alternative of fighting an unlimited land war on the continent. These are difficult matters and nobody involved in the argument has any claim to infallibility. For myself, I agree with General Gavin that we should adopt the strategy of a strictly limited war. While it is true as the Washington Post said on Wednesday, "that there is no easy, painless, costless alternative" to our present course in southeast Asia, there may be, and it is our duty to search for, a wiser one. He The CHAIRMAN. We went into this at great length with General Gavin. He made it quite clear that he was not advocating retreating to a narrow enclave. He said he wished to hold our position. thought we could with our present forces. He was simply not for escalating-increasing the commitment is what he really said-and I thought that is what you said earlier. Mr. KENNAN. Well, I do not pretend to know what the definition of a defensive posture would be in South Vietnam. That is up to military people to determine. I cannot speculate on that. I only say that I feel great misgivings about a forward strategy, and feel a strong conviction that we will have no profit from an attempt to carry this military effort to its ultimate conclusions. Senator GORE. And ultimately you think the United States should not maintain armed forces there. Mr. KENNAN. That is correct. I look forward to the day when we will not have any there. MORAL AND PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS Senator SYMINGTON. So long as you understand my position, there is nobody anywhere who wants to get out of South Vietnam more than I do. I would do anything in the world that I know of to get out of it But, on the other hand, we defend the free world today all over the world. One of the highest people in the State Department, not in the military, said that if we walked out of South Vietnam, he thought there would be riots in Berlin. That is why I am disturbed about your statement that you do not look at this whole problem from a moral standpoint, rather from a practical one. To me there does seem to be some morality in it, that we do have some obligations to these South Vietnamese people out there. All over the world, we have made commitments to people as to what we will do in case they are attacked. It seems to me that it would be very difficult for us to leave South Vietnam without destroying the position we have with others; with people like the West Germans, and in other places. I want to get out. But I do not see how we can get out, and the only way we can stay in there, in my opinion, without very heavy additional loss of American life, is to utilize where we are strong, sea air power and air power, and not fight on the ground. And yet you feel we should not use that power against North Vietnam. Rather we should take it on a one to one basis in the jungles on the ground. I think that is where we have our major difference. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Well, it is becoming very late, Mr. Kennan. You have been most patient with us. I know you are very tired, as we all are. I cannot tell you how much we appreciate your testimony. I think you have made a great contribution to the understanding of this most difficult problem. I only regret that this committee and the Government had not consulted you more often in the last year or two. I think we all would have benefited from your advice. I thank you very much. The committee is adjourned until the next meeting. The meeting will be with General Taylor, according to current plans, which are subject to change at any time, on next Thursday. Senator SYMINGTON. Mr. Chairman, may I make one observation before we leave? The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Senator SYMINGTON. I wanted to ask the witness in detail about his opinions as against General Taylor's opinions, militarily, of General Gavin's opinions militarily. But, as I understand it, Mr. Kennan, and you know my respect for you, sir, you do not feel you could comment on the differences between those two military men because of your lack of military experience; is that correct, sir? Mr. KENNAN. I think it would be much better for me not to attempt to do it. Senator SYMINGTON. Thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Kennan. (Whereupon, at 5:30 p.m., the committee recessed to resume at 10 a.m., Thursday, February 17, 1966.) SUPPLEMENTAL FOREIGN ASSISTANCE, FISCAL YEAR 1966_VIETNAM THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1966 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, The committee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 o'clock a.m., in room 318, Old Senate Office Building, Senator J. W. Fulbright (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Fulbright, Sparkman, Morse, Long of Louisiana, Gore, Lausche, Symington, Dodd, Pell, Hickenlooper, Aiken, Carlson, Williams of Delaware, Mundt, and Case. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Some question has been raised in the last day or so about the purpose of these hearings. The purpose of the hearings is to inform the American people, the members of the committee and the Senate as fully as possible about the implications of the war in Vietnam. Whether our country is to continue to enlarge, to continue on the present basis, or to settle this war is a very serious question affecting the lives and fortunes of every citizen of this Nation. I know of no other forum in which this problem may be more appropriately examined than this committee. It is in truth our duty under the Constitution to inquire into matters of this kind. I hope these hearings may assist our Government in making the wisest possible decision with the security of our country for the reestablishment of peace in southeast Asia. BACKGROUND OF WITNESS We are privileged this morning to have as our witness Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, one of the ablest military leaders we have had in this country in many years. His record of distinguished service to the Nation. goes back nearly 45 years. He was an outstanding combat leader in World War II, and in Korea, and went to progressively more responsible positions to become Chief of Staff of the Army and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Few men have played such a significant role in the developments leading to our current involvement in Vietnam. For the last 5 years, General Taylor has been associated intimately with the making of Vietnamese policy decisions as personal military representative of President Kennedy in 1961 and 1962, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962 to 1964, and as our Ambassador to South Vietnam in 1964 and 1965. He is now Special Consultant to the President, and accompanied him to the recent conference in Honolulu. General Taylor, we are very pleased to have you. Of course, we have had you very often before and are familiar with you. We welcome you to make whatever statements you wish. STATEMENT OF GEN. MAXWELL D. TAYLOR (RETIRED) General TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the members of the committee for your willingness to hear my views on the situation in South Vietnam. I am afraid that they will not be new to many of you since you have often heard me express them in the days when I was an official of the Government. I agree thoroughly with the motivating purposes of these hearings; namely, to analyze the reasons why we are involved in South Vietnam, the importance of this involvement, and the effectiveness with which we are dealing with the resultant problems. If my personal view can assist in clarifying these points, I shall be most happy to present them. For the purpose of providing a basis for our subsequent discussion, with your permission I would like to make a continuous statement which will undertake to answer three basic questions. First, what are we doing in South Vietnam? Secondly, how are we doing it? And, finally, can we improve upon what we are doing? WHAT WE ARE DOING IN VIETNAM A simple statement of what we are doing in South Vietnam is to say that we are engaged in a clash of purpose and interest with the militant wing of the Communist movement represented by Hanoi, the Vietcong and Peiping. Opposing these Communist forces, in the front rank stand the Government and people of South Vietnam supported primarily by the United States but assisted in varying degree by some 30 other nations. The purpose of the Hanoi camp is perfectly clear and has been since 1954. It is to absorb the 15 million people of South Vietnam into a single Communist state under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh and his associates in Hanoi. In the course of accomplishing this basic purpose, the Communist leaders expect to undermine the position of the United States in Asia and to demonstrate the efficacy of the so-called war of liberation as a cheap, safe, and disavowable technique for the future expansion of militant communism. Our purpose is equally clear and easily defined. In his Baltimore speech of April 7, 1965, President Johnson did so in the following terms: Our objective is the independence of South Vietnam and its freedom from attack. We want nothing for ourselves only that the people of South Vietnam be allowed to guide their own country in their own way. This has been our basic objective since 1954. It has been pursued by three successive administrations and remains our basic objective today. |