influence. There is where the great danger lies, there is where the great danger lies.

It seems to me when we were thinking long and hard about these questions at the end of World War II, we did in fact come up with the wisest answer: that large and small nations have a right to live without being molested by their neighbors, and that a small nation has a right to live in peace and without domination by somebody else if— even if it is within the reach of some great power.

So I must say I am very much concerned about substituting the idea of spheres of influence among a few great powers for the structure of international life laid out in the United Nations Charter.

IMPORTANCE OF DIFFERENT AREAS IN THE WORLD

Now, on the matter of whether some areas are more important than others: It is true that on some basic criteria of strategic position or industrial power or the qualities of population-in terms of education, and so forth-there are certain areas that are of the most vital importance. Western Europe, for example, and the great Japanese industrial structure are of the greatest possible importance from the point of view of the United States.

But even those areas, Senator, can only be secure if the commitment of the United States is considered to be valid. Therefore, when we turn ourselves to the question, can we afford to be negligent about our pledge in this area because we do not think that area is very important-although I happen to think southeast Asia is very important-we have to consider that if we are negligent about that, this bounces back into an undermining of the validity of our pledges to those areas which are of transcendent importance. So I am fearful that, if these solemn alliances which we have undertaken are not supported, we would be faced with a situation where no one would be sure about any of our alliances.

How could we persuade somebody else by saying, "Now we were not very strong over there, but, don't worry, we will be all right if you get in trouble?" How are we going to persuade them to rely upon that, and, more particularly, how are we going to persuade the Communist capitals that, although we might have appeared not to have meant business here, we will in fact mean business over there?

That is very dangerous business, that is very dangerous business. So I would think that we need to think about the structure of the peace, for the support of which we went into these alliances, and to consider the effect upon the possibility of peace if it should prove that our commitments are not reliable.

The CHAIRMAN. The Senator's time is up.

PRESENT POLICY IN VIETNAM A STEP TO PEACE

Senator WILLIAMS. Mr. Secretary, in line with that same thought, do I understand that you feel our policy of firmness in South Vietnam is really a step toward peace rather than a policy of retreat which would more or less invite war?

Secretary RUSK. Senator, it is indeed. And I think this really is, if I may say so, the underlying issue in much of the public discussion not only here but in other countries in the last very few years.

It has been said of me that I am a hard liner-I would like to comment very briefly on that-and that I should come up with new ideas. Now one new idea that I am supposed to come up with apparently is that we can go back to the pre-World War II period and pick up those old ideas and pretend that they have validity in the 1960's: the idea that maybe this is only the last bite, maybe the fellow will be satisfied, maybe we do not have to be concerned about it, maybe we are not on a course to war if the aggressor begins to succeed.

Now, this is not the kind of world in which it is comfortable to be a foreign minister. It is difficult and complicated and dangerous for everybody in this room. But there are moments when, Senator, toughness is absolutely essential for peace.

I mentioned earlier this morning that when Chairman Khrushchev presented President Eisenhower with an ultimatum on Berlin, and when Chairman Khrushchev tried to intimidate President Kennedy about Berlin in Vienna in June 1961-he threatened us with war on those occasions-we would have been in the gravest danger had we not said, "Mr. Chairman, this won't do. If that is what you want, you can have it, but we had better start looking for some alternative." If, on those occasions, we do not make it quite clear where we are and where we are going to make our stand, then the prospects for peace disappear, disappear. And so the central issue here is how you organize a world peace, and whether we have learned anything over the last four decades about what is a threat to world peace.

Now, I must say I believe that if we want to be polite to the other side, if we want to avoid being rude to the other side, and we say, "Well, we don't want much trouble. You can just have South Vietnam," that is a step toward war; that is a step toward war.

Senator WILLIAMS. Thank you for answering. The reason I raised this question I wanted your views on that. The suggestion is made that this may be described as an American war, which we all hate to But at the same time our withdrawal under present circumstances would be described as American defeat, would it not? Secretary RUSK. That is correct, sir.

DOES SEARCH FOR PEACE ENCOURAGE NORTH VIETNAMESE AGGRESSION?

Senator WILLIAMS. And I have one question; my time is limited. I want to say first, I think quite properly the President is continuing his search both through the United Nations and other sources for a peaceful solution to the conflict in Vietnam. We are all hoping for the best of success. But the question that gets raised occasionally, is it not possible that the North Vietnamese may interpret these international gestures as a sign of weakness on our part, and thereby encourage them actually to step up the war rather than to hold back. What is your comment on that?

Secretary RUSK. That, Senator, quite frankly was a part of the calculated risk that we took into account, part of the calculated risk. And it was something of a risk because there are signs that the people in Hanoi are not very sophisticated about the United States and about the outside world. For example, if we heard that 20,000 demonstrators were circling around the headquarters in Hanoi calling for peace, we would be inclined to think that the war was over. Whether they are sophisticated enough to know that 20,000 demonstrators

circling around the White House does not mean that the war is over so one does not know.

far as we are concerned, Communist countries-in Moscow, for ex

I think that some of the

ample know enough about us to not make that mistake. But we have to take that into account. I think, sir, on balance that Hanoi understands that the desire to bring this matter to a conference table was not a demonstration of weakness, partly because they see American strength right in their own back yard-they see the amount of strength that is present.

Senator WILLIAMS. And in line with the question of Senator Church about Chinese reaction to our establishment of bases in southeast Asia, have we not repeatedly stated that we have no such intentions of establishing permanent basis in southeast Asia and that if there is a peaceful solution that we would withdraw at that time?

Secretary RUSK. That is correct, sir. All they need to do is to test that, to test that by coming and making some peace and finding out The CHAIRMAN. The Senator's time is up.

Senator Dodd?

COMMENDATION OF WITNESS

Senator DODD. Mr. Secretary, I shall not detain you long because a good part of the questions I asked you this morning. I have heard you many times before this committee and other places, and I can only say to you again what I have said I guess to a tiresome degree, I think you are one of the great statesmen of the world.

Secretary RUSK. Thank you, sir.

Senator DODD. And I think you have presented the case for the people of the United States and the administration as brilliantly as it can be done.

Secretary RUSK. Thank you, sir.

Senator DODD. I have never heard a more intelligent presentation and a more accurate historical one.

Mr. Secretary, I am troubled, and have been for some time, about the tendency on the part of many people to equate the position of the United States with that of the forces of aggressive communism. Senator Williams touched on it, and it is of interest to me and I would like to have your comment on it.

PURPOSE OF U.S. BASES IS NOT AGGRESSION

I have heard it said all the time, "Well, after all, we forced Khrushchev to take his missiles out of Cuba. We have our Polaris and other submarines, all kinds of bases around the world, we are really in the same posture."

I think this is a basic error. I think it is a false premise. I think it would help our people very much if you took a minute or two to state your view about it. I may add this, it seems so clear in logic and in historical fact that we are not an aggressive power, that every action we have taken has been a defensive one, a reaction to an aggressive act. Every base we have, every submarine under the sea, every aircraft in the sky, every soldier at arms is in that posture today because of ag gressive threat or act from the forces of aggressive communism. Am I right about that?

Secretary RUSK. Senator, just after, at the close of World War II, we demobilized at a rate and at depth which meant that in early 1946 we did not have a single division ready for combat nor a single air group ready for combat.

We moved, as you will recall, in the Baruch proposals to eliminate nuclear weapons for everybody, including ourselves. And we began to concentrate on binding up the wounds of war and getting on with the civilian business of man.

Since 1947 the United States has spent $800 billion on its defense budgets. The story of that increase of defense effort is a story of specific steps of aggression launched by the other side, most of which appear on the agenda of the Security Council of the United Nations.

These alliances of which we are a part would lose their significance if the other side would live at peace. No one is building these alliances just for the fun of it. We could get on with disarmament if we could accompany disarmament measures with political settlements and an assurance that the peace in fact would be observed.

I realize this is a presumptuous statement for any American to make, but I am deeply convinced that there is no people in the world who are more deeply peace loving than are the American people, and that, if we be given a chance to demonstrate it, everyone would see what we are all about and what we would really prefer to do with those $800 billion of our resources.

So-nevertheless-we have faced a series of tough problems initiated by the other side: a blockade of Berlin, guerrillas in Greece, all the rest of it, which has made it necessary for us to exert ourselves to deal with the issue of aggression as it has come from different quarters.

It is tragic that this should be so in the 1960's after all that we have been through in the last four decades.

I would hope that we could reach a point where it would be recognized on the other side that aggression is simply out as an instrument of policy, that if there are differences, we ought to get at them around the conference table, that if there are ideological differences, let the peoples themselves decide in what has been called peaceful competition or some have called peaceful coexistence-let the peoples decide these things and not have them decided on the battlefield.

DOUBLE STANDARDS

We do, Senator, get into a bit of a problem with a double standard; with a double standard.

I have seen a good many petitions lately calling upon us to do X, Y, or Z for peace in southeast Asia. But very few of those petitions ask Hanoi to do anything. I saw a full page ad in the paper the other day calling on us to do four or five things. It didn't ask Hanoi to do anything.

We can't have peace on that basis. We can have peace on a reciprocal basis, and we have done everything that we can to show to the other side that on the basis of reciprocity, we can have peace very quickly. So, we have that problem of double standards. But I do believe that there is broad understanding throughout the world that this almost unbelievable power of the United States has not really corrupted the purposes of the American people, and that we would be the first

to lead the way toward peace if there were others who would join us and say, "We are not going to commit aggression against our neighbors."

Senator DODD. Well, I am most grateful for your answer and I think it will help the American people to better understand the posture we are in and what we are up against.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask unanimous consent to have inserted into the record, if it is permissible at this time, an article from the New York times I don't have the date of it but I will supply it— written by Mr. Felix Belair, Jr., in which he relates that conversation in which President Eisenhower endorsed the decision of President Johnson with respect to the resumption of bombings. I think this is significant because I think these hearings have been watched by vast numbers of people. I thing the world ought to know that our country isn't really torn apart, and that we are not in such great disunion as

may appear.

Here is a former President of the opposition party who says that he thinks the President is right.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection it will be inserted. (The article referred to follows:)

[From the New York Times, Feb. 1, 1966]

EISENHOWER CALLS JOHNSON UNQUESTIONABLY RIGHT INDEFINITE LULL IN RAIDS WOULD ONLY AID ENEMY, HE SAYS-HANOI DENOUNCED BY GENERAL FOR "ESCALATING" CONFLICT

(By Felix Belair, Jr.)

WASHINGTON, January 31.-Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower said today that President Johnson "unquestionably has made the correct decision" in ordering a resumption of bombing in North Vietnam.

To have done otherwise, General Eisenhower said, would have “given sanetuary to those responsible for sending guerrilla forces and supplies into South Vietnam" for the purpose of imposing their will on the government and people of that country.

The general expressed his views on the President's decision in a telephone conversation from his winter residence in Desert City, Calif. His response to a request for comment was immediate and extemporaneous.

"BRINKMANSHIP" DENIED

In addition to providing safe passage from the north for the guerrilla forces and supplies infiltrating into South Vietnam through Laos, he asserted, an indefinite suspension of bombing would "only make certain that he would have to face the Communist aggressor on other battlefields elsewhere in southeast Asia."

"We are in South Vietnam at the invitation of that Government," he said, “and I'm for winning the battle here and not in some more remote place not of our own choosing."

He had no sympathy at all, General Eisenhower said, with some Members of the Senate, and others who maintained that a bombing resumption in the north would be escalating the war and playing at "brinkmanship with a nuclear world war III."

He contended that it was Hanoi, working through the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, the political affiliate of the Vietcong, that had done the escalating. In addition to a completely negative response to President Johnson's peace overtures, he said, North Vietnam's Communist regime had used the period of suspended bombing to strengthen their forces in the south and send more equipment.

The Vietcong forces had expanded their attacks on U.S. military installations and barracks while continuing their bombing of nonmilitary civilian targets such as buses and other public facilities, the former President said.