50. ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT JOHNSON, AUGUST 12, 1964

In Viet-Nam, too, we work for world order.

For 10 years, through the Eisenhower administration, the Kennedy administration, and this administration, we have had one consistent aim observance of the 1954 agreements which guaranteed the independence of South Viet-Nam.

That independence has been the consistent target of aggression and terror. For 10 years our response to these attacks has followed a consistent pattern:

First, that the South Vietnamese have the basic responsibility for the defense of their own freedom.

Second, we would engage our strength and our resources to whatever extent needed to help others repel aggression.

Now, there are those who would have us depart from these tested principles. They have a variety of viewpoints. All of them, I am sure, you have heard in your local community.

Some say that we should withdraw from South Viet-Nam, that we have lost almost 200 lives there in the last 4 years, and we should come home. But the United States cannot and must not and will not turn aside and allow the freedom of a brave people to be handed over to Communist tyranny. This alternative is strategically unwise, we think, and it is morally unthinkable.

Some others are eager to enlarge the conflict. They call upon us to supply American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do. They ask us to take reckless action which might risk the lives of millions and engulf much of Asia and certainly threaten the peace of the entire world. Moreover, such action would offer no solution at all to the real problem of Viet-Nam. America can and America will meet any wider challenge from others, but our aim in Viet-Nam, as in the rest of the world, is to help restore the peace and to reestablish a decent order.

The course that we have chosen will require wisdom and endurance. But let no one doubt for a moment that we have the resources and the will to follow this course as long as it may take. No one should think for a moment that we will be worn down, nor will we be driven out, and we will not be provoked into rashness; but we will continue to meet aggression with firmness and unprovoked attack with measured reply.

That is the meaning of the prompt reaction of our destroyers to unprovoked attack. That is the meaning of the positive reply of our aircraft to a repetition of that attack. That is the meaning of the resolution passed by your Congress with 502 votes in favor and only 2 opposed. That is the meaning of the national unity that we have shown to all the world last week.

There is another consideration. Wherever the forces of freedom are engaged, no one who commands the power of nuclear weapons can escape his responsibility for the life of our people and the life of your children.

It has never been the policy of any American to sympathetically or systematically place in hazard the life of this nation by threatening

1 Department of State Bulletin, Aug. 81, 1964, p. 299–300.

nuclear war. No American President has ever pursued so irresponsible a course. Our firmness at moments of crisis has always been matched by restraint-our determination by care. It was so under President Truman at Berlin, under President Eisenhower in the Formosa Straits, under President Kennedy in the Cuba missile crisis—and I pledge you that it will be so long as I am your President.

In Viet-Nam, in Cyprus, and in every continent, in a hundred different ways, America's efforts are directed toward world order. Only when all nations are willing to accept peaceful procedures as alternative to forceful settlement will the peace of our world be secure.

(After several weeks of rapid political developments in South Vietnam, during which General Khanh briefly relinquished the premiership, the Secretary of State was questioned at a press conference.) 51. SECRETARY RUSK'S NEWS CONFERENCE, SEPTEMBER 14, 1964 (Excerpt). 1

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Q. Mr. Secretary, what in your judgment is the impact of the uprising in Viet-Nam yesterday on the future prospects for getting on with the war?

A. Well, we hope very much that the events of the last 2 days will underline the importance of the projected plan which the triumvirate announced 10 days ago to constitute a council, broadly representative of the major elements in the population, whose task it will be in the weeks immediately ahead to devise a constitution for the country which will make it possible for all elements in the country to be represented, and to bring more civilians into the government to take on those tasks that are essentially civilian in character and permit the military leaders to concentrate more and more of their attention on the war against the Viet Cong.

We know this has been in their minds-in the minds of the military leaders for some time. And the machinery which was established under the leadership of the Acting Chief of State, General [Duong Van] Minh, seemed to us to be a way to move on that purpose with dispatch. We do believe that it was important and gratifying that these recent incidents did not lead to armed conflict and to violence among elements of the armed forces, and we hope that these incidents will have a stabilizing effect and that people, having now seen this prospect of violence which was avoided, will now recognize the importance of getting on with it through consultation and movement toward a stable and more permanent constitutional system.

Q. Mr. Secretary, do we have a good, intelligible analysis of what the elements in the unrest are in Saigon today?

A. Well, if you are referring to the events of these past 2 days, I think that it is fair to say that basically this came from the disgruntlement of certain officers in connection with their removal from command and their removal from office. We did not have any reason to suppose that the troops and the junior officers of the elements that were moved into Saigon from nearby areas had a political program in mind or that they were particularly aware of what was going on.

1 Department of State Bulletin, Oct. 5, 1964, pp. 468–470.

But the officers who were primarily involved were officers who had been sacked by the Government in the course of the last week or so. And obviously they were not very happy about the situation.

We do, however, again come back to the point that relatively small elements of the armed forces were involved, perhaps 8 to 10 battalions, and that it was apparent that the armed forces were not prepared to follow them in a deeper, divisive, and violent disagreement within the armed forces. We found considerable encouragement in that.

Now, it is going to take some time to build the permanent kind of stable and constitutional government that they are looking for out there. I think that those of us who are concerned about this on a dayto-day matter-day-to-day basis-ought to pause and recall that for almost 25 years South Viet-Nam has been involved in violence and disorder and the highest of tensions: the period of Japanese occupation, the war against the French occupation, the division of the country between North and South, and the consolidation of the North as a Communist country, the tragic events that set group against group in the closing weeks of President Diem's regime, and the changes that have occurred since. These have created residues of problems, and it is not easy to set aside all that is past in order to get together on the important requirements of the future.

So this is understandable, even though we, and I think the present leaders, are impatient to get all of that behind us and build the kind of government that can move the country on to the kind of future that is waiting for it, if it can have some peace internationally and some unity and confidence in the country domestically.

Q. Mr. Secretary, in the past, in connection with similar incidents in Laos, perhaps even other countries, you yourself and other members of the administration have remarked pointedly that the United States cannot salvage a situation where there is no will and no evidence on the scene that the people themselves are willing to help themselves. Have you begun to talk in these terms to the people in Saigon?

A. Well, I think the important point which we have made in conversations and discussions is that we understand that there are reasons for some of these differences in the country. But these are differences which are of secondary importance compared to with the overriding necessity of saving the country, establishing its security, maintaining its independence. And therefore we would hope that these lesser differences would be put on ice, that a moratorium would be declared on them, until the main job of building a secure and independent country has been accomplished. And we have tried to make that clear. And I think that we have made some headway on that point.

Q. Mr. Secretary, both General [Maxwell D.] Taylor and former Ambassador [Henry Cabot] Lodge have said that if South Viet-Nam could establish the stable constitutional government you mentioned, the war against the Communists would be over. On that basis, then, would you say that the primary problem in South Viet-Nam is political and governmental, rather than an actual military operation against the Communists?

A. Well, I think you would have to interpret their remarks against the background of the broader view of what they themselves have of a situation. I think it isn't literally true that the moment a stable government is formed that the problem of the Viet Cong would dis

appear. But what is true is that we are not aware of any important group in South Viet-Nam other than the Viet Cong itself that looks to Hanoi for an answer.

These officers who led these battalions into Saigon Sunday [September 13] declared their determination to win the war against the Communists. But what is needed is the sort of structure which has been steadily building in the provinces for the past several months, the sort of structure which provides the administrative skeleton of the country which insures that public services are operating efficiently, that the police are where they should be to provide the elements of security so that those who cooperate with the Government need not fear unduly the attempts of the Viet Cong to break up that system. Now, there has been considerable headway in the provinces in this matter in the past several months and these events in Saigon have not brought about dislocation and changes in the provinces of the sort that cuts across the effort of the Government. But thus far there has not been the complete unity and the stability of the Government at the very top in Saigon among the top several dozen leaders with the full understanding of the people of Saigon. This problem is heavily concentrated in Saigon itself. And we hope now that these leaders will see the dangers of incidents such as that which has just occurred and will put lesser problems behind them and move toward the unity which is so urgently required.

Q. Mr. Secretary, do you feel perhaps that we Americans, and the rest of the world as well, have overestimated American power to influence this situation?

A. Well, I think there may be some Americans who expect miracles from the United States in these far-off and distant places. Let me remind you once again that there are a billion and a half people in Asia, half of them in the Communist world, half of them in the free world. We are not going to find answers for a billion and a half people by simply saying to them, "Now, just move over and we Americans will settle these things for you." That is not the way it's going to happen.

We can help those Asians who are determined to be free to develop the strength and the structure of the organization and the economic base, develop their public services, so that they have the strength and the capacity to meet their problems themselves. And this is what we have been trying to do for the past 10 years in South Viet-Nam. After the division of the country, President Eisenhower determined to provide very substantial assistance to South Viet-Nam. I point out to you that in the years 1956 to 1959 some very important progress was made economically and from the point of view of administration, and they were well on their way toward peace and toward prosperity. But then the North decided that this was perhaps getting too much for them and they decided in 1959 to renew their attempts to undermine and take over South Viet-Nam, and they publicly proclaimed that in 1960.

So these pressures from the outside have to be met, have to be resisted. But these are matters which Asians themselves must have a full part in as their own problem. We can help and assist. And we can also be sure that these do not become matters of all-out, wholesale invasions with organized armed forces and things of that sort, that

these people have a chance to these 14 million people in South VietNam-have a chance to resolve their problems themselves.

Q. Mr. Secretary, the organized Buddhists are being spoken of as having a major veto power in any future Vietnamese stability: (1) Do you think this is true; and (2), what do you think their objectives are, what are they seeking?

Á. Well, I would not want to offer a generalization about 80 percent of the population of South Viet-Nam.

There, of course, have been some problems in the past, as you know, some of them originating out of religious differences. Some of them perhaps have been stimulated during President Diem's regime. Some of them are more political in character, but political points of view which represent elements that have one particular religious belief rather than another. And I would not want to call that necessarily a religious difference.

But, with 80 percent of the population Buddhist, it is very important that the Buddhist element, just as with the Catholic element, find a basis on which they work together to build and support a government which can build their country's security and independence.

(The following two statements were made after further governmental changes in Saigon, as a result of which Pham Khac Huu was selected chief of state and Tran Van Huong named Premier of South Vietnam.)

52. PRESIDENT JOHNSON REAFFIRMS THE BASIC POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES IN VIET-NAM, DECEMBER 1, 1964 1 1

The President today reviewed the situation in South Viet-Nam with Ambassador [Maxwell D.] Taylor, and with the Secretaries of State [Dean Rusk] and Defense [Robert S. McNamara], the Director of Central Intelligence [John A. McCone], and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff [Gen. Earle G. Wheeler].

Ambassador Taylor reported that the political situation in Saigon was still difficult but that the new government under Prime Minister [Tran Van] Huong was making a determined effort to strengthen national unity, to maintain law and order, and to press forward with the security program, involving a combination of political, economic, and military actions to defeat the Viet Cong insurgency. The Ambassador also reported that, although the security problems have increased over the past few months in the northern provinces of South VietNam, with uneven progress elsewhere, the strength of the armed forces of the government was being increased by improved recuriting and conscription and by the nearly 100-percent increase in the combat strength of the Vietnamese Air Force. Also, the government forces continue to inflict heavy losses on the Viet Cong.

On the economic front, Ambassador Taylor noted that agricultural output was continuing to increase, with U.S. assistance in fertilizers and pesticides playing an important role. He also noted that the

1 Department of State Bulletin, Dec. 21, 1964, pp. 869-870.