CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE
January 18, 1968
Page 310
SENATOR MUSKIE'S CHRISTMAS NEWSLETTER AND JAPANESE BROADCASTING CO. INTERVIEW
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the Vietnam conflict deeply troubles each of us. We continue to review our Nation's policy and alternatives with each day's report on the war.
In my annual Christmas newsletter to Maine constituents I recorded some of my thoughts about the war at that time.
Earlier this week, I was interviewed on film about the war by the Japanese Broadcasting Co. I was told that my remarks would be broadcast via communications satellite to Japan immediately following President Johnson's state of the Union message, as part of the company's television coverage of his message.
With the hope that my Christmas newsletter and my remarks for the Japanese Broadcasting Co. may be of interest to Senators, I ask unanimous consent that both statements be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the items were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
U.S. SENATE,
Washington, D.C.,
December 20, 1967.
DEAR FRIENDS: Dag Hammarskjold, the late Secretary-General of the United Nations, once said: "Without recognition of human rights we shall never have peace, and it is only within the framework of peace that human rights can be fully developed."
These words state the dilemma and the challenge we face as we approach the end of a difficult, frustrating and unhappy year for mankind.
As we look ahead to a new year, it is appropriate to consider something else Hammarskjold said: "The greatest prayer of man is not for victory but for peace."
I join you in that prayer during this holy season when we traditionally raise our eyes toward that elusive goal of peace and good will among men.
We pray also that we may somehow find the patience to listen to each other, the understanding to grasp each other's point of view, the wisdom to identify the courses of action most likely to advance us toward our goal, and some sensitivity to our own fallibility.
On the last day of the American Constitutional Convention, in 1787, Benjamin Franklin, then 81 years old, had the following to say to his fellow delegates:
"I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: for having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others."
Franklin closed his statement by expressing the wish that every member of the Convention who still had doubts about the Constitution "would with me, on this occasion, doubt a little of his own infallibility."
It seems to me, as I have observed and listened to the debate on those problems which have a high emotional content, that Franklin's advice is most relevant today.
Franklin made the above statement at the end of a long, hot summer of deliberations by dedicated men who, by Franklin's description, had assembled with "all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views." Franklin's point was that, with all their differences, they faced the responsibility finally of agreeing on a policy and a result, and of making that result viable and effective by supporting it.
Americans have lived with the problem of converting disagreement and differences of opinion into effective public policy ever since. And Franklin wisely suggested that one of the keys to success in that respect is the capacity to "doubt a little of (our) own infallibility.”
VIETNAM REVIEW
It is with just such doubt that I constantly consider my own views on our Vietnam policy. It may be useful to review them briefly in this end-of-the-year letter.
1. For all of my lifetime, and before, we have considered that we have a national interest in what happens in Southeast Asia. Indeed, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was provoked by our refusal to let her have her way in that area.
2. It was because of the persistence of that conviction, underlying our national policy, which led Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and finally Johnson to gradually enlarge our involvement in Southeast Asia following World War II. We are undertaking to deny to aggressive communism what we fought a war to deny to an aggressive Japan.
3. Whether the decisions resulting in this enlarged involvement were right or wrong is a proper subject for debate and discussion. The fact of our long-standing interest in the area should not be overlooked, however. Moreover, "whether we should have been there in the first place" is a different question than "what do we do now?"
4. In answer to that question, unilateral withdrawal has no support in the U.S. Senate. Senators such as Fulbright, Morse, and McCarthy do not advocate that we just "walk out" of our commitments in South Vietnam. Nor does any Senator, to my knowledge, support the idea of such unlimited and unrestrained application of our military power as would risk war with Red China or the Soviet Union.
5. There is disagreement in the Senate as to whether we should (a) discontinue the bombing in the north, continue it at about the present level, or add additional targets; (b) destroy the port of Haiphong by bombing or mining; (c) continue the so-called "search and destroy" operations in South Vietnam; (d) discontinue the "search and destroy" operations, retreat into strongly held positions, presumably on the coast, and hold until the enemy decides to negotiate; (e) pursue the enemy when he retreats across the Cambodian or Laotion borders. There appears to be resistance to the idea of invading North Vietnam itself.
6. On one side of each of these issues are those who believe that a tougher policy will end the war more quickly and that the specific military measures described will not provoke intervention by Red China or the Soviet Union. On the other side are those who believe the measures described create unacceptable risks of such a wider war and that cessation of the bombing in the north, especially, could improve the prospects for a negotiated settlement.
7. There is basic agreement that the way to end this war is by negotiated settlement. There is disagreement as to the most effective way to get to negotiations. There is some concern as to whether we may be tempted to give away at the negotiating table what the enemy has not been able to win on the battlefield.
The last subject, I suspect, will be discussed, more and more, in the weeks and months ahead.
Specific and detailed forms of an ultimate settlement may well be advanced as an inducement to the enemy to negotiate. They will probably be criticized as giving away too much in advance, or reducing our bargaining power, or tempting the enemy to hold out for more advance concessions before he will talk.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S WARNING
President Kennedy once said something on the subject of negotiations which we would do well to ponder:
"No one should be under the illusion that negotiations for the sake of negotiations always advance the cause of peace. If for lack of preparation they break up in bitterness, the prospects of peace have been endangered. If they are made a forum for propaganda or a cover for aggression, the processes of peace have been abused.
"They may succeed; they may fail. They are likely to be successful only if both sides reach an agreement which both regard as preferable to the status quo, an agreement in which each side can consider its own situation can be improved."
As we consider the possibility of a negotiated settlement in Vietnam, realism dictates that we consider the following:
1. Neither side can expect to achieve at the conference table what it might have hoped to achieve with a military victory;
2. Each side will seek to incorporate in a negotiated settlement a non-violent formula for achieving the objectives it might have achieved with a military victory; and
3. Each party to the negotiated settlement will have to accept some risk, which it will seek to make minimal, that the non-violent formula may not work out as planned.
I do not believe we should walk away from our commitments in Vietnam.
I believe the objective of our efforts there is and must be a negotiated settlement.
I believe our military efforts there have been geared to that objective.
In Franklin's words, I make these statements with "doubt as to my infallibility."
Sincerely,
EDMUND S. MUSKIE.
REMARKS BY SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE ON VIETNAM FOR JAPANESE BROADCASTING CO. INTERVIEW, JANUARY 16, 1968.
I would like to make two points at the outset which are not emphasized enough:
1. No Member of the U.S. Senate advocates a unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam.
2. No Member of the Senate supports the idea of such unlimited and unrestrained application of our military power as would risk war with Red China or the Soviet Union.
There is disagreement, of course, as to what military measures might carry such risks. There is broad support in the Senate for the proposition that the war should be resolved by a negotiated settlement.
There is disagreement as to the most effective means for initiating negotiations; there is disagreement also as to whether there is any disposition on the part of Hanoi to move toward negotiations.
Central to this disagreement is the question of stopping our bombing in the north. My own position on this question is as follows
1. Cessation of the bombing is clearly a result strongly desired by Hanoi.
2. It is not clear whether, because of our bombing, or for other reasons, Hanoi considers negotiations or a negotiated settlement to be desirable in its own interests.
3. Meaningful negotiations -- i.e., negotiations with a reasonable prospect of ending the military conflict -- are not likely unless each side considers them to be in its own best interests.
4. If and when a good faith movement to such negotiations would follow cessation of our bombing of the north, we should be prepared to take such action.
We are now carefully exploring the possibility that Hanoi is prepared for such movement. I believe we should be prepared to take appropriate initiatives, and reasonable risks, to encourage such a possibility.
Two clear-cut issues are involved in Vietnam:
1. The right of the South Vietnamese people to determine their own destiny.
2. The use of the so-called national war of liberation as a technique of Communist expansion.
To support the first and to resist the second, we are involved in a war of limited objectives -- with a limited application of our military power. We do not seek territory, or bases, or the destruction of North Vietnam.
I think we recognize that, in a negotiated settlement, each side must take some risk that the other side may ultimately achieve its objective by non-violent means, although each will seek to protect itself against that possibility.