CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE
December 11, 1969
Page 38461
FOREIGN ASSISTANCE ACT OF 1969
The Senate resumed the consideration of the bill (H.R. 14580) to amend further the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, and for other purposes.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. Mr. President, I derive no pleasure in presenting the foreign aid bill to the Senate. It is submitted to the Senate not with enthusiasm, but with reluctance. And, speaking for myself only, the committee's endorsement of the bill now before the Senate should not be taken as a vote of confidence in foreign aid as presently constituted. This is a stop-gap bill only -- and no more -- pending the development of a new, more workable program.
The House approved major substantive changes in the foreign aid program. The Foreign Relations Committee, however, is submitting an amendment which does not authorize new programs but continues the existing programs at approximately the same level as last year.
Last year Congress appropriated foreign aid funds totaling $1.7 billion for both economic and military assistance; this year the Senate bill authorizes appropriations of $1.9 billion. This slight increase is, at worst, a vote of reluctant acceptance of the existing foreign aid program. At best, it is a tranquilizer. At its best or at its worst, I am reluctant to support most of the bilateral aspects of the aid program -- even at the level of funding provided for last year.
Mr. President, prior to the committee's final action on the bill, I proposed a continuing resolution for the purpose of carrying existing programs forward while, at the same time, providing that they be phased out by December 31, 1970.
I appreciate the novelty of this suggestion in terms of our traditional legislative procedure and I understand why my proposal was not accepted. Nevertheless, the concept of a continuing resolution this year was not without a rationale. The 1970 fiscal year is almost half gone and much has happened to change the frame of reference for foreign aid legislation since the President's message to Congress on May 28.
Domestically, inflation has continued unchecked -- to such a degree that the President has announced he could not accept the tax reform bill as passed by the Senate. The stock market -- as the Nation's single most important measure of our fiscal and economic well-being -- continues to set new record lows, and our balance-of-payments situation has continued its downward slide, with a record deficit this year approaching $10 billion, twice as large a deficit as that for any previous year in the postwar period. This situation has forced considerable retrenchment on much needed domestic programs.
On the international front, the new administration is still in the throes of reappraisals stretching from Asia to the Middle East. If "Vietnamization" works, the economic bill for reconstruction in Vietnam will be big. The report of the World Bank's Commission on International Development, headed by Lester Pearson, has been made public, but its costs have not been assessed.
Finally, the President has initiated a reappraisal of the entire foreign program and, by law, has been requested to submit his findings and recommendations to Congress no later than March 31, 1970 -- less than 4 months away.
In short, time and events have rendered the President's 1970 foreign aid proposals obsolete.
Under these circumstances, it seems to me that for Congress to pass any substantive foreign aid bill at this point would be putting the cart before the horse.
Mr. President, year after year, the Committee on Foreign Relations has attempted to bring about needed reforms in foreign aid, but with little practical effect. Experience has shown that the only means left to bring about significant reform is to phase out the existing program and start afresh.
Four years ago, the Senate decided to do that. It voted to terminate the aid program so that fundamental reappraisals might provide not only a rationale for the program, but programs consistent with the lessons we have learned -- programs which would not perpetuate the errors of the past. Unfortunately, the House did not accept the Senate's proposal and the program has stumbled along for 4 more years -- finally developing a pattern of incipient danger to the legislative process itself. This is the pattern of authorizing and appropriating funds for specific foreign countries and projects. I fear we have come to the point where some lobbyists for foreign governments are more effective in promoting their special projects than Members of this body are in promoting projects for their own States and districts. The foreign aid bill which the Senate received from the other body had earmarked $155 million -- as much as we spend on some Government departments -- for projects of a size and type which no Member of Congress could hope to get for his own constituency, especially without the approval of the Bureau of the Budget -- the administration, in effect.
What Member of this body could with equal ease get $50 million more than the President requested for his State -- as was the case with South Korea? What Member could get $54.5 million more than the President requested -- as was the case with Taiwan? What Member could get $50.5 million more than the President requested -- as was the case with Israel?
Senators know how exceedingly difficult it is for them to get money, in any size or of any consequence, for their own States without the support of the administration.
These amounts were earmarked in the foreign aid bill that came to the Senate from the other body. The Committee on Foreign Relations removed some of these unrequested authorizations; but I expect the final bill will contain funds for these purposes.
To shed a little more light on this issue, I am sure some of my colleagues will recall having received last year a letter from a Minister of Defense of an allied nation calling upon Senators to give their support for an additional $100 million in military assistance for his country. An additional $50 million has now been authorized for South Korea by the House -- as I say, without budgetary approval by the administration. I fail to see how lobbying activities of this kind differ in any practical way from the finagling that went on behind the scenes to secure $28 million for building the so-called freedom fighter -- also without the recommendation of the Budget. This project is to lay the groundwork for providing certain countries with fighter aircraft which they otherwise could not afford.
Mr. AIKEN. Mr. President, does the Senator care to discuss these matters as he goes along, or does he wish to be unmolested until he completes his statement?
Mr. FULBRIGHT. A Senator can interrupt at any time. I am always honored to yield to the Senator from Vermont.
Mr. AIKEN. I was interested in the Senator's statement as to the effectiveness of foreign lobbyists. I know foreign lobbyists are not backward, and some of the ambassadors from foreign countries are not backward, in encouraging us to spend money in their countries; but I would say, in the long run, it is the American concerns, the industrialists, that are more effective.
When the Senator refers to the $54 million which the House put in the bill for planes for Taiwan, I am satisfied it was the people who expected to manufacture those planes who were successful in getting that item inserted.
I can assure the Senator that, as far as I am concerned, the bill will not contain that item of $54 million, which was not asked for by the foreign government, and was not asked for by our own Government, but was slipped into the House bill. I feel quite sure it was American industrial concerns that did that.
The same may be true of South Korea, although the South Korean Government has fared very well at the hands of the U.S. Government, and they want to fare better, of course. There again we have to put the blame or responsibility on our own people to a greater extent than we do on the foreign people.
I want to assure the Senator that as as far as I am concerned, these funds, which our own executive branch did not ask for and even the foreign government did not ask for, will not be in the bill. I would rather have no bill than to have industrial concerns running our foreign aid program, because the trouble with the foreign aid program now is that these interests have really converted it, in large part, to a subsidy for American industry. I can hardly blame the foreign countries for that.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. I will say to the Senator that, while I am quite sure the companies directly involved have probably expressed themselves, I am not quite prepared to say that the foreign countries did not ask for the military aid. I can assure the Senator, for example, that I myself received a letter from the Government of South Korea last year, suggesting, asking, or pleading for additional funds, which was something I had never experienced before. This was a letter addressed to me, which came from the Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of Korea.
Mr. AIKEN. What date was that?
Mr. FULBRIGHT. This was last year, February of 1968.
Mr. AIKEN. Yes. Well, I am sure they still want all the assistance they can get.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. I do not think the Senator is quite accurate in saying foreign governments have not asked for assistance.
Mr. AIKEN. That may be true on an informal basis but I believe that officially there was no request on the matter.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. I think they have asked for it. In the hearings on Taiwan, if the Senator remembers, there was the evidence of the enlargement of their bases, for no apparent purpose other than to get ready to receive planes which only the United States could have furnished.
There had been no public statement in the press, but I think the meaning of it was quite clear. They were not going to spend that amount of money for any other reason. They were expecting those additional planes.
I believe the press also reported -- I think I read it in the newspapers -- that Members of the House of Representatives who visited Mr. Chiang Kai-shek last summer were the ones who sponsored the amendment in the House of Representatives. It was not in the administration bill to supply those planes.
Mr. AIKEN. But as I said earlier officially we have no request from the Government of Taiwan for those planes, and no request from the U.S. Governinent to furnish the planes.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. That is not unusual. I do not know of any lobbyist who operates through official channels in that respect. Their influence has become very powerful, a fact which I deplore.
In the foreign aid bill, we do not attempt to write into the legislation itself the specific countries to which the aid will go. There have been a few exceptions where we have been overruled because of the persuasiveness of certain Senators. But the practice has been, I think the Senator will agree, not to specify in the legislation itself the country, and just how much is for what. But there have been some exceptions.
Mr. AIKEN. Yes. Although the committee cut the request of the administration and the authorization of the House of Representatives down $226 million, I have had no protest on that from our own executive branch, up to this point.
Mr. FULBRIGHT, Well, I have not received any protest, either. I imagine one reason for the lack of protest is that, as I was told a few minutes ago, the House of Representatives passed its own appropriation bill by a margin of only five votes. In fact, the Senator from Vermont told me that.
Mr. AIKEN. Yes. I agree with the Senator.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. So the administration probably was very lucky to get a bill at all.
Mr. AIKEN. Yes. I believe the program as presently constituted cannot last more than a year or so longer. We are in the very unhappy situation, here in the United States, of not being satisfied with what we have and not knowing just what we want. I think we will have to extend the present program for 1 year. I would like to see technical assistance carried on for 2 years, but I believe I was outvoted by the committee on that, and this measure simply extends the program until next July, and before that time we shall have to decide what we want to do in the future.
We cannot just sever connections with every country in the world all at once, but we can, I hope, work out a program which will make our foreign aid program more acceptable to the people of the United States, and possibly to the people of the other countries as well.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. I have certainly never suggested, and I do not know of anyone who has suggested, that we cut off all relations with the other nations of the world. But there is a difference of opinion, and I think a legitimate difference, as to how we should give aid and assistance to other countries.
I, myself, have advocated for some years that it be given primarily, except for very limited items, through international institutions such as are outlined and referred to on page 4 of the committee report: The Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the International Development Association.
The World Bank is not listed there, but it is, of course, the parent organization of the International Development Association.
I have at various times given explanations of my reasons for that position. At least I know what I would like to see. It is true that in the Senate, and in the Government as a whole, there is considerable division about what the majority want in the way of an aid program.
The Pearson commission has made its report. We really have not had time to digest it, it is a very recent report. The President is authorized, in fact he is requested -- or his task force is -- to report on March 31, 1970, and make its recommendations with respect to foreign aid in general.
I would hope that the next session of this Congress, with the recommendations of the administration, will determine that a new approach on this whole problem would be in order; and I hope a start can be made before the end of this fiscal year. That was one of the main reasons why I recommended a continuing resolution.
Mr. AIKEN. Again, I think there is very little disagreement in the committee that we could and should do more of this work through the international multilateral agencies. However, we should not give up all bilateral programs, because, as I understand it, the multilateral agencies sometimes take a long, long time to make arrangements with the country which needs their help, whereas in bilateral arrangements, it can be done more quickly. That is one advantage of bilateral aid.
However, we should do more through the multilateral agencies, and I think that is the opinion of nearly every member of our committee.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. I hope that is true, and I hope that we can move in that direction.
As to responding quickly in the case of emergencies, if the Senator from Vermont is talking of taking action in such cases, that is one thing. But the development loan program, and the like, are not for emergencies. We are supposed to make careful surveys of the needs of each country. I do not know that there is any substantial difference in these ongoing programs, particularly in development lending, between the multilateral banks' procedures and AID's.
Contingency items, of course, are different. We have always had programs of relief for acts of God, floods, fires, and earthquakes. But that is another matter. I think we could meet those problems, which are different from the ones I am talking about.
The incipient danger to our legislative process in all this is that other nations, seeing the success of some nations in tapping the American till, will seek to do the same for themselves. The examples I have cited surely will not be lost on others. It will only be a question of time until we will be persuaded by other lobbies to take care of their clients.
This practice could become standard operating procedure and, in effect, we will have acquired foreign constituencies of our own. As the number of these constituencies grows, we can expect to receive more offers of friendship and solidarity, more offers of special favors, more offers of expense paid trips -- and more pressures from the agents of foreign governments, which may or may not be representing the real interest of their people.
As a part of this developing pattern, it has become increasingly apparent to me in recent months that far too many of our officials abroad tend to represent the country to which they are assigned as effectively as they represent the United States. Aid has become an indispensable crutch for diplomacy -- no aid, no influence. As a result, career diplomats who often thought of aid programs as too grubby for career advancement are now in the position of having to make the best case they can for the aid-receiving country to which they are accredited. Their position is not unlike a lawyer-client relationship, in that they are expected to defend any aid request regardless of their client's need or, for that matter, the legitimate interests of the United States.
In making these observations, I only wish to point to the indications that representatives of some foreign nations are able to muster legislative support for their purposes -- purposes which have the effect of taking needed money from domestic programs for support of questionable projects abroad.
Is it more important to have a desalting plant in the Middle East than in our own Southwest? Is it more important to provide $54 million worth of fighter aircraft to one government and $50 million for an air squadron to another than to have this amount available for perfecting antipollution techniques, or cancer research, or education, or cleaning and rehabilitating our cities?
In the bill the House sent over, these and similar questions were answered in the affirmative.
Mr. President, these actions are an indication that our foreign aid program is based on a bankrupt and outdated policy of dollar diplomacy which mires the United States ever deeper in the political affairs of aid recipients while, at the same time, forcing us to cut back on programs to meet the needs of our own citizens. And any Senator with doubts about the entangling character of bilateral aid should read the transcripts of the revealing hearings on the Philippines, Laos, Thailand, and Taiwan chaired by the senior Senator from Missouri.
Most regretfully there is another aspect of foreign aid that is disturbing. It is that the aid program is becoming a symbol of the confusion that pervades our foreign policy. One would never know what this Nation stands for by studying the bill which the House has acted upon and which is now before us.
The stated policy purposes of the aid program include such phrases as "freedom of the press," "freedom of information," and "freedom of religion." There is in the policy statement strong objection to ignorance, hunger, despair, aggression, and subversion.
But what of the reality? The reality is that aid in large part is an instrument for maintaining the status quo by supporting dictatorships -- with the support couched in terms of maintaining economic and political stability. I will not name the countries enjoying the fruits of our questionable stabilization efforts; but I challenge anyone to go through the list and deny that about half of them are dictatorships. In short, our aid program has become -- despite the
best of intentions -- an instrument for the perpetuation of the political status quo -- whether that be in the Middle East, the Far East, Latin America, or Africa.
But no matter how serious the shortcomings of the aid program, sheer inertia seems capable of keeping the present program moving indefinitely in the same rut. No businessman would attempt to carry on business as usual with an enterprise which was failing; he would salvage what he could and start afresh. It is time for Congress to exhibit a similar degree of prudence and recognize that dollars are not a substitute for a sound foreign policy.
I believe most of us realize that our national priorities are confused. Part of the distortion comes from foreign aid programs which too often attempt to remake the societies of ancient lands in the American image -- at the expense of the social needs of our own Nation.
Mr. President, to sum up, I think it is remarkable that the committee reported out any foreign aid bill this year. Our present program has run out of steam. We know it is inadequate in amount -- that we should do more to promote development -- but it has not been our inclination to put more money into programs which are inadequate in conception and distorted in practice. The majority, I believe, felt that, in the absence of an immediate and viable alternative, it was best to continue the existing program -- with the understanding that a new program would be forthcoming next year.
I do not wish to conclude these brief remarks without indicating the direction in which I believe foreign aid programs should move if they are to have support in the Nation and in the Congress.
In the first place, as a matter of principle, I believe the developed, wealthy nations should give economic assistance to the impoverished and underdeveloped countries. This is not only humanitarian in motivation, but is in the financial and political interest of the developed industrial countries.
Second, I believe the bulk of economic assistance should be extended through multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, the International Development Association, and consortia devoted to specific projects. Multilateral institutions can maximize the economic controls necessary to sustained development and minimize the political interference in sovereign nations conscious of their national identity.
Third, I believe it essential that bilateral aid be kept at a minimum and when it is provided that it be used to support projects rather than governments. Bilateral aid which is extended to governments unavoidably involves the benefactor nation in the internal politics of the recipient nation -- and involvement in the internal politics of any nation is the first step toward involvement in civil strife which may be expected in countries struggling toward nationhood.
Fourth, I believe it essential that military assistance be limited and eventually terminated. Any country which receives grant military assistance from another is accepting interference in the most delicate area of its sovereignty. It is not for the United States to tell a country that it needs tanks, or aircraft, or missiles. Items a nation needs for its national defense should be purchased from its own treasury. If it spends too much for defense or for prestigious weapons, it is to be expected that multilateral sources of economic aid would dry up.
There has been some slight movement in recent years in the directions I have suggested. It seems to me, however, that the new administration has opportunity to build an aid program which can find some stability in public support and which will serve the long-term interests of the United States. It will not be able to do so by packaging the shibboleths of the past in new boxes with new wrappings and ribbons. It is the substance which must be changed. If the opportunity is not grasped now, I believe we can only anticipate further erosion of the foreign aid program.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
AMENDMENT NO. 422
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, on behalf of myself and Senators MAGNUSON, PACKWOOD, HART, CRANSTON, DODD, and JACKSON, I introduce today an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1969. This amendment would authorize U.S. assistance, at a level of $80 million a year for 4 years, and is designed to encourage positive action by the Government of South Vietnam in enacting a program of land reform.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the amendment be printed in the RECORD following my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article entitled "Land Reform in Vietnam," written by Dr. Roy L. Prosterman, and published in the current issue of Southeast Asia be printed in the RECORD at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 2.)
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, last July President Thieu of the Republic of South Vietnam initiated legislation calling for a broad program of land reform in South Vietnam. The major provision of this "land to the tillers" bill are as follows:
First. All land not tilled directly by the landowner would be affected, on a nationwide basis – approximately 3 million acres.
Second. The peasant tilling the land would receive it free. Any large landowner who has directly tilled his land in the past would receive the right to retain a certain portion of this land with the condition that he must directly cultivate within 2 years from promulgation of this law.
Third. Landlords would be fully compensated by the South Vietnamese Government, on a ratio of 20 percent cash and 80 percent 8-year inflation-adjusting bonds. Total cost would be $400 million.
Fourth. Reapportioned land would be distributed to every farming family for each of which the maximum would be 5 hectares in South Vietnam and 3 hectares in Central Vietnam.
Fifth. Recipients would include those who have fled from the countryside and wish to return to their villages.
Sixth. The Government of South Vietnam would encourage the establishment of farm cooperatives to facilitate the improvement of agricultural methods.
Due to a widespread lack of confidence in the value of these bonds to be offered as compensation, South Vietnamese landowners exerted sufficient pressure for the bill to be rendered virtually ineffective by the lower house of the South Vietnamese Legislature in early September. Unless an immediate effort is made to assure the landlords that a substantial proportion of the bonds can be turned into productive resources, it is likely that similar action will be taken in the Upper House which is cosidering the bill at the present time.
I believe that such reform is essential to the development of a viable, free society in South Vietnam. Currently, more than 100,000 landlord families own land cultivated by some 1 million tenant farmer families who pay one-third to one-half of their crop in rent. Massive land reform would go far toward giving the peasants, who constitute by far the largest single group in South Vietnamese society, a stake in the preservation of their country, and toward discouraging the recruitment of an estimated 40,000 peasants a year into the Vietcong.
The 1969-70 Mekong Delta rice harvest is now beginning, and will last until February. It is essential that action be taken now, before the collection of rents from this season's harvest, if the full impact of reform is to be felt.
Therefore, I propose the following amendment, in support of meaningful land reform in South Vietnam. The main provisions are as follows:
First, that U.S. support be authorized at a level of $80 million a year for 4 years, for a total of $320 million, such funds to be used for the purchase of certain U.S. non-luxury commodities – principally agricultural goods such as seed, fertilizer, and farm machinery, as approved by the President. Specified commodities are to be used in direct exchange for those bonds issued by the South Vietnamese Government as compensation for confiscated lands.
Second, that small landowners have access to the bonds on a basis proportionately equal to the larger landowners.
Third, that import duties and other taxes on imported goods be waived for commodities brought in under this amendment, as well as permits or licenses to import.
The total cost of my proposal is equal to the cost of about 4 days of the present war in Vietnam.
A successful land reform program could shorten the war by many more than 4 days.
Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support this proposal. It has been my conviction for a long time, one which I have expressed from time to time on the floor of the Senate, that we cannot really wind this war down unless in some way we can find a political solution to the problem represented by South Vietnam. I think that a political solution involves inevitably a broadening of the base of political support for the Government of South Vietnam -- the present one or one which succeeds it as a result of free elections. I think land reform which would give the people of South Vietnam a stake in things as they are could do a great deal to encourage and promote the development of a viable political solution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be received, and printed, and will lie on the table.
EXHIBIT 1
AMENDMENT No. 422 On page 87 insert:
"SEC. 108. VIETNAMESE LAND REFORM.(a) The success ofland reform programs in Vietnam is a material factor in the future political and economic stability of that nation, and the speed with which such programs are given effect may have consequences with regard to the termination of hostilities there. In order to support and encourage Vietnamese land reform programs, the President may make grants to the Government of Vietnam, out of funds appropriated pursuant to this section, for the purchase and shipment to Vietnam of goods and commodities, manufactured or produced in the United States, which, by their introduction into the Vietnamese economy, will contribute to sound economic development in Vietnam. Such goods and commodities (1) shall be of a type approved by the President for such programs; (2) shall include goods suitable for business inventories in non-luxury enterprises; (3) shall be exchanged for bonds issued by the Government of Vietnam to compensate landowners whose lands are transferred to other persons under such programs; and (4) shall be selected by any such landowner to whom a bond has been issued or by any other person or entity validly holding, according to Vietnamese law, any such bond.
"(b) In order to carry out the provisions of this section, there are authorized to be appropriated $80,000,000 for the fiscal year 1970, and the same amount for each of the three succeeding fiscal years.
"(c) The provisions of this section shall not be effective unless
"(1) on or before February 1, 1970, there is enacted by the Government of Vietnam a law providing for the transfer of substantially all land used for the cultivation of rice, which is not under cultivation by the owner thereof from the owner of such land to the person who lives on such land actively cultivates it, or, if the land is suitable for such cultivation but is not being cultivated, to the person living on such land;
"(2) on or before February 10. 1970, the President certifies to the Congress that such Vietnamese law or decree is in such form and is being administered in such manner that the substantial proportion of rents otherwise collectible in connection with the Mekong Delta rice harvest from December, 1969, through February, 1970, will not be collected;
"(3) the Vietnamese law or decree carrying out the program set out in paragraph (1) of this subsection provides a means of compensating, at the fair market value, those landowners whose lands are transferred under the provisions of such law to other persons, such compensation to include bonds redeemable for goods and commodities as provided under subsection (a) and such bonds, whether all or part of the compensation provided, are being made available on a nondiscriminatory basis, as to maturity dates and forming the same percentage of compensation paid to such landowners having holdings of various sizes;
"(4) all import duties and other taxes on imported commodities are waived or suspended by the Government of Vietnam with regard to goods and commodities brought into Vietnam under the authority of this section; and
"(5) no permit or license to import is required, in connection with such goods and commodities, of former land owners who hold bonds issued in accordance with paragraph (3) of this subsection."
On page 87, line 11. strike out "Sec. 108." and insert in lieu thereof "Sec. 109."
EXHIBIT 2
LAND REFORM IN VIETNAM
(By Roy L. Prosterman, associate professor of law, University of Washington School of Law)
The author has just returned from his third extended trip to Vietnam to review progress in the land-reform area. This trip was taken under private grant, while the two earlier ones were made as the land-law consultant to the Stanford Research Institute survey of land tenure in Vietnam. undertaken for AID in 1967-1968.
It should be in no way surprising that in a country where the bulk of the population -- still 60 per cent today -- is dependent on the land as its sole source of livelihood (as has been the case in Vietnam for at least 2,000 years) the question of land tenure should assume gigantic proportions.
Tenure imbalance strikes at the very base of the country's economic and political stability.
Historically, breaking up large holdings and transferring them to individual small owners was a means of power consolidation by new Vietnamese royal dynasties. Even as late as the first decades of the nineteenth century, Nguyen Anh, who founded the last dynasty, set about breaking up large feudal landholdings in Vietnam. This policy was pursued by his successor, who acceded to the throne in 1820. The advent of French colonialism in the 1860's was accompanied by dramatic changes.
It is estimated that between 1880 and 1930 the land area devoted to rice in the fertile, southern region of Vietnam then known as Cochinchina (which included, in particular, the Mekong Delta region south of Saigon), grew by at least 400 per cent, with resulting increased yields. Yet, by 1930, the position of the Vietnamese peasant in the economy had so deteriorated that his situation was worse than it had been prior to French intrusion. Land was sold at absurdly cheap prices to colonialists who amassed vast holdings; the rice that could have put an end to peasant starvation was extracted through land rents and was exported, rather than made available to the indigenous population. The rough figures that are available indicate that during the 1930's some 57 per cent of the rural population of Cochinchina was landless.
As Joseph Buttinger, a leading Western historian of Vietnam, summed it up in Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled, "the rural masses became as dependent on the rich landowners as the serfs of medieval Europe had been on their feudal lords."
After a third visit to Vietnam, in September, 1969, I had to conclude that the final word on success or failure of land reform as a program bearing on the conflict could not -- quite -- be written yet. Like Pearl lashed to the rail, and then rescued, this quintessential program had been up again and down again so many times over the last 15 years that even a week's lead time before publication might find one badly out of date. But at least for one sparkling moment, starting in May, 1969, and lasting at least through midfall, land reform was definitely "up" again. Whether or not the Vietnamese Senate or President Nguyen Van Thieu himself utilizes far reaching amendment powers to restore Thieu's genuinely excellent legislative proposal (after its evisceration at the hands of the lower house at the start of September), it would still be true that 1969 was the best year ever for South Vietnamese land reform. Unfortunately, this is not really saying much. Without a good bill to effect the transfer of privately owned lands, plus vigorous enforcement of the legislation and of programs begun earlier this year, South Vietnam will lose what is very likely her last chance to make sense out of this most basic of all "pacification" programs, and to acquire the leverage this might supply for a political settlement broadly satisfactory to various shades of American opinion.
LAND TENURE PATTERN
That the land problem is near the root of the conflict -- as it was, for example, in China and in Cuba -- has long been clear to most careful and scholarly observers; it is a point on which there has been close agreement among Bernard Fall (land reform is "as essential to success as ammunition for howitzer's -- in fact, more so"), Buttinger, Douglas Pike. and many, many others.
Today, at least three-fifths of South Vietnam's population of about 17 million is rural and derives a livelihood chiefly from rice farming. About three-fifths of this rural population lives in the Mekong Delta, south of Saigon, where 80 per cent of the country's rice is produced. Most of the remaining two-fifths of the farmers live in a narrow belt of rice land running up the coast -- the area known as the Central Lowlands.
The tenure pattern under which the bulk of these farmers live and gain their sustenance is not fundamentally changed from that shown in the 1960-1961 Agricultural Census of South Vietnam, as confirmed by field work by the Stanford Research Institute (S.R.I.) in which I participated at the end of 1967. During the critical period of the conflict's development in the early 1960's only 257,000 out of 1,175,000 -- or 23 per cent -- of the Mekong Delta's farming families owned all the land they worked. Their average holding was four and one-half acres. Another 334,000 families, or 28.5 per cent of the total, tilled six acres -- four of which were rented, while 521,000 families, roughly 44 per cent, farmed an average of three and one-half acres of land that was totally rented. Thus, in the Delta, more than seven farming families out of 10 (44 per cent + 28.5 per cent = 72.5 per cent) were substantially dependent on tenant farming.
The massive dislocation of the war has reduced the rural population from 75 to 80 per cent to the current 60 per cent figure, and the exodus to the cities was probably proportionately greater among those who had no land of their own. But the 1967 field work showed that at least 60 per cent of the Delta's agricultural population in the relatively secure areas (where the field work could be carried on), remained without ownership of land, and the size of holdings and conditions of tenure remained unchanged. In its percentage of landlessness, the Mekong Delta thus qualified as one of the four worst areas of the world -- along with the Huk country of Central Luzon, Java, and northeastern Brazil -- and equaled or exceeded pre-revolutionary China, Russia and Cuba.
The S.R.I. field work -- the major portion of which consisted of nearly one thousand hour-long interviews with Mekong Delta residents, carefully randomized, and using an extensively pretested set of questions and Vietnamese interviewers under American supervisors -- uncovered further details, although most of these simply confirmed the accurate appraisals which had already been available for more than a decade. In the Delta, landlords supply virtually no inputs: no credit, seeds, implements, fertilizer or advice. They collect rents -- typically one-third to one-half of the gross crop, and sometimes even more. The landlords of roughly half the tenanted land are absentees, so rent collection becomes an annual foray either by them or by agents -- often local officials or military men who get a cut of what they collect.
Tenants can usually be evicted at will. They are held responsible for most or all, of the rent even when their crops fail, for the rent is calculated in advance on an estimate of the gross crop. Thus, after major flooding reduced the harvest of 1966-1967 -- the Delta harvest period is from December to February -- many tenants were held for rents that exceeded 75 per cent of their actual production. Should a tenant be unable to pay his rent, he is confronted with interest rates on the unpaid portion that average 60 per cent a year, and which in one case out of five exceed 120 per cent a year.
The situation is no better in the Central Lowlands. As the 1960-1961 census showed, the typical family -- 403,000 out of 695,000 -- lived on a two-acre farm, one acre of which was rented. About 74,000 families held rented land only, their average holding being one and one-tenth acres. Rents on the tenanted or share-cropped portion of lands in the Central Lowlands generally are 50 per cent of the gross crop, although here the actual crop is the measure more often than an estimate made in advance. Security of tenure, however, is as nonexistent as it is in the Delta.
These land-tenure figures can be given some perspective by noting that South Vietnamese calculations indicate that once the rents go much above one-fifth of the crop, even a three and one-half acre Delta plot (the average for the 44 per cent of families that the census showed to be living wholly on rented land) does not produce enough rice to keep the average six-person household at recommended minimum sustenance levels.
The typical Central Lowlands mixed-tenure holding, as indicated, averages only two acres, one-half of which is rented.
A further finding of the S.R.I. study, contrary to a vast amount of conventional wisdom found in Saigon offices (but generally not found out in the field), was that the tenant farmers of the Mekong Delta -- in an open-ended question with multiple responses allowed -- regarded land ownership as a paramount concern five times as frequently as they regarded physical security as a paramount concern, and rated agricultural credit as a paramount concern four times as frequently as security.
THE VIETCONG PROGRAM
All the above data, however, relates to "tenancy" as it exists in areas under South Vietnamese government control. In areas where the Vietcong are in control, they have offered only one substantive program: land reform. The program has deep roots, adumbrated in the Joseph Alsop quotation that begins this article.
By the time that the Geneva Conference was convened in 1954, the Vietminh ruled 60 to 90 per cent of what is now South Vietnam. Their support by the rural population had accounted in substantial part for the crucial advantage that had enabled them to overcome the superior arms and manpower of the French, In their struggle, they had built their broad base of support on the strong foundation of anticolonial nationalism, and they had added to this (even more concretely than the Algerian rebels were to do a few years later) the attraction of land tenure reform for the mass of the peasantry.
Beginning in 1945, in areas that they controlled, the Vietminh had enforced strict limitations on rent and interest rates. Lands held by the French, communal lands, and the land of "traitors" were confiscated and given to the poorer peasants. Beginning in 1953, the Vietminh undertook the second, more sweeping phase of their land reform program, under a classification system similar to that which had been employed by the Communist Chinese ("landlord," "rich peasant," "middle peasant." "poor peasant" and "agricultural worker"). In its first stage of implementation this system was aimed at taking land from the first two groups and giving it to the last two. Wherever it was applied, the program uttterly transformed the village social structure.
The sad history of the post-1954 years can only be briefly sketched here. The North Vietnamese moved to a stage featuring bloody village "trials" of the landlords and -- very broadly defined – "rich peasants" (100,000 died, according to the best estimates), and then to collectivization.
President Ngo Dinch Diem missed the chance to carry out a competitive democratic land reform, on models such as those of Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, Bolivia or South Korea (all of which had inaugurated sweeping land reforms before 1954). Instead, he adopted a law that was blatantly impossible to administer, attempting to control the landlord-tenant relationship -- actually restoring the landlord-tenant relationship for hundreds of thousands of families in formerly Vietminh-controlled areas who had thought the land was now theirs -- plus an extremely mild law regulating the acquisition of large holdings. The latter allowed retention of 247 acres (eventually raised to 284 in most cases), which was at least 30 times greater than the "retention limits" in the successful Asian land reform programs of Japan, South Korea and -- ten years too late -- Taiwan. It also suffered from multiple administrative defects: Diem's program ground to a final halt in 1961, with benefits for only one out of ten tenant families. Local officials were allowed to retain and rent out the best of the acquired lands.
This left two great groups identifying the Communists with land reform and Saigon with the interests of the landed oligarchy:
About one million peasants who remained under Vietminh control even in Diem's heyday, and who continued to live under the economic and social transformations wrought by "first stage" (i.e., precollectivization) Communist land reform.
The great mass of tenant farmers who returned to Diem's control, who not only gained no benefits from Diem's unworkable laws, but actually found the government reestablishing a relationship that the Vietminh had already sundered.
Under the circumstances, it was not only logical but virtually inevitable that at the end of the 1950's the Vietcong should become the active successors of the Vietminh, building popular support throughout the countryside with the promise of the maintenance and extension of the Vietminh land reforms.
Saigon's response, from 1961 onward, not only totally omitted any competitive land reform measures, but from late 1965 onward actually involved the elaboration of decrees which justified the ultimate, very common "pacification" process by which the American innocents, having "secured" a village and moved on, were followed by the landlords riding in one the jeeps with "ARVN" (the South Vietnamese Army) to reassert control over their former lands. Not surprisingly, but very tragically indeed, many Americans have died at the hands of enraged peasants who have associated them with "pacification" in this, its completed, sense.
Unfortunately, the role of AID -- the United States Agency for International Development -- and the United States State Department in all of this was pusillanimous. Starting with clear marching orders from President Dwight Eisenhower and those at the top in 1954 that made support for land reform a matter of high priority, working-level officials allowed themselves to be backed off step by step from a workable program by the clear signs of hostility emanating from major segments of the ruling elite. During 1960-1965, the United States Mission obligingly failed to have present in Vietnam even one full-time official dealing with the land reform problem, and a plethora of rationalizations sprang up about the need to rely on the landlord class for political stability. In the case of some officials, all these rationalizations stubbornly failed to give way even when the house of cards collapsed in the early 1960's and the preeminent role of the peasants in supporting the rebellion became clear.
PEASANT SUPPORT FOR THE WAR
It is this deeply rooted peasant support which has given the Vietnamese conflict the very strong "insurrection" or "civil war" flavor which it still retains, despite the highly publicized infusions of manpower from the North which began in 1965. The measures of this peasant support are not hard to find. In March, 1968, The New York Times noted that the Vietcong had been steadily able to recruit 5,000 to 7,000 men a month. Lieutenant Colonel William Corson, former head of the Marine's Combined Action Platoons (CAP) program, writing in the summer of 1968, noted that some three-fifths of these Vietcong recruits could be regarded as volunteers or "soft-sell" enlistees. The common appeal in wide areas where Vietcong land reform was in effect was "The movement has given you land, give us your son."
Newsweek, on January 1, 1968, reported that 377,000 men were bearing arms against the United States and South Vietnamese forces, of whom only one-sixth were North Vietnamese. The New York Times on March 19, 1968, offered official estimates of all five categories of enemy strength, in which the North Vietnamese were said to play an even smaller role (see Table I).
Estimates made during my 1969 visit were that the North Vietnamese "main force" component was up, and that of southern recruits was down; on the local level southerners were still functioning in large numbers. The vitally important category of southern "cadres" or "V.C.I." (Vietcong infrastructure) had been somewhat depleted by the Communists' chosen tactics during Tet, but since then had hardly been touched. These V.C.I. do the recruiting, arrange the reconnaissance, obtain the porters and, by establishing supply and ammunition depots at intervals of about a day's march, prepare the way for main force actions -- a sine qua non of these actions, since the main force units cannot carry with them the supplies and ammunition needed for their attacks. Moreover, despite well-reported "battles," it was doggedly, tragically true that over one-half of American casualties were the result of such essentially local guerrilla activities as the planting of mines and booby traps (and the mute silence of the villagers as they watched Americans walk into them).
The one bright spot in the picture was that fresh Vietcong recruitment had fallen to about 3,500 men a month, apparently through a combination of the loss of senior cadres at Tet, the spread of knowledge that main force units have been using southern recruits as the "first wave," and the first important stirrings of land reform under Nguyen Van Thieu, including an important effort to prevent landlords from returning to reclaim their lands in "pacified" villages.
The final part of this history -- which was still undergoing almost daily changes as I was writing this -- has involved the process by which the Thieu government appears, at last, and perhaps too late, to have embraced a really sweeping and workable program of land reform. The bizarre reality, of course, is that while the Communists have successfully billed themselves in Vietnam (and elsewhere) as "land reformers," genuine democratic land reform does not take a back seat to Communist land reforms by any means. Quite the contrary; the collectivization which has been the universal "second stage" of Communist land reform promises that have led to successful revolutions has been an economic disaster vastly distasteful to the peasantry, while the half-dozen successful non-Communist land reforms of this century have led to major increases in agricultural production and have furnished a bulwark of political stability -- including assistance in defeating attempts to start guerrilla movements in Bolivia and South Korea by depriving the would-be revolutionaries of their “gut" issue.
THIEU'S LAND REFORM PROGRAM
The first signs of real movement came from the South Vietnamese. President Thieu, speaking to a gathering of provincial land affairs officials on January 18, 1968, just before the Tet offensive, had made the statement quoted at the beginning of this article.
Over the following months, the Tet offensive, the Johnson announcement of a bombing halt, the start of talks in Paris and the presidential campaign of Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy all supplied additional shocks to the Vietnamese, and major elements of land reform program began to take shape.
First of all, distribution of the choice lands taken by Diem but never distributed began in earnest. Procedures were simplified with the help of United States land reform advisers so that village-level committees could approve the applications made by the present cultivators and hand out deeds in under a week, and a tremendous boost was given the program when President Thieu decreed at the start of July, 1969, that henceforth the distribution would be free and that former recipients would be freed from their payment obligations. The distribution over the two years sharply accelerated:
TABLE II.-Land Distribution, 1968-69 [ Acres distributed ]
January to June 1968------------------ 20,000
July to December 1968---------------- 40,000
January to August 1969--------------- 90,000
September to December 1969 (estimate) --------------------------- 90,000
In 1969, an estimated 50,000 families will receive these government-owned lands. Second, a temporary end, at least, was brought to "negative land reform." In September, 1968, Thieu declared that the processes by which landlords evicted occupants and collected rents in newly "secured" areas would be ended. Very likely, he had the forthcoming "accelerated pacification" drive in mind: if the process of planting the flag, at least in daytime, in additional villages, were to be accompanied by the customary inflow of returning landlords, the results for Saigon would be politically -- and perhaps militarily -- disastrous. This declaration was followed by three decrees:
One in November, 1968, that prohibited officials or soldiers in newly secured villages from reinstalling landlords or helping to collect rents;
A second in February, 1969, that extended the prohibition to the private landlords themselves and made it effective until February, 1970;
And a third in April, that made the earlier prohibitions countrywide, apparently in anticipation that landlords in more secure areas might try to evict tenants and resume personal occupation in contemplation of further land reform measures.
My just-concluded field work persuades me that the countrywide occupancy "freeze" is being widely adhered to. It has been well publicized; it involves a highly visible action if it is violated; and in areas where the new local-force units ("Popular Forces," "Regional Forces," and "Local Self Defense Forces") have received some 500,000 rifles, the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) can no longer trample on peasants' legal rights with impunity. The rent "freeze" (supposedly at a zero level in newly secured areas) involves more clandestine violations, and appears to be only spottily effective.
Third, there was an almost disastrous decision in February, 1969, to design the biggest, final part of the program -- involving transfer of some, most, or all of the 3,000,000 acres of privately owned lands that are farmed by tenants -- as a "voluntary" purchase program. This would have merely urged landlord transfers for 2 to 3 years and then would have "required" them only when the administrators could determine (with the land records for three out of eight villages totally destroyed) that a landlord held more than 37, or perhaps 75, acres. Fortunately. President Thieu took a personal hand, which resulted in the scrapping of the "voluntary" plan, the sacking of the land reform minister, and the drafting of the sweeping "Land to the Tiller" bill and its presentation, in early July, to the lower house. This bill would affect all of the 3,000,000 acres of land that are cultivated by tenants or non-owners, and would make all Vietnamese peasants the owners of the land they till. The regime of tenant farming for a million families would be ended in a drastically simplified and rapid way:
All land not tilled by the owner would be affected (so there would be no need to apply a "retention limit" under which each owner would have to make a "declaration" of how much he owns, with the onus on the administrators to find out if he is lying).
The peasant tilling the land would receive it free (so there would be no occasion for corrupt administrators to dun the peasant for payments and the message would be the simplest possible: you don't pay anything to anybody).
The effect would be nationwide (so that peasants tilling land in insecure areas could nevermore be goaded to support the Vietcong with the threat that landlords would otherwise return: "negative land reform" would be gone for good).
Confirmation of title would come via a highly simplified village-level application procedure, involving only a few days' delay. and requiring neither the shifting of families, the shifting of present boundaries, nor the resurveying of the land.
Landlords would be fully compensated (20 percent in cash, 80 percent in 8-year inflation adjusting bonds). The total cost would be $400 million, equal to between five and six days' cost of the war.
The bill, in fact, represents one of the great non-Communist land reforms of the twentieth century, even more sweeping, for example, than those of Japan and South Korea. The "Land to the Tiller" program, however, is now in deep political trouble, the basic difficulty being that the South Vietnamese landlords do not trust the bonds. Because of this, they combined their influence in the lower house with another group that sees opposition (shortsightedly would be an understatement) as a way of preventing Thieu from increasing his political power. This combined opposition eviscerated the bill -- putting in a 37-acre "retention limit" and adding that only "legal" occupants could receive land -- and even then added a provision boosting the cash portion of compensation for the landlords from 20 percent to 60 to 70 percent.
Now the upper house is considering the bill. In a heartening demonstration of firmness, President Thieu has asked to have it amended to its original strong version. Under Vietnamese law, the upper house amendments, if any, will prevail unless overridden by two-thirds of the total membership of the lower house. Even then President Thieu can amend and will prevail, unless his amendments are overridden by a majority of the joint membership of the two houses. Thus, for the moment, with President Thieu's continued exhibition of firmness, land reform is "up" again after its lower house drubbing.
But whether the upper house amends and -- if not -- whether President Thieu amends and is not overridden, now depend crucially on the credibility of the compensation to the landlords.
As this was written, pressures appeared to be building for a United States declaration of financial support for the program -- consistent with President Richard Nixon's strong general statement of support for the program in the Midway communique of June, 1969. Whether such a statement is made may well be decisive in determining whether, as this is being read, the mass of South Vietnamese peasants are finally becoming owner-farmers, or whether the chance to achieve an impact during the 1969 main Delta harvest period (December to February) has been missed. If, finally, land reform goes "down" again, it may well be for the final count.
Mr. AIKEN. Mr. President, if I had not heard the Senator from Maine read the proposed amendment, I would not have believed it; because I had been told for the last 6 or 8 years, through the Kennedy and the Johnson administrations, that the purpose of our presence in South Vietnam was to provide self-determination for the people of that country. It was for that purpose, we sent in nearly 550,000 American military men.
I do not believe we can give the South Vietnamese self-determination by writing their legislation for them almost in detail. Of course, they need land reform. So do many other countries in the world -- some not too far from South Vietnam. But unless we are willing to keep an enormous Army there for the foreseeable future, we cannot force self-determination on South Vietnam, according to our ideas of what self-determination should be.
As a matter of fact, the Legislature of South Vietnam now has land reform legislation before it. They expected to have it consummated by the first of January. I understand that February will be a more likely date for the completion of this land reform program.
It seems almost the acme of arrogance for us to undertake to tell the South Vietnamese people in what way they should divide their land among the producers, what the customs duties or the taxes should be, what they export, and so forth. It would be almost -- well, in fact, it would be – total insolence on our part, when we are there for the purpose of securing for them the right of self-determination, to say now, "We will write your laws; we will tell you how you are going to do this, how you are going to do that."
Unless we want to keep a half million men there for a long, long time, we had better let them decide for themselves what they want to do, because we cannot force them. We have prevented self-determination in South Vietnam by the presence of a half million American soldiers, and I do not want to go any further in that direction.
In another area some of our people believe we should tell Greece what it should do and how it should run its government. Others say we have to tell Sweden how it should run its affairs; otherwise, we will find a way to punish Sweden through some of our legislation. Some people would like to use our Committee on Foreign Relations for that purpose.
I will have a little more to say on this subject tomorrow, if we do not finish this bill tonight.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. Mr. President, I want to ask the Senator from Maine some questions.
Mr. MUSKIE. May I respond first to the Senator from Vermont?
Mr. FULBRIGHT. Yes.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I have the utmost respect for my distinguished colleague from New England, the Senator from Vermont, but it is obvious to me, from the criticisms he has enunciated, that he did not listen to what I was saying.
The proposal I have made is not a proposal to dictate legislation to the assembly of South Vietnam. My proposal is geared to the fact -- which is subsantiated by the Senator's observation -- that legislation is pending in the legislature of South Vietnam. It is my purpose to encourage the enactment of this legislation. Whether they do or not is, of course, for them to decide.
Mr. President, I wish to say to my good friend from Vermont that we spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to assist the Government of South Vietnam and the people of South Vietnam to shore up their economy, to shore up their currency so that it does not run away completely, to provide food, and to pay for food. I assume that as long as we are there we will be spending more than the $80 million a year I am talking about. All I am saying in the amendment is, "Let us use this $80 million a year to provide a way for the South Vietnamese to reassure the landlords, who are the object of their own legislation, that what they offer will be paid for." It would be American money in any case.
I am undertaking to do two things: First, to express our concern that the South Vietnamese Government will move ahead with land reform; and second, to funnel a small portion of the aid we give them anyway to provide them means for paying the landlords under their land reform legislation.
I have not dictated anything here. Anyone who reads force into this measure cannot read the English language. There is nothing compulsory or compulsive about the legislation in any way. Nothing would spell out the kind of land reform they should have. This amendment is entirely geared to the proposal for land reform which is now pending in the assembly in Saigon, which one house has already considered and defeated, and which the other house may very well defeat because there is not a credible means for payment to the landlords.
This is why the landlords organized to defeat the legislation. I would like to see that legislation pass, if the assembly wishes to pass it. The only roadblock is a credible means of paying the landlords.
I suggest this means, which they can take advantage of or not if they wish, would establish a credible way to proceed.
Mr. AIKEN. Does the Senator think we should give them $80 million regardless of the nature of the land reform program, or does the Senator from Maine think we should just give the South Vietnamese the money and let them carry out land reform as they saw fit, regardless of what their land reform program might be?
Mr. MUSKIE. I do not know what the Senator means by "regardless."
Mr. AIKEN. I understand the Senator.
Mr. MUSKIE. May I say to the Senator from Vermont–
Mr. AIKEN. Surely.
Mr. MUSKIE. We have geared this explicitly to the bill that is pending there. We are not trying to write another one. We have geared this to the bill pending there.
Mr. AIKEN. Regardless of what the South Vietnamese legislature decides on?
Mr. MUSKIE. If they take away its substance, I assume we would not be interested in paying for it. We are not dictating what it should be, but we have the right to pass judgment on what money we pay to support it.
Mr. AIKEN. We have? I read the amendment and it is clearly inferred if the South Vietnam legislators enact the kind of land reform we approve they would get the $80 million; but if they do not suit us they do not get the $80 million.
If that is not one of the worst forms of aggression we could practice in a small country I do not know what it would be. We tell them what kind of legislation to enact and at the same time we hold out self-determination for them as the reason we have 500,000 men there and when we did have 500,000 men there there was no possible chance for self-determination because we determined everything for them. I would like to get away from the state of affairs where we prevent self-determination through the weight of our intervention.
Mr. MUSKIE. If the Senator were to project the principle which he just enunciated to the fullest extent, he would vote against any appropriation bill to provide a dollar in support of our military effort in South Vietnam. He would vote against any appropriation bill for any of the economic purposes for which we give aid to South Vietnam because in these two ways we are making an impact on that country which deprives them of the option they would have if we were not
there. We are there, and we are making an impact every day at the rate of millions for the cost of the war and other appropriations that deprive them of options.
All I say to the Senate and to the distinguished Senator from Vermont is that now we be a little more precise in indicating the ways in which our money should be used. We would like to encourage land reform. We would like to encourage the kind of land reform that is represented by their present bill.
With the proper encouragement it can be enacted. As I understand from reports I get back from South Vietnam, it could be enacted this month or next month. If it is enacted this month or next month before the harvest has to be shared with landlords, this might expedite the end of the fighting there.
Already we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in ways that the South Vietnamese do not control in South Vietnam, militarily and economically. I do not see why we should have this sudden surge of conscience today, in connection with a little more precise indication of our hopes for them than is represented in the bill.
Mr. AIKEN. Until we can be a little more effective in bringing out reforms here in our own country, we better not be too insistent on reforms in other countries. We had a chance, in the last 2 weeks, to enact a reform in this country and we did not do a very good job.
If I had my way, we would never have sent 500,000 men there to enforce self-determination on the South Vietnamese, but I did not have my way. In fact, after I advised President Johnson that he should change his policy, he sent 230.000 more men there instead of taking my advice. He thought he was doing the right thing at the time, but it turned out he was not. The worst thing we can do now is to undertake to tell people or governments of a hundred small countries how they should run their affairs in detail.
Mr. MUSKIE. I am not telling 100 small countries.
Mr. AIKEN. When it is said, "You do not get the money unless you approve what we approve," that is aggression.
Mr. MUSKIE. On the floor of the Senate every day we give advice to the Government of South Vietnam to broaden their bases, to get rid of that group, or respond to another group. They have been the recipients of free advice from us, who control the purse strings, for many, many years, not only with respect to minor political actions as this one, but in much broader areas.
We are confronted with a condition, not a theory. Our obligation is to get out. The Senator from Vermont has not supported the idea of unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam. He has recognized in the many statements he makes that our problem is to phase out in an orderly withdrawal as quickly as possible. Our orderly withdrawal means having some impact on decisions they make as well as decisions we make.
The Vietnamization policy is an American decision which we are imposing on them. We are saying to them: Prepare to take over this war militarily, because we are pulling out. As far as I know, the Senator from Vermont has not opposed the Vietnamization policy of this administration. If that does not represent pressure on South Vietnam with respect to the way they conduct the war and end it, then I should like to know what it is.
All I am asking is a relatively minor amendment to try to move, by inducement and not force, the South Vietnamese Government along the road toward justice for South Vietnamese peasants.
The Vietnamization policy is not going to work unless the government we leave behind is prepared to do justice to its people. If we can apply pressure to that government to take over the military conduct of the war, then, it seems to me, it is legitimate for us to offer an inducement to that government to broaden its political base. Why the one is so acceptable and this one is so abhorrent to the Senator from Vermont, I find difficult to understand.
Mr. AIKEN. I think it would be better if we devoted our energies toward getting approval of the Dickey-Lincoln Dam, which is far more important in New England than the land reform program.
Mr. MUSKIE. It is important to my people in New England that we stop the killing and the dying in South Vietnam. If we are going to do that, we have got to be concerned not only with the Vietnamization of the military efforts of the South Vietnamese but also with whether what we leave behind will be a viable political situation for the people of South Vietnam. That means concerning ourselves not only with the fighting in the war, until our troops can come home, but to get down to work with them to develop an economy in South Vietnam.
I think we are inevitably involved in this decision. I would be amazed if we did not have something to do through our ambassador there, through our foreign aid mission there, with the fact that there is a bill dealing with land reform now pending in the South Vietnamese Assembly.
I would be amazed if we did not have something to do with that, because we have been pressing, under the Kennedy administration, under the Johnson administration, and now under this administration, our political points of view upon the government in Saigon. This is just another one.
Mr. AIKEN. Well, there is a difference between withdrawing troops and sending men in, that is all I would say.
Mr. MUSKIE. We are telling them what to do with their own troops. We are telling them that they had better get ready for our withdrawal. That is the way I understand the Vietnamization policy of the present administration.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. Mr. President, will the Senator from Maine yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. I hesitate to get involved in this discussion between two very articulate and learned New Englanders. Maybe I should be quiet, but I thought, if the Senator will allow just a question or two, that I would like to point out there is $420 million for supporting assistance in the bill. The lion's share of these funds is to be used for the Vietnamization program. If this is a matter in which they are seriously interested, why can that money not be used for this purpose?
I must say that I share somewhat the Senator's concern about intervening in Vietnam. If we are seriously getting out -- and I would like to say to the Senator that I am serious about getting out -- I did not propose Vietnamization and I am not at all convinced that Vietnamization means that we will be able to get out, but I do not question the motives or the sincerity of the administration.
I merely question the judgment, taking into account all the circumstances of human nature, and so forth, and whether this can result in what they think they can achieve by it. That is not to say that they do not mean what they say. I am not trying to put it on that basis. I am simply putting it as a political matter; namely, will it result in a situation in which we can withdraw?
My objective is to withdraw.
As to land reform in Vietnam, one of the first men I ever talked to was Gen. Edward Lansdale. There were others. There was one man there before him named Wolf Ladajinsky. This is not a new subject they have been playing around with. My understanding is that the dominant political figures in South Vietnam politics are landlords, and, therefore, they are not very sympathetic to this subject. I would really question as a practical matter, in a sense, our holding out a special bait for them. If they have any desire to do it, why can they not do it out of the money already in the bill? That money is there to assist them.
Please understand that I am not advocating this. I do not like this bill. I am only asking a question, for the Senator to explain what his attitude is toward it. I do not like the continuation of this program in Vietnam. I would like to take those measures which would bring about a political solution at the earliest possible moment, a solution modeled after the French solution in Vietnam in 1954. But the administration is choosing a different route. They think they have the support to do it.
I only say this by way of making my own position clear, that I would like to do anything to promote our leaving Vietnam, and to do any reasonable thing to bring that about. The Senator seems to be saying that this would hasten the time when we could depart. I do not quite understand that connection at all. I wish the Senator would enlighten me a little more about these points.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, if I used the word "would," and I might have, but I do not recall, then I expressed a certainty I do not feel.
I do not know how anyone can feel any certainty about what is going to happen in South Vietnam. In my judgment, and in the judgment of many Senators in this Chamber, and those who have been close to the Vietnamese story for a long time, land reform is the critical element in the development of a popularly based -- not popularly chosen -- but a popularly based government in South Vietnam.
I remember, when I first went to Vietnam on a mission, which included the distinguished Senator from Vermont (Mr. AIKEN) and the Senator from Montana (Mr. MANSFIELD) in October and November of 1965, that Ambassador Lodge was our Ambassador there. He met us at Bangkok and flew down with us to Saigon. On the way, he briefed us on the critical situation in Vietnam. Ky and Thieu had just taken over the government within a few weeks of that time.
I remember what Ambassador Lodge emphasized most was the reed for land reform in Vietnam. He certainly undertook the political education of Ky and Thieu and made it the top of the agenda.
That was true not only of Ambassador Lodge, but also of the American AID team and everyone concerned with the problem of developing the economic and political viability of South Vietnam.
"Land reform. Achieve land reform" was the cry, and we would at least make a start along the road toward political viability in South Vietnam. Ever since that time, land reform has been the top agenda for everyone concerned with building political viability there.
The second point I should like to make, in responding to the Senator's question, is that maybe there are sums in the bill other than this one, that could be used. If there are, I would have no objection to setting them safely in the bill, but tied to the objective stated in my amendment.
It is my impression that this bill represents the rock bottom figure for foreign aid and that it probably represents a pretty tight list of projects and priorities.
I am not a member of the Senator's committee.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. There is much too much money for the military, I fear, but that is another matter.
Mr. MUSKIE. I do not know what the point is. I do not know what the list of priorities is.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. It is too much money for the military. There is no doubt of that, but–
Mr. MUSKIE. I could be persuaded by the Senator
Mr. FULBRIGHT. Perhaps I have not made myself clear. I have not questioned what our Ambassador said; but why is it, if this has been true and if it has any substance, that the Vietnamese have not done anything about land reform? We have poured an awful lot of money in there over the past few years.
Mr. MUSKIE. One of the greatest criticisms I have directed at the government in Saigon, as well as the distinguished Senator from Arkansas himself, and others, is that that government is not responsive to its people.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. That is right.
Mr. MUSKIE. I must say I have shared that conviction. So if it has not moved in this field, one of the reasons may well be a lack of feeling of urgency about this objective. That does not make it a less valid objective. This may be part of the reason why some of the money we have sent there in the past has not been devoted to this purpose. We are faced with the choice of doing it through political instruments of our own choice. The question we have to face -- the one I faced as I considered this amendment -- is whether, notwithstanding the shortcomings of the Government and the difficulties of achieving social justice, we should not make this effort at least to try to stimulate the Government to move in that direction, especially in view of the fact that, at long last, after a lot of argument about it, there is a bill pending in the legislature in South Vietnam that our experts on Vietnamese land reform tell me is sound.
With that bill pending, with the South Vietnamese having taken the initiative, and the one obstacle being the reluctance on the part of landlords because of lack of credibility in the means to pay for it, it appeared to me the foreign aid bill might be one way to nail down that credibility on a step that has come so slowly and so late in South Vietnam.
I do not expect to sell any proposition dealing with Vietnam quickly. We divide very quickly and very deeply and very violently on this subject, in so many ways.
I did not really believe the subject of land reform would be a subject of deep division here, but maybe it will be, even here on the Senate floor. And I am not wedded to this formula
Mr. FULBRIGHT. The Senator misunderstood my question. I am not arguing the value of land reform. I very deeply question our Government, under these circumstances, or any other circumstances, undertaking any land reform development over there. My objective is to leave Vietnam to the Vietnamese at the earliest possible moment. I thought the Senator suggested – maybe I used the wrong word -- that perhaps this would in some way speed up the process. If that is not true, I misunderstood.
If it had any validity, I would be much more interested. If, on the other hand, it is the beginning of a process of giving them this idea and paying them to take it, I would question very much that kind of an approach, because I do not think we have a long-term role to play there as a guiding mentor. I do not think that is the proper role for us there.
Mr. MUSKIE. I do not think this needs any long-term role.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. The Senator said 4 years.
Mr. MUSKIE. The action, if any, taken could be taken in the next month or two. Thereafter, it would be a question of meeting our payments.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. The Senator wants to make a commitment that goes on for 4 years. Did he not say so?
Mr. MUSKIE. I take it the commitment was made by President Johnson in his Johns Hopkins speech to commit $1 billion of American money for the development of all Vietnam at the end of the war. I do not know whether that commitment has any validity. I know the Senator has very deep reservations about commitments, and I joined in the resolution which his committee produced to inhibit that sort of thing.
Nevertheless, it seems to me, looking toward the end of the war in South Vietnam -- and we hope it will end before our troops are withdrawn, but that ought not to delay their withdrawal -- the resolution of present difficulties in Vietnam is inevitably going to involve economic assistance on our part after the fighting ends.
I may be wrong. The Senator is chairman of a committee that has great influence in this area and maybe we can get out without spending another nickel
Mr. FULBRIGHT. No; I do not think that is advisable.
Mr. MUSKIE. If it is not, if we are going to talk about economic commitment after the war, then the Senator's question directed at my amendment is irrelevant.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. I do not think the Senator should be quite so impatient. I do not believe the Senator submitted this amendment to the committee. As a matter of fact, the first time I heard of the Senator's sponsorship was in a letter received today. Does the Senator really expect us to receive and accept an amendment of such far-reaching importance without any hearings or consideration other than a short debate on this floor?
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator from Maine has been in this body long enough not to expect anything. I am simply responding to the Senator's question. Does the Senator expect to ask a question and not get an answer? The Senator asked me whether this amendment, because it involves a payout over 4 years, did not commit us to a long-term commitment in Vietnam. I say no, not militarily. This does not have the effect of prolonging our military involvement. All it does is set in motion, or try to set in motion, an economic policy in South Vietnam which might contribute to a resolution of the war and of political difficulties which have divided the country.
There is no guarantee that it will. But it certainly does not add to our long-term military commitment. It does not tend to stretch it out. All it does, and all that it is intended to do, is to stimulate certain activities in South Vietnam on land reform and to encourage them.
I know it is going to be difficult to sell it to the Senate. I have already today picked up six cosponsors. I would like to have had the amendment ready to submit to the Foreign Relations Committee, but, unfortunately, the idea was not suggested early enough for me to do it. I wanted to get the advice of people who know the land situation in South Vietnam, and we just finished drafting the amendment in the last few days.
I understand the difficulty of selling it, and I probably will not succeed; but I hope I am offering it to focus the attention of the government in Saigon, at least, on the concern of at least seven Senators that they move ahead with the land reform program.
If the U.S. Senate is enough taken by this suggestion to approve it, fine. I would feel a certain satisfaction in this effort. I do not have any exaggerated ideas about the possibility of selling it, but I am going to do my best to sell it.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. The Senator is within his rights to offer any amendment he wants, and the objective is a worthy one. May I ask the Senator to illustrate what he has in mind? How much does he expect to pay for the land and how is he going to see to it that the money goes for this purpose and is not siphoned off for another purpose? In the course of the pacification program in the past, I am quite sure efforts were made to bring about land reform, but I have never heard any good, solid evidence that any success was achieved in that direction.
Mr. MUSKIE. I have not suggested, nor do I think I would be in a position to suggest, what the price per unit of land might be. The estimates as to the overall cost were given to me.
Incidentally, may I suggest to the Senator from Arkansas that he read an article I placed in the RECORD earlier, written by Roy L. Prosterman, and published in the magazine Southeast Asia?
Mr. Prosterman is associate professor of law in the University of Washington School of Law. The article contains a great deal of useful information. I thought it might answer some bf the Senator's questions.
Mr. FULBRIGHT. Is not he the one who suggested the multinational guarantee of bonds to be issued, not by the United States, but by a multinational agency, such as the World Bank? That is a very different proposal from our undertaking, which is a part of the bill.
Mr. MUSKIE. I do not recall that point. I am not suggesting that my amendment is a Prosterman amendment. All I am saying is that the insights with respect to the land reform program, contained in his article, are, I think, of interest and are useful. If I had some way of promoting multilateral guarantees of these bonds, I would use this means. The only means available to me is the foreign aid bill.
Mr. PELL. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. PELL. One thought went through my mind as I was reading the amendment of the Senator from Maine. I was wondering whether, instead of having $80 million of new funds authorized, he would consider a perfecting amendment to include his item in the $440 million of support money already programed for Vietnam. That would mean no new funds.
Mr. MUSKIE. As I said earlier in colloquy with the Senator from Arkansas, it may be that funds are already provided in the bill that could be applied to this purpose. I would have no objection to undertaking to go along with that. However, the Senator from Rhode Island, being a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, would know better than I whether the funds to which he refers are already committed to specific projects of high priority. If not, I would be perfectly happy to go along with his suggestion.
Mr. PELL. Mr. President, I think the administration is of the view that it has already earmarked all the authorized funds. However, Congress can and should declare its intent and its priorities, such a statement of priorities, in this regard would afford help and guidance to the administration. But I would leave this thought with the proposer of the amendment.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.