September 1, 1970
Page 30676
Mr. JACKSON. Mr. President, our objective, shared by the administration and by a great majority of the Congress and the American people, is to speed the withdrawal of American forces from South Vietnam consistent with the policy of leaving the people of South Vietnam sufficiently strong to defend themselves. It is important to move toward the goal of ending our combat operations in Vietnam as rapidly as possible and in a responsible manner that is likely to bring genuine, durable peace in Vietnam and not a larger war later.
Mr. President, the issue posed to the Senate by the McGovern-Hatfield amendment is whether its adoption will advance or worsen the prospects for American withdrawal from Vietnam and the negotiation of an honorable settlement in Paris.
I believe, Mr. President, that the "amendment-to-end-the-war" will not achieve that objective.
The supporters of the amendment have failed completely to convince me that the total number of lives lost in this tragic conflict will be fewer if the amendment is passed than if we carry out an orderly withdrawal in the absence of statutory compulsion. It is entirely possible, for example, that passage of the amendment will serve, not to shorten the war, but to deepen the intransigence of the North Vietnamese at Paris and further liberate their armed forces to concentrate on the destruction of innocent civilians in Cambodia and Laos.
As our withdrawal proceeds, the only leverage we have with which to promote the chance of a negotiated settlement lies in the uncertainty that surrounds the President's timetable. This leverage applies not only to Hanoi – which must view with displeasure our efforts to strengthen the South Vietnamese – but also to Saigon, whose cooperation will be essential to any negotiated settlement. If we establish a date certain for the withdrawal of the last American soldier, our capacity to influence the South Vietnamese will vanish. And what is worse, the spirit of cooperation essential to the collaborative training mission of the Vietnamization program may be turned, instead, to enmity and bitterness.
For this reason, I believe it is mistaken to asume that if the McGovernHatfield amendment were adopted Vietnamization could go forward successfully in the months before December 31, 1971.
It might well collapse entirely under the burden of a seriously demoralized South Vietnam and an invigorated North Vietnamese military force.
Moreover, Mr. President, I am opposed to the rigid inflexibility that would result from the legal requirements that all armed forces be withdrawn by December 31, 1971. I can imagine contingencies in which lives – American and Vietnamese – could be saved by retaining the freedom to keep highly specialized military advisers, on a volunteer basis, at their posts after this arbitrary date. Medical corpsmen, for example, may well be on the job saving lives on December 31, 1971. Specialists in aircraft maintenance, reconnaissance, the utilization of sophisticated electronic systems, and so forth, may be required – and may be able to perform important duties in a safe and secure environment. Their efforts, which would be terminated under the McGovern-Hatfield amendment, may prevent the very loss of life its sponsors have taken as their declared objective.
My own view is that the McGovern-Hatfield amendment is no way to negotiate with Hanoi. It would fix a withdrawal schedule for the President by law, removing once and for all the President's options. What sort of a signal is that to give the North Vietnamese? What incentive would Hanoi have to negotiate a settlement if the President is under Congressional mandate to meet a deadline for evacuation, even the somewhat extended deadline in the amended version of the McGovern-Hatfield amendment?
I do not believe the adoption of the proposed amendment will bring closer the objectives the great majority of us seek.
Mr. President, the appointment of David Bruce as our top negotiator in Paris presents a new opportunity to make a determined effort to break the stalemate in the Paris talks.
As I have said on a number of previous occasions, we should take advantage of this new opportunity to offer a proposal in Paris to start negotiations for a standstill overall cease-fire.
I am glad to see that the New York Times in the last few days has also come to the view that an initiative for a standstill cease-fire in Vietnam is a promising and wise alternative to the McGovern-Hatfield amendment.
As part of a negotiated political settlement, we should promptly urge in Paris: A formal proposal for an internationally supervised cease-fire by all parties throughout Vietnam specifying provisions for the international peace-keeping machinery to oversee the cease-fire, the withdrawal of outside military forces within a specified time of the effective date of the cease-fire; the protection of minorities, with safeguards to guarantee all South Vietnamese freedom of speech, assembly and the press; and protection against terrorism and political reprisals; free and open internationally supervised elections in South Vietnam, with all agreeing to accept the results of the elections.
I shall vote, Mr. President, against the pending amendment; and I would urge my colleagues seriously to consider a negotiated cease-fire, and to affirm the wisdom of such a course.
Mr. MILLER. Mr. President, the pending amendment by Senators MCGOVERN, HATFIELD, and others has been revised in a desperate effort to pick up additional votes. Amendment 609 has now become amendment 862. When experienced Capitol Hill observers unanimously agree that no matter what happens here in the Senate, the amendment has not the remotest chance of approval by the House of Representatives, one wonders why all of this effort, time, and publicity have been expended on it.
If the reason is to try to mislead the voting public into thinking that those who are for the amendment are "antiwar" Senators and those who oppose it are "pro-war" Senators, one can only conclude that the proponents have the utmost contempt for the intelligence of the voters. Most of the public understand very well that every Member of the Senate hates war – and especially those of us who have served in one. But that does not cause a reflex response to support a proposal that is deceptive in title and specious in content.
Legislators are very familiar with the old tactic of putting a nice-sounding label on a bill or amendment for the purpose of attracting support. We are also familiar with the fact that it isn't the label that counts, but the content of the proposal. If, indeed, this was a genuine "end the war" amendment, it would have passed both Houses long ago. But it is not. And cutting through to its essence, it is clear that it is a peace at any price proposition. The hatred of war does not compel one to embrace peace at any price.
The quickest way for this war to end is through negotiations genuinely entered into by the opposing sides. It is true that the meetings in Paris have been unproductive thus far, notwithstanding all of the false optimism generated over them by former President Johnson.
However, it is well known that the principal reason for their failure has been the belief of the North Vietnamese that all they had to do was be patient, and they would win the war in Washington just as they did in Paris during the war with the French. The key to this strategy is a continued high level of American casualties. Vietnamization is the answer to that, and all evidence demonstrates that our casualties are steadily going down. By the time most of our ground combat troops are out of Vietnam next spring, we may expect our casualties to be very small. And as the North Vietnamese see this trend, we may expect them to become more serious about negotiations.
I join with most Americans in the hope that this war will be ended soon through the negotiation procedure. But I must warn that if this pending amendment is adopted, there would be no incentive for the enemy to negotiate. All he would have to do is wait patiently until all American troops are out, as the amendment provides, and the enemy has ample patience. Thus the amendment's fatal defect is that it would kill the possibility of ending the war through negotiations and ending it much sooner than the amendment would do, incidentally.
The proponents argue that the Congress should share the responsibility for ending the war with the President. It is true that we have that power, and it is true that we exercise it through the appropriations process. That is not the point. The point is whether it is wise for us to use that power. If the war was getting bigger and worse – as it did for 5 long years before President Nixon took office, I myself would advocate use of that power. But when our new President has reversed the tragic trend and is moving us in the right direction, I do not believe it is prudent to use our power in the manner being proposed.
Moreover, I find it most interesting that those who support this amendment were, with rare exceptions, strangely silent during the 5 years when this war grew bigger and worse. Where were they then with their end the war amendments? It may be said that not until we had a new President – a Republican President – did they think it was timely to seek to share the responsibility for ending the war. If that new President was moving us in the wrong direction, or maintaining the status quo, such an excuse might be acceptable. In the present state of affairs, however, it strains the credulity of a majority of our fellow citizens.
Mr. HART. Mr. President, today the Senate can begin to reassert its proper role in determining the foreign policy of the United States.
Today, the Senate has the opportunity to take a step toward ending U.S. involvement in a war which has claimed 43,000 American lives and 285,000 wounded Americans.
We can take those steps by approving the McGovern-Hatfield amendment which defines the limits of our efforts in Indochina.
In brief, the amendment says:
First. No funds to support more than 280,000 armed service personnel in Vietnam after April 30, 1971.
Second. After April 30, 1971, funds can be used only to complete withdrawal by December 31, 1971, and to secure release of prisoners of war, to provide asylum for any Vietnamese who feels physically threatened by our withdrawal, and to aid the Republic of Vietnam in programs consistent with those goals.
Mr. President, I would like to address myself to three points raised by this amendment:
First. Would the amendment undercut efforts to negotiate a settlement to the war?
Second. Would the amendment "tie" the President's hands in protecting our troops?
Third. Would the amendment infringe on the constitutional powers of the President to conduct a war?
Mr. President, it has been argued that to announce a withdrawal date would take the pressure off the North Vietnamese to negotiate.
However, the President, correctly I believe, has already announced an irreversible policy of withdrawal. While the date for complete withdrawal, if one has been selected, has not been announced, it seems to me that if the McGovern-Hatfield amendment undercuts negotiations, so too does the administration's policy.
However, it seems to me that both the administration's policy of withdrawal and the McGovern-Hatfield amendment could be a spur to negotiations.
The fact is that as long as our Nation has been willing to fight the battles, the Saigon government has shown little interest in negotiating a settlement. If we tie our withdrawal schedule to progress Saigon makes in building its ability to carry on the war, then our withdrawal schedule will be determined by those who prefer our men to fight their battles.
On the other hand, if we set a date certain for withdrawal, the Saigon government will be on notice just how much longer it has to get its house in order or to begin meaningful negotiations.
And certainly, it can hardly be argued that a withdrawal spread over 15 months does not give Saigon long enough to assume the burdens of Vietnamization, particularly in light of the facts that we have given Saigon governments more than $6 billion in direct military aid since 1950 and Saigon now has more than 1 million men under arms.
If Vietnamization of the war is a proper policy, another 15 months of American presence in Vietnam surely will give it time to succeed, if it ever is going to succeed.
The McGovern-Hatfield amendment, then, is not a change of policy but rather a speed-up of the administration's announced plan, which brings me to the question of tying the President's hands.
The language of the amendment makes quite clear that the President can pursue any plan in the interest of safeguarding our troops. Equally important, he can extend the withdrawal timetable by 60 days by informing Congress additional time is needed.
And if still more time is needed, the President can come to Congress to ask for a further extension.
That requirement brings me to the question of the authority to declare war and the Constitution.
The writers of the Constitution clearly wanted the power to put this Nation into war in the hands of Congress.
While the Constitution gives the President, as Commander in Chief, authority to conduct the day-to-day tactics of a war, the Constitution empowers the Congress to declare war, to raise an army, to appropriate funds for an army, but not for more than 2 years at a time.
The limit on appropriating funds for not more than two years seems to me to reflect the importance the writers of the Constitution placed on having the decisions of war or peace in the hands of the Members of Congress rather than in the single pair of hands of a President.
Congress then is acting within its constitutional responsibilities to require that the executive branch come to Congress if it believes our participation in the conflict must be extended beyond a certain date.
It seems to me any administration should welcome this approach, for it insures that future decisions affecting the course of our action in Vietnam will be shared by both branches of Government. Such a sharing will do much to increase the acceptance of any such decisions.
Mr. President, after pursuing a war effort which has cost this Nation 43,000 lives, 285,000 wounded and $140 billion, it is long past the time that Congress and the Executive join in bringing an end to that effort.
I would say that even if the funds spent on the war were not so vitally needed here at home.
I would say that even if the war spending were not the main cause of an inflation which greatly dilutes the quality of life in our Nation and efforts to improve that quality.
I say that because in lives and treasure we have more than lived up to any commitment we had to give the Saigon government time to build a stable peace, and under this amendment, that government will still have 15 more months to meet its commitments to those Americans who have lost their lives or have been wounded.
To those who fear a "bloodbath" may follow our withdrawal, I would say history does not indicate that will happen. Equally important, the war already has caused an estimated 300,000 civilian deaths and more than 275,000 civilian casualties. That bloodbath will continue,
perhaps at a reduced rate, as long as the fighting continues.
Mr. President, it is time that the Senate takes a step toward exercising its constitutional role in this tragic conflict, and take that step by setting a limit on our participation in the war.
Mr. McINTYRE. Mr. President, I rise in support of this amendment. My, support is based on two convictions:
First, indefinite continuation of this war will threaten the internal stability, even the security of our Nation.
Second, we got in this war together, and we must get out of it together. We have all seen the damage this war has done to our Nation. It has caused the deepest internal division since the Civil War. This division has torn up our cities, our institutions, our families. It has set father against son, brother against brother, and average American against himself as he has struggled to come to terms with this war.
The average American, like myself, supported our intervention step by step. And even when he saw optimistic report after optimistic report crumble to dust, he continued to hope for the best.
He has wrestled with his conscience over the rightness, the wrongness or the effectiveness of our presence in Vietnam and now he has concluded that we must withdraw.
The average American, the middle American if you will, has come to this conclusion because it is his son who dies in Vietnam, his community which suffers because the costs of the war preclude meeting urgent domestic needs, his pocketbook which is squeezed hardest by war-inspired inflation – and his pride in what he wants our Nation to be which is confronted by his awareness of what this war has led us to do.
The average American knows that the furies abroad in our land have their roots in this war. He knows it is time to get out of that war before our nationhood itself becomes the ultimate victim of it.
Indeed, in a Nation which is polarized in so many ways, the deep desire for peace in Southeast Asia is perhaps the most broadly American feeling in our land today.
This amendment at its heart reflects that desire for peace by setting a reasonable date for our withdrawal.
It also recognizes that the only sure way we can realize such a peace at home and abroad is to seek it together.
Four administrations, both parties, the Congress of the United States – share responsibility for an involvement in Vietnam.
There is no room for any partisanship here. In particular those of us who are Democrats must remember that this is not Mr. Nixon's war. He inherited it from us.
And I want to make it clear now as I have since he has become President that I support our President in his efforts for peace. I have also pledged to defend him in the future against attacks from those in either party who in latter, more difficult stages of our withdrawal, might be tempted to try to accuse him of having "sold out" in Vietnam.
I am pleased that this amendment approaches this problem in such a broad spirit of bipartisanship. It enjoys the support of Members of both parties here in the Senate just as it does in my own State.
This amendment also recognizes the responsibility for peace and war which Congress and the President shares under the Constitution. This has been essential for my support.
It scrupuously does not interfere in the President's responsibilities or prerogatives as Commander in Chief.
As is constitutionally proper, it speaks only to the broadest of long-range policy questions and leaves all tactical, operational, and administrative matters to the President.
It recognizes that the Commander in Chief should be able to make exceptions to this broad policy unilaterally to protect our troops if they are exposed to unanticipated clear and present danger.
It provides funds for the President in support of our efforts to release our prisoners of war, to protect those Vietnamese who might be endangered by our withdrawal, and to continue our assistance to the South Vietnamese so that they can defend themselves.
It supports and shares the responsibility for implementing the President's stated policy of withdrawing to the level of 280,000 troops by April 30, 1971.
Finally, it recognizes that it is not enough to support the President in his efforts for peace; every Member of Congress, indeed every citizen, must help the President to achieve peace by accepting his appropriate share of the constitutional responsibility for making the tough decisions which must be made if we are to extricate ourselves from Vietnam.
In sum, in its present moderated form, it seeks to find a common constitutional and policy ground on which this Nation can move together in a responsible, bipartisan, and determined search for peace.
THE AMENDMENT TO END THE SHELL GAME
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, this morning's lead editorial in the Washington Post is one of the most cogent and forceful arguments I have read in favor of the McGovern-Hatfield amendment.
Cutting through much of the rhetoric and misinterpretation to which this amendment has been subject, the editorial concluded:
. . . the main virtue of the McGovern-Hatfield amendment is not that it will end the war, which it does not guarantee, but that it will require a certain degree of candor about the war, if our effort or our fortunes should take a bad turn, while imposing no real limitations on the President if things go well.
I ask unanimous consent that this editorial, "The Amendment To End the Shell Game," be reprinted in the RECORD at this point.
There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
THE AMENDMENT TO END THE SHELL GAME
Over the weekend the Associated Press invited Senators McGovern and Griffin to argue for, and against, the so-called Amendment to End the War, and while we don't agree with all of what Senator McGovern had to say (and least of all with the patently spurious title that has been given to this measure) we find ourselves disagreeing with just about everything Senator Griffin said. When his argument is not merely specious it turns upon itself in a way which seems to us worth noting as the Senate comes up to today's final vote.
What Senator Griffin winds up saying, on behalf of the administration, is that "There is no need at all for a law or anything else seeking to accomplish what is already being done." He quotes Mr. Nixon as saying that his administration "has adopted a plan which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat forces on an orderly, scheduled timetable." He quotes Secretary Rogers as saying that this process is "irreversible" – that it "contemplates the complete withdrawal of the troops in Vietnam." And he acknowledges that a large part of this withdrawal, and therefore an important part of the timetable, has already been publicly announced; by next April, "an additional 150,000 troops will have come home."
So there is apparently no harm in the President's fixing some deadlines, a full year ahead, and in making flat and final commitments to eventual, total withdrawal. But when the Congress proposes to fix a timetable which is no more binding, in effect, than Mr. Nixon's timetable, and is in fact quite consistent with it, this becomes "dangerous" and "disruptive" and a clear signal to the Communists that they "need not negotiate seriously, that they could attain by default what they could not win on the battlefield." The Communists, Senator Griffin tells us, have "in an infinite degree the capacity to walk with time. "
Well, so they do. And so they can also read, which means that they can probably tell the difference between a piece of legislation which is open-ended, as currently revised, obliging the President only to ask for more time if he wishes to extend the deadline, and a public presidential commitment which is "irreversible." As a practical matter, the amended McGovern-Hatfield provision requires the President merely to do what he would have to do in any case to get the money he would need to stretch out the war; he would have to ask. When we are talking about an adversary with "an infinite capacity to walk with time," McGovern-Hatfield offers no more incentive for stalling on negotiations than the President's own promises.
So our answer to Senator Griffin is very simple; if there is no need for a law to accomplish what is already being done, there can equally be no harm in a law which seeks only to accomplish what is already being done. The McGovern-Hatfield proposal does not, after all, require the President to follow a congressional timetable if he can improve upon it – although Senator Griffin seems to be arguing that it would. All it really does, in its present form, is to reinforce the President's announced intentions with a statement of similar intent on the part of Congress. In this sense, just because the amendment accepts the President's current sense of timing without foreclosing the need for a stretchout later on, it is as much an expression of support as it is a restraint. It is a sharing of responsibility, long overdue in this divisive and tormented undertaking, and it is beyond our comprehension why the President should not positively welcome it – above all, at a time when he and his lieutenants are at great pains to prove to us
and to our adversaries that things are going our way. Our casualties are down, dramatically, which is the most effective evidence we could have that the burden of the war is being transferred progressively to our South Vietnamese allies; the enemy; for reasons not yet entirely clear, is not pressing the war with the same old intensity; the South Vietnamese army is performing better every day, we are told. The Vice President is returning from an Asian tour aglow with progress reports.
If things were going badly, if there were ominous indications of an enemy buildup, if there were any real doubt in the minds of administration officials about their ability to make good on their timetable – that would give us all pause. But if that were the case, it would be all the more reason for the administration's being under some requirement to say so – to tell us what is going on, to prepare us for new adversities, to rally support in the face of new challenges – which is all that McGovern-Hatfield in its final form would now require. It would oblige the executive branch to come clean with the rest of us so that we don't learn, as we did on April 30 of this year, for one example, of a crippling adversity in Cambodia, which was not worth mentioning in a full-dress Vietnam report 10 days earlier.
That is what has robbed our efforts of force and conviction – the endless shell game with public opinion, which only serves to bring on the great political upheavals when the hard facts can no longer be suppressed. The President blames the war critics for this; the Vice President finds it close to treason. But the process of public disillusionment over this war does not begin with the disillusioned; it has always begun with dissembling by the government. And the main virtue of the McGovern-Hatfield amendment is not that it will end the war, which it does not guarantee, but that it will require a certain degree of candor about the war, if our effort or our fortunes should take a bad turn, while imposing no real limitations on the President if things go well.