July 7, 1970
Page 22945
OUT OF INDOCHINA IN 18 MONTHS
Mr. CHURCH. Mr. President, during the course of the Senate debate on the Cooper-Church amendment, the distinguished Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE) called for the adoption of a
national policy of complete disengagement of all American forces from Indochina. Our withdrawal, he declared, should be "responsible and orderly, but it should be completed by the end of 1971."
As a longtime advocate of complete disengagement, I commend the Muskie article, which appeared recently in the New York Times magazine. It is "must" reading for anyone who may not yet realize that President Nixon's "Vietnamization" program is not designed extricate the United States from Vietnam, but can only result in perpetuating the war and prolonging our participation in it.
I ask unanimous consent that this important, factual, and highly informative article be printed in the RECORD.
SENATOR MUSKIE ON A WITHDRAWAL FROM VIETNAM
Mr. MONDALE. Mr. President, while it is getting more and more difficult to find fresh insight into the awful tragedy of the Indochina war, the distinguished Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE) has recently made a most valuable contribution to the debate over how to extricate ourselves from our terrible dilemma.
His article published in last Sunday's New York Times magazine presents one of the clearest and most forceful arguments I have seen for the need to set a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.
Senator MUSKIE points to the "frustration, fear, and sense of drift" which has enveloped this country due to our continuing and deepening involvement in the struggles of the Indochinese people. But his argument for a withdrawal schedule is based on much more than an assessment of what the war has done to the spirit and capacity of our Nation.
He argues forcefully and persuasively that nothing short of a scheduled withdrawal can break the hopeless deadlock which now grips the negotiating table. "Vietnamization," as presently revealed by the President's decision to invade Cambodia, is nothing more than "more of the same"– depending upon the assumption that President Nixon's military pressure will cause the North Vietnamese to break, even where the past administration failed. It is a policy not for getting us out, but keeping us in – and perhaps for broadening our commitment to the defense of the entire Indochinese peninsula.
Only a scheduled withdrawal of all U.S. troops can force the South Vietnamese and the other side to come to political terms and place the control of America's destining back in our hands.
Whatever we could ever have accomplished has been done. We must now, as Senator MUSKIE argues, withdraw all of our troops in a reasonable period, contingent only on the return of our prisoners and the safety of our troops.
I join the Senator from Idaho in asking unanimous consent that Senator MUSKIE's article be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
OUT OF INDOCHINA IN 18 MONTHS
(By EDMUND S. MUSKIE)
WASHINGTON. – When President Nixon took office, most Americans hoped that his Administration would find the key to the Vietnam problem. We wanted to end our preoccupation with the war and get on with unfinished national business. Unfortunately, the Administration has not found the key, and the war in Indochina continues to dominate our lives. Having invaded Cambodia in an attempt to score dramatic military gains, the Administration finds itself ever more tightly bound to the war and its consequences. We cannot pry ourselves loose by force of arms, and we cannot dictate the peace.
We can, however, move to create conditions favorable to a political settlement, and that should be our objective. If we adopt that goal, we must have a clear commitment to withdraw all American forces from Indochina. The withdrawal should be responsible and orderly, but it should be completed by the end of 1971.
Such a withdrawal contrasts sharply with the Nixon Administration's policy, which calls for reductions in strength just large enough to maintain the hope of complete withdrawal – and thereby mute domestic opposition to the war – while preserving the military, balance and continuing the hostilities. No matter what its aims, the net effect of the President's policy is to perpetuate the war.
We have only to look at what has happened in Indochina and at what is happening in our country to see the folly of this policy. The war has frustrated young people who question our national morality. Its consequences have frustrated their parents, who are paying for inadequate housing, overcrowded schools, poor transportation systems, inefficient medical services and a polluted environment. More and more Americans are losing faith in the capacity of our system to meet national needs.
Frustration, fear and a sense of drift have poisoned our relations with one another. Students have protested, and a few have been killed. Students and workers, both of whom want a better America, find themselves at sword's point. Black and white families, competing for limited housing, school facilities and job opportunities, are divided at a time when it is essential that they work together.
The Administration has not acted to end these divisions; it has widened them. While freedom of speech is applauded in principle, it is condemned when it is used to criticize the Administration's policies. While freedom of the press is called a virtue, all "unfavorable" press articles are described as biased. Silent majorities have been invented to oppose all those who disagree with the President. Insinuations have been made that Americans who serve in Indochina are the victims of Americans who dissent.
And for what? Are hundreds of Americans and thousands of Vietnamese dying each week to stop a Communist threat to our national security, or are we fighting merely to preserve the military dictatorship in Saigon? Are we fighting in Cambodia to save Vietnam? Will we have to step up the fighting in Laos to save Cambodia? Where will we have to fight next to save Laos?
We are told that "Vietnamization" is the way to withdraw from Indochina but that it cannot succeed unless we destroy the enemy's sanctuaries in adjacent neutral territory. If this is so, Vietnamization is not a viable policy for withdrawal, for the Cambodian sanctuaries are only part of the vast network of hiding places available to the North Vietnamese and their local Communist counterparts. The clearing of the sanctuaries therefore means military activity not just in Cambodia, but in Laos and the demilitarized zone as well. Such a campaign would violate our international commitments in the area and vastly expand the war. American troops would have to be called up, not sent home.
Though President Nixon's Vietnamization strategy risks a greatly widened war as a precondition for peace, the Administration has struggled to justify it and the Cambodian operation as ways to achieve our disengagement in Southeast Asia. The absence of any logical connection between the means and the end is reflected in the gross exaggerations and shifting explanations that have accompanied each step of the Cambodian incursion.
The President told us on April 30, for instance, that his Cambodian target was "the key control center" of the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong for South Vietnam. In his June 3 progress report he made no reference to this point, and for good reason. Press articles and statements from our military men disclose that the headquarters could not be found, let alone attacked.
The President also said on April 30 that the North Vietnamese were "concentrating [their] main forces in [the Cambodian sanctuaries] . . . for massive attacks on our forces and those of South Vietnam." Yet in the very next paragraph of that speech he said that North Vietnamese troops had left their Cambodian sanctuaries and were "encircling" Phnom Penh. How is it that their movement away from our forces toward a distant objective could constitute an "immediate threat" to the Americans and South Vietnamese?
The President said that the Communist thrusts into the interior of Cambodia would make that country "a vast enemy staging area and a springboard for attacks." But look at the map of the situation in Cambodia before and after our invasion. We have not been able to drive all of the enemy forces out of their sanctuaries, and they have – despite the American attacks – taken control of a large land mass. When our forces vacate the sanctuaries, the Communists will return to them, too, in great numbers. The weeks since our incursion into Cambodia have seen an increase, not a decrease, in Communist control of Cambodian territory.
The President says that the vast amount of ammunition and the great number of weapons we have captured will mean fewer American deaths in South Vietnam. I wish this were true, but the statistics are not reassuring. Administration officials say that at most we have captured 40 to 50 percent of the Communist stockpile in Cambodia. According to these same sources, this amounts to supplies for about six months. In other words, the enemy still possesses sufficient material for at least the next six months, and has six months to replenish its stocks. Moreover, if what we captured in a limited area in Cambodia can be described as "vast," then what the North Vietnamese have stockpiled in South Vietnam, Laos and North Vietnam can only be imagined as enormous.
Administration officials repeatedly disclaim any new U.S. commitment to the Cambodian military regime of Lon Nol. But what have we seen? In his April 30 speech, the President pledged "small arms and other equipment" for the Cambodians. More recently, we have been told that our Government has agreed to pay for several thousand Thai volunteers and Thai aircraft to help Lon Nol. Now we've been informed that several thousand Cambodian mercenaries trained by U.S. special Forces in Vietnam have been airlifted to Cambodia. Is this not a new commitment? The President said he moved into Cambodia to show the Soviet Union, China and North Vietnam that we are not a "pitiful, helpless giant," but his strategy has not worked.
Both Moscow and Peking have agreed to step up their assistance to North Vietnam, and Peking has begun to exert more, not less, influence in Indochina. North Vietnam has increased the level of its military activity in Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam. All of northeast Cambodia and southern Laos are now under virtual North Vietnamese control. When the President removed the limitations on U.S. military operations and invaded the Cambodian Sanctuaries, North Vietnam ended its self-restraint elsewhere.
On June 3 the President said, "We have insured the continuance and success of our withdrawal program," adding that 50,000 troops would be withdrawn by Oct. 15. He may not have realized that he was addressing the same people who heard him promise on April 20 that he would reduce American forces in Vietnam by 150,000 men by June, 1971 – an average reduction of 12,500 a month. If that rate were maintained, we'd be withdrawing 75,000 rather than 50,000 troops between April 20 and Oct. 15. Apparently, the "successful" Cambodian invasion has slowed our withdrawal.
The decision to invade Cambodia was not one President Nixon inherited; it was a new action that broadened the war. This adventure, therefore, gives us a much clearer understanding of the President's Vietnamization policy.
What is Vietnamization? The President says it is "a plan in which the United States would withdraw all of its combat forces if Vietnamese forces were trained and able to take over the fighting." He has added that the timing of the plan would depend on "the level of enemy activity, the progress in the Paris peace talks and, of course, other matters – the problems particularly with regard to the rate of training of the Vietnamese forces."
All of this suggests that the President's plan is for the reduction of U.S. forces, not for their full withdrawal. The conclusion to be drawn from his withdrawal announcements is that 284,000 American troops would still be in Vietnam by the middle of next year. He has said nothing about reductions after June, 1971, except that they are contingent upon Hanoi's restraint, South Vietnamese military progress or a breakthrough in Paris. This leaves our future subject to the initiatives of Hanoi and Saigon, and it raises doubts about whether the President contemplates any significant reductions after June, 1971.
Mr. Nixon further describes Vietnamization as the road to a negotiated settlement, but a look at the situation in Paris makes it difficult to believe that negotiations are the top priority for the Administration. Our delegation in Paris has not been headed by an Ambassador vested with the authority of the President for more than seven months, and there have been no announcements of new approaches or proposals at the talks for an even longer period.
Even if the highest priority were established for a negotiated settlement, however, Vietnamization does not seem likely to move us toward it. It is an essentially military strategy that cannot deal effectively with the political nature of the struggle.
The North Vietnamese and Vietcong, though they have suffered through 25 years of war, show no signs of being near the breaking point. They can still control the level of combat – nothing in the Nixon plan prevents them from continuing to do so – and they will probably not give up the fight or make major concessions at the negotiating table as long as that is true.
Then there are the Saigon forces, upon whom Vietnamization really depends. While they have improved over the years, their basic weaknesses persist. They still avoid night patrols; their officer corps, most of whose members are still chosen on the basis of social status, is widely regarded as incompetent, and the gross desertion rate runs as high as 10,000 a month. While some South Vietnamese units are reported to have performed well in Cambodia, they required extensive American support.
Behind the South Vietnamese military, of course, is the Thieu-Ky regime, which neither deserves nor receives much popular support. Though we contend that 90 per cent of the population of the hamlets is "pacified," roughly half the hamlets are still subject to significant Vietcong influence.
Even at this stage of the war, the Saigon Government has no meaningful control over half of its country. Anyone who speaks out against the regime is jailed and hounded, while we stand silently by.
And despite the opposition of the Government to such talk, there persists among several South Vietnamese groups support for a peaceful settlement. In the 1967 elections, which brought President Thieu to power, 60 per cent of those who voted cast ballots for candidates who espoused some form of accommodation for peace.
In these circumstances, Mr. Nixon apparently hopes to confront Hanoi with the choice of accepting a political settlement or seeing an American military force remain in South Vietnam, propping up the Thieu-Ky regime indefinitely. If this is his strategy, he must convince Hanoi that the American people will permit him to keep 150,000 or even 200,000 American soldiers in Vietnam for the foreseeable future. On that basis, he expects Hanoi to negotiate.
Hanoi will not negotiate unless it has no other choice, and obviously that is not the case now.
Moreover, the Saigon leaders, given our assurance that we will remain if there is no settlement, will be in no mood to compromise. And without Hanoi and Saigon, after all, there will be no negotiations.
What, then, are the probable consequences of the Vietnamization policy? When we have drawn our forces down to about a quarter of a million men, Hanoi will have greater freedom to step up the level of hostilities, inflicting heavy casualties on South Vietnamese units and keeping American casualties at high levels. The President clearly recognizes that Hanoi will have the military capacity to do this; that is why in every one of his statements on the fighting he has warned Hanoi that if it expands the conflict as American forces are withdrawing, he will act decisively. He clearly hopes to deter Hanoi, but his threats may have no effect.
Faced with the choice of negotiating with an intransigent South Vietnamese regime, permitting us to remain indefinitely in Vietnam or increasing the level of fighting, Hanoi is likely to choose the third course and step up the fighting, as it has in the past.
If this sequence occurs, the President will face another unpalatable choice: accepting the higher casualties, withdrawing all U.S. forces "precipitously" under pressure or escalating. He has told us that he would escalate, and – remembering his deeds as well as his words – we must take this assertion seriously. He has also said that this escalation would not be incremental but "strong and decisive." This presumably means a massive bombing campaign against North Vietnam coupled with an effort to close Haiphong harbor.
Here is the gravest danger in the President's policy. It will lead us not to the withdrawal of all American forces and an end to the fighting but to greater escalation. And if we have learned anything from our experience in Indochina it is that escalation leads not to less conflict and involvement but to more.
To raise such doubts about the wisdom of the President's policy is not to have a lack of concern for the welfare of our troops or to question their ability. It is, rather, to adopt the philosophy of Lord Chatham, who said in 1777, in discussing the American Revolution: "I love and honor the English troops; I know their virtues and their valor; I know they can achieve anything except impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility."
If the conquest of the Indochinese Communists is also an impossibility, what alternatives do we have? I believe that the answer lies in what the Congress has been doing and trying to do this last year. While the President has been committing himself more and more to Vietnamization, Congress has been seeking ways to prevent further escalation and to go beyond the President's troop reduction policy to one of full withdrawal.
Among the major attempts to prevent further escalation was the amendment passed last year to prohibit spending for U.S. combat operations in Laos and in Thailand and the Cooper-Church Amendment, designed to prohibit the use of U.S. funds to support the war in Cambodia after June 30, the President's deadline for the Cambodian operation.
A second group of measures under discussion concerns prohibitions on the resumption of our bombings in North Vietnam and limitations on the President's authority to commit U.S. forces to combat after a certain date. A related effort is designed to insure that all of our forces will be out of Vietnam by a specific date unless the President comes to Congress, justifies a continuation of the fighting and obtains further approval. Part of this campaign is the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment, which provides for the cut-off of funds for offensive operations by Dec. 31, 1970, and the total elimination of funds for military activities in Indochina by June 30, 1971.
Another approach is the resolution I have offered to move us toward peace in Indochina. It would commit the Senate to a policy aimed at a cease-fire, complete withdrawal by a specified deadline, a political settlement and the reconstruction of the area. The resolution calls upon the President to present to Congress a plan for the full withdrawal of U.S. personnel during the 18 months after the adoption of the resolution. It also directs the appropriate committees of the Senate to submit the necessary implementing legislation.
Neither the President nor Congress should act alone in finding our way out of Indochina.
Congress has the constitutional responsibility to authorize and appropriate funds; the President is Commander-in-Chief. They therefore share policymaking responsibilities.
I am convinced that a withdrawal timetable makes sense; given the choices we face, it is the only way to bring peace.
My proposal is a very simple one: The United States should develop a fixed timetable for the withdrawal of all its forces from Indochina. We should stick to that timetable, subject only to Hanoi's willingness to release all American prisoners of war and to its acceptance of measures to insure the safety of the withdrawing Americans. While I believe that all American forces should be out of Indochina in 18 months, we should be prepared to shorten this time if Hanoi agrees to a cease-fire.
One common criticism of fixed withdrawal programs, of course, is that they would lead to a "bloodbath" in South Vietnam. But that objection, like others the President has raised, has more emotional than factual validity. In the first place, the war itself is a bloodbath. The possibility of persecution after a withdrawal must be balanced against the certainty that thousands will be slaughtered if the war continues. At any rate, no settlement, political or military – and certainly nothing in our present policy – can provide a guarantee against a bloodbath. (Even if the President were to achieve his goal of a settlement based on free elections, the Communists could win power at the polls, then do as they pleased.) And in formulating our withdrawal plan, we must, of course, accept the responsibility for evacuating and resettling those who wish to leave Vietnam.
Just as a bloodbath is only a possibility, it is by no means certain that the Communists would force their way into power in South Vietnam if all U.S. forces were withdrawn in 18 months. The military situation could be inconclusive for some time.
On the political side, one can only speculate about the problems that would be created for any government by the multiplicity of forces that would be buffeting South Vietnam without the dominating appeal of a Ho Chi Minh. The resulting uncertainties could generate the political pressures that lead to accommodation rather than the battlefield pressures that produced a Hue.
Because we are often told that our withdrawal would leave the South Vietnamese at a military disadvantage, many Americans have an image of a small people in South Vietnam left at the mercy of a giant Communist neighbor. We are easily convinced that we would be leaving a "Belgium" to fight a "Russia," while the real analogy in terms of economic and military potential is that we would be leaving a "Germany" to fight a "France." The total populations of South Vietnam and North Vietnam are approximately equal. The total number of South Vietnamese under arms is two or three times greater than the combined strength of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese. The military aid we have given to the South Vietnamese is far more extensive and sophisticated than that supplied to North Vietnam by the Soviet Union and China. The South Vietnamese are fighting at home to defend their families and villages; the enemy soldiers must travel for months over tortuous trails to fight in a strange land.
If we withdraw in 18 months, we will have had American soldiers in South Vietnam for seven years, killing the best enemy troops and training South Vietnamese. After all of this, the South Vietnamese should be able to hold their own. If they can't, no nation can accuse us of failing to meet our commitments.
In his Nov. 3 speech; the. President used two other arguments against a fixed withdrawal timetable. He said that it would give Hanoi no incentive to negotiate seriously in Paris. But, by his own admission, the negotiations are at a virtual standstill, and there seems to be no prospect for improvement. He also argued that Hanoi could simply wait until U.S. withdrawals had reduced our forces to the point of vulnerability in South Vietnam, then attack. But is it not perfectly clear that Hanoi could wait for this moment even if the withdrawal timetable were not fixed and announced.
In short, I find the arguments advanced by the President and others against the fixed withdrawal timetable totally unpersuasive, and the advantages of a clear-cut withdrawal announcement are considerable.
Perhaps the most important advantage is that control of our conduct will be put in our hands, not those of the North and South Vietnamese. The President's Vietnamization policy explicitly links American withdrawals to progress in Paris, the level of fighting in Indochina and the improvement in South Vietnamese capability. The first two factors are controlled by Hanoi and the third by Saigon. With a fixed timetable we would be saying to both sides that American interests, both foreign and domestic, compel our withdrawal. The Vietnamese would, at long last, be required to adjust to American interests rather than the reverse.
Only by announcing our willingness to withdraw on a fixed schedule can we hope to create a climate in which meaningful negotiations will be possible. On the things we most care about – the return of our men held as prisoners of war (some of them, incidentally, held longer than any soldiers in our history) and the safety of our troops as we withdraw – there is every likelihood of reaching an understanding with Hanoi once we indicate our willingness to set a firm date for our withdrawal. Hanoi has hinted that it might be prepared to negotiate on these issues. By contrast, the President's schedule, which would keep a large U.S. force in Vietnam indefinitely, might force Hanoi to move against the remaining Americans, triggering a new round of escalation. It offers no prospect for the early return of our men held in North Vietnam, to whom our obligation is surely very great.
Prospects for a broader political settlement in Vietnam will also improve if we commit ourselves to a fixed withdrawal schedule. Without an American deadline, the generals who control the South Vietnamese Government will not consider a sharing of power, even with neutralists. Until they know that their weakness can no longer keep us in Vietnam, the generals will not be prepared to broaden the Government. Any truly representative government in South Vietnam would make a serious effort to negotiate with North Vietnam. And once they know we are leaving, the Hanoi leaders might also be ready for serious negotiations.
America is a very powerful nation. It is in a position now to make decisions that can help lay the foundation for a political settlement in Southeast Asia and prepare the way for the reconstruction of that area. Then, perhaps, we can turn our attention to meeting our commitments to our own people for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
History must judge the wisdom of our involvement in Vietnam and the wisdom of our method for ending that involvement. We have no control over the former, but we do have an opportunity to determine the way in which we end the war and set the stage for future development in Southeast Asia.