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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04730 to 363-04733.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04730 to 363-04733
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Title
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Congressional Record mentioning Keever's article, page 676-679
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Description
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Congressional Record of Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (MT-D) adding Keever's articles to the record, page 676-679
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Transcript
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676
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD SENATE
In an equal era of evolution on the Rhode
Island scene-that will forever bear the label
of our beloved Theodore Francis Green and
Robert E. Quinn-Frank Condon made the
sacrifice of turning his back on the broad
page of national history to write the bright
page of history which is the record of the
Rhode Island Supreme Court in his time.
Only in terms of political opportunity
would I say "sacrifice." To Frank Condon
it was no sacrifice to come back to this high
service to the State of his birth.
He has touched these 30 years with a
courageous, correct and courteous applica-
tion of justice and humanity, unsurpassed
in equity and integrity.
No one knows this better than a young
prosecuting attorney, no one appreciates it
more than a Governor leaning upon him
amid the anxieties of office. No one is
prouder of it than a Senator who rejoices
in his own State's excellence among consti-
tutional equals.
This may be grand language to describe
a man whose own language was simple and
sincere, whether in his eloquence to an en-
raptured audience or in his quiet encour-
agement to a friend. A call, a message, a
handclasp, a bit of spoken praise from
Frank Condon was high satisfaction and
inspiration.
The honors that came to him from his
church were splendid. The honors that
came from his people were sacred. The
shadow that falls on his loved ones is our
common sorrow.
A great American and a good man leaves
us all the heritage of a life lived to its finest.
VIETNAM, PAST AND PROSPECT
Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, in
a series of four newspaper articles, Miss
Beverly Deepe has recently reviewed the
war as it has evolved in Vietnam during
the past year. Miss Deepe is eminently
qualified by experience to report on this
critical area.
Miss Deepe writes from Vietnam, from
the delat, from Saigon, from the coastal
bases, from the highlands. And the pic-
ture which emerges from the four ar-
ticles is a vivid and accurate summary
of the situation which confronts us in
Vietnam.
These articles, Mr. President, make
highly informative and highly useful
reading. For the benefit of the Senate,
I ask unanimous consent that the four
articles which appeared in the New York
Herald Tribune, in the issues of Janu-
ary 16-19 inclusive be included at this
point in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the articles
were ordered to be printed in the RECORD,
as follows:
[From the New York Herald Tribune, Jan.
16, 1966]
NEW SERIES: VIETNAM, PAST AND PROSPECT
(By Beverly Deepe)
PLEIKU, SOUTH VIETNAM.-Amid mortar
craters and charred aircraft here on the
morning of February 7, 1965, three figures in
the war against the Communist in South
Vietnam met in a gleaming C-123 transport.
Before they emerged, the nature of the war
had changed.
One was McGeorge Bundy, special assist-
ant to President Johnson for national se-
curity affairs, who took time before the
meeting to survey Pleiku's blasted airplanes
and helicopters and the billets where shortly
before 8 Americans had died and 125 had
been wounded in a Vietcong guerrilla raid.
With Mr. Bundy was Gen. William C.
Westmoreland, the American commander,
who provided the C-123, called the White
-
Whale and the only wall-to-wall carpeted
airplane in South Vietnam.)
The Vietnamese commander in chief, Lt.
Gen. Nguyen Khanh, had arrived earlier.
Meanwhile, in Saigon U.S. Ambassador Max-
well D. Taylor conferred by telephone with
the highest ranking American officials in
Washington.
General Khanh, Mr. Bundy, and General
Westmoreland escaped inquisitive reporters
inside the White Whale. Soon, the key de-
cision was told to General Khanh and within
hours 49 U.S. planes from three 7th Fleet air-
craft carriers sped north of the 17th parallel
to bomb the military barracks at the North
Vietnamese city of Dong Hoi.
At first, the bombing of North Vietnam was
a policy of tit for tat-if you destroy our in-
stallations, we'll destroy yours. But it soon
gave way to general retaliation, and then to
regular and continual bombing. In the be-
ginning, the policy was officially proclaimed
an inducement to the north to negotiate.
High ranking American officials said hope-
fully: "We'll be at the conference table by
September."
But Hanoi did not negotiate. The new
official objective was to hit the military in-
stallations and the communication routes
which allowed Hanoi to pour men and ma-
teriel into South Vietnam. By the year's end,
however, official estimates said North Viet-
namese infiltration had more than doubled-
to 2,500 men a month.
Superficially, bombing North Vietnam
failed. It did not force Hanoi to negotiate;
it did not stop the infiltration. But actually,
the policy half succeeded. By the end of the
year, the bombing had partially paralyzed the
economic capacity and manpower reserves of
North Vietnam.
If the bombing did not stop Hanoi's aggres-
sion, in official eyes, it would at least make it
more expensive and painful for North Viet-
nam to continue. Escalation was accom-
panied by a little noticed policy of expan-
sion, Laos was known to be subject to Ameri-
can bombing raids throughout the past year.
By the beginning of 1966, the air war threat-
ened to spread to Cambodia, and then would
engulf the whole Indochinese Peninsula.
GROUND WAR
The air war over North Vietnam, however,
did not abate sharp deterioration in the allied
ground efforts in South Vietnam, which had
been worsening since the fall of the Ngo
Dinh Diem regime in November 1963. The
repercussions of the coup against Diem badly
damaged the Government's administrative
and intelligence apparatuses. Amid Govern-
ment instability in Saigon swirled whirlwind
changes of officials at every level. The stra-
tegic hamlet program, formulated and nur-
tured by the Diem regime, collapsed as the
Vietcong regained one Government hamlet
after another, leaving behind their own
guerrilla bands and political machinery.
With some accuracy the situation in the
countryside could be measured by statistics.
Before the fall of Diem, the Saigon gov-
ernment claimed control of 8,000 of the 12,000
hamlets in the countryside. By the end of
1965, the most optimistic estimate put the
number of "pacified," or pro-government,
hamlets at 2,000.
After the fall of Diem, military command-
ers quickly began to change their "measle"
maps. Pink contested areas became red;
and white "measle pox"-which once had
been government controlled-became con-
tested "pink." By the middle of 1965, gov-
ernment provincial capitals and district
headquarters were ringed by small oases of
friendly villages, but otherwise were isolated
by increasing Red pressure in the country-
side. Then, in July 1964, the first North
Vietnamese regular troops began appearing.
These units, later to be designated as Peo-
ple's Army of North Vietnam (PAVN), solidi-
fied the growing Red strength.
January 20, 1966
By the end of 1965, military spokesmen
said nine PAVN regiments had infiltrated
from North Vietnam, (American, Korean, and
Australian ground units by late 1965 num-
bered 44 battalions or roughly 15 regi-
ments.)
On March 8, 1965, the first 3,500 U.S. ma-
rines came ashore and were welcomed by a
bevy of girls.
The American and allied buildup con-
tinued throughout the year. It came part
of the 3d Marine Division, and later the
whole division, a brigade of the 101st Air-
borne Division, elements of the 1st Marine
Division, the Republic of Korea's Tiger Regi-
ment and Marine Division, an Australian
regiment, and finally the entire U.S. 1st
Cavalry Airmobile Division, with its more
than 400 helicopters and 15,000 troops, many
of them airborne. By the end of the year,
American combat military personnel num-
bered 130,000. The outlook for 1966; the
equivalent of at least 1 division a month
for 12 months, or nearly 200,000 more troops.
MARINES
The 1st Marines officially were to provide
"local, close-in security" for the Da Nang
airbase, but soon they began what U.S.
spokesmen called "offensive patrolling for
defensive purposes." By mid-July, American
troops went into unequivocal full combat
with Communist forces for the first time
since the Korean war-as the 173d Airborne
Brigade went out on a search-and-destroy
operation in the Red stronghold known as
D-Zone.
With the new employment of ground and
air forces, the U.S. role went through grad-
ual metamorphosis. At the end of 1965
America was in a war it barely realized it
had entered. The cold war had gone hot in
the jungles of the Indochinese peninsula.
Beyond the ideological conflict, the war
dramatized and tested two systems of power..
One, the massive physical power of America;
the other, the power of the Communists to
manipulate the masses, to incite uprisings
labeled by the Chinese Communists as the
"war of liberation." Washington and Pei-
ping appeared to agree it was the "war of
the future."
The essence of the war was described by
a 20-year-old American private who saw the
buildup in Da Nang:
"I can tell you when Uncle Sam moves in,
there's no goofing around," he said. "There
was nothing here. Then the Marines moved
in and the buildings started going up. We
got word an F-100 squadron was moving in
here and we had 4 days to fill 200,000 bags
of dirt to sandbag mortar defenses.
the colonels were shoveling dirt.
Even
"Now you can look down this runway and
for 2 miles there are American jets wing tip
to wing tip," he said. "That's real power."
The private, who had sat 14 hours a day
for 13 months in a foxhole at the edge of
the Da Nang runway, turned to the other
side of the war.
INTELLIGENCE
"The Vietcong know more about what's
happening on this airbase than the base
commander and the 20,000 American Marines
around it," he said. "There are 6,000 workers
who come on here daily. We know some
of them are Vietcong. If the Vietnamese
security officer keeps them off, he and his
family will be killed.
"The Vietcong can come on this base right
under our noses-we don't know who's who.
We saw an old woman carrying a bucket of
drain oil into the gate. When we checked
her, there was only and inch of oil and the
rest of the bucket was a false bottom filled
with plastic explosive. We captured one of
the workers drawing diagrams of all the
defense structures on the base. We captured
one of the drivers of an American bus taking
down the tail numbers of all the American
aircraft on the base," the private went on.
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January 20, 1966
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
"Once my unit was given 5 hours of leave
to go to the commissary. When we returned,
more than half of the 100 American foxholes
around the base had small paper bags in
them. Each bag had a poisonous krait snake
in it. Some worker had just walked around
and dropped a snake in each foxhole."
This conflict of the two systems of power-
the old woman with a bucket of explosive
and the double-the-speed-of sound Phantom
jets was the essence of America's inscrut-
able war, which one Western diplomat de-
scribed as "the unholy trinity of terrorism,
subversion, and guerrilla warfare."
America's inscrutable war in Vietnam had
brush-fired into another area of the volatile,
underdeveloped, uncommitted third world.
[From the New York Herald Tribune, Jan. 17,
1966]
VIETNAM: PAST AND PROSPECT-SOUTH VIETS
IDENTIFY GI'S WITH COLONIALISM
(By Beverly Deepe)
SAIGON. The buildup of American combat
troops in Vietnam during 1965 produced a
visible buildup in anti-Americanism among
the Vietnamese population.
A significant date between the February 7
bombing of North Vietnam and the March 8.
arrival of the first American combat units
was the February 20 mutiny against Com-
mander-in-Chief Gen. Nguyen Khanh by his
generals. The net effect of General Khanh's
overthrow was to fragment the anti-Com-
munist power in Saigon, while the Vietcong
had seized partial control of the country at
the village level.
As commander in chief, a more important
post in wartime than that of Prime Minister
Generan Khanh had dominated the anti-
Communist scene-and had been acclaimed
by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara
as America's strongman for Vietnam. But
by late 1964, General Khanh grew bitter to-
ward U.S. Ambassador Maxwell D. Taylor,
who demanded political stability, while Gen-
eral Khanh was aspiring to the presidency.
FALSE COUP
Twelve days after the bombing of North
Vietnam, a false coup was led by Col. Pham
Ngoc Thao, who was openly acknowledged to
be associated with the U.S. Central Intelli-
gence Agency. The next day the generals
forced General Khanh out of the country.
The 600,000-man Vietnamese armed forces
were turned over to a weak commander in
chief. Finally, the post was abolished, leav-
ing the armed forces virtually leaderless.
A
Prime Minister Phan Huy Quat ran into
trouble. After 3 months in office he called
for support from the Vietnamese generals,
who promptly tossed him out of office.
Vietnamese military junta again took on the
job of governing the country while attempt-
ing to defeat an enemy.
Amid instability on the anti-Communist
side, the Reds could exploit the first Ameri-
can combat units-who arrived without solid
political, economic, or social battle plans.
The instincts of the Vietnamese, traditionally
xenophobic, were to identify the American
troops with the former French colonial mas-
ters. Better political and economic prepara-
tion of the American troops would have eased
the situation considerably.
It was widely known in Saigon that the
Vietnamese including Prime Minister Phan
Huy Quat-learned of the date of the ar-
rival of the first Marines in March from for-
eign press announcements made in Saigon
and Washington The Vietnamese feared
they might win the war but lose their coun-
try. Outbursts from officers, students, and
intellectuals charged that "the Americans
were running the whole show."
THE DOLLAR
No sooner did the American troops land
in the northern provinces than the medium
-
SENATE
of exchange became the U.S. dollar rather
than the piaster. With no restrictions on the
amount of available dollars, an American
private had purchasing power once held only
by Vietnamese generals. Cokes, beers, and
wash basins were purchased in villages with
nickels, dimes, and quarters. In at least
one instance, a Vietnamese village chief,
backed up by his popular force platoons, at-
tempted to invade the village of another
chief and to seize the villagers' American
dollars at an unfair rate of exchange. Six
months after the arrival of the first Ameri-
can units, American officials abolished the use
of dollars in Vietnam. Replacing them was
military scrip, which now has become an-
other "floating currency."
The American troops quickly became the
predominant possessors of one of the scarcest
items in Vietnam. Women. Few Viet-
namese appréciated the loss of their women-
or the fact that illiterate females could earn
10 times a man's pay. Gradually, in any city
or village bordering American units, drug-
stores, villas, and furniture stores quickly
gave way to bars and brothels.
WAGES
The buildup of American forces also
brought demands for more housing, runways,
offices, and other facilities. Wages for skilled
labor, and cost of building materials and
transportation brought inflation. ""The Viet-
namese economy is in horrific shape. This
could ruin the whole campaign against the
Vietcong," one Western diplomat said re-
cently.
The Vietcong sabotage of roads had also
produced inflation on items such as rice,
charcoal, and fish sauce. The American eco-
nomic mission reacted by importing con-
sumer goods to sop up the excess purchasing
power and financed the emergency import
of 250,000 tons of rice. While the Saigon
price of rice dropped, in the provinces rich
merchants continued to charge what the traf-
fic would bear.
The Vietnamese hurt most by the inflation
were not the Communists, but the govern-
ment's own officials and troops, paid mostly
on fixed salaries.
In the city of Da Nang, an average of three
or four fistfights a week break out between
GI's and teenage Vietnamese gangs, popu-
larly known as "cowboys." One American
serviceman was beaten up and lay in a back
alley for 2 days. Though Vietnamese shop-
keepers saw the body, they did not report
it to police. The American military police
finally located it.
By the beginning of 1966, it became ap-
parent that the Buddhist bonzes, as well as
the Vietcong, could easily exploit Viet-
namese nationalism and anti-Americanism.
One incident used by the Buddhists oc-
curred when the American marines fired two
tank rifle rounds into a pagoda from which
they claimed a sniper was firing at them.
The word immediately spread among Viet-
namese peasants that the marines had
maliciously fired into the pagoda. The ma-
rines also were accused of having deliber-
ately broken a Buddhist statue and strewn
human excrement around the pagoda.
The Buddhists, widely considered to in-
clude neutralists and pro-Communists, pre-
viously had successfully toppled two admin-
istrations in Vietnam: President Ngo Dinh
Diem in November 1963, and General Khanh
in August 1964.
"If the Buddhist priests do turn anti-
American, the war will change into a new
dimension which we can't even yet imagine,"
one source said, looking forward to 1966.
At the beginning of the year, rural Viet-
nam was half conquered by the Vietcong,
and the urban portion was in a state of semi-
insurrection. As more American troops ar-
rived, resulting anti-Americanism vastly
complicated the prospects for economic and
political stability.
677
[From the New York Herald Tribune, Jan. 18,
1966]
VIETNAM:
PAST AND PROSPECT SUBVERSION
IN THE MEKONG DELTA
SA DEC, SOUTH VIETNAM.-Officially, the
Mekong Delta south of Saigon-where no
American combat units have yet been based-
is one of the spots where the Vietnamese
Government is progressing well. The simple
tranquillity of fishing boats passing through
canals, the hectic automobile traffic on the
roads, the unbroken routine of peasant life
would seem to confirm the official version.
But those who live in the villages say the
Vietcong have seized virtual control of this
rich rice bowl.
The process is not one of violent battles,
but the invisible strangulation and isolation
of government authority. It is a process of
subversion which might be called termite
warfare. Government authority has been
squeezed into small rings of villages around
provincial and district capitals, and into iso-
lated outposts along the main roads and
canals.
At Sa Dec is the headquarters of the Viet-
namese 9th Infantry Division. Six miles
away is the village complex of Nha Man.
Two of its three villages are already con-
trolled by the Communists. The third vil-
lage, Tan Nhuan Dong, is protected by one
company of about 100 paramilitary troops.
An additional platoon is assigned to each of
two smaller outposts-Ba Thien, 1 mile away,
and Nga Ba, 2 miles off.
ENCIRCLED
The company at Tan Nhuan Dong lives in
an old French fort. Its job is to protect the
village and a bridge which stretches across
a river flanked by several operating rice
mills and brick factories.
The two outposts are encircled by Vietcong
guerrillas. Last month they were totally
isolated from the local population. To bring
in supplies and support for these two posts,
the government has to use 10 armored boats.
On every voyage the boats and their comple-
ment of troops draw Communist sniper fire.
The platoons in each of the two small
posts theoretically send out small, regular
patrols to gather intelligence. They are
called the "ears and eyes of the regular
forces." But recently, a local villager de-
scribed them as "blind men in a jail." For
it is rare that a member of either platoon
dares leave his compound, even to fetch water
from the river 20 yards away.
Last week, one defender crossed the out-
post's barbed wire fence for water. He was
wounded by a sniper and fell on the river
bank. No one dared rescue him. He died
and his body was left on the same spot for
three days. The commander asked head-
quarters for reinforcements, to pick up the
body 20 yards away from his post. The
request was refused.
The platoon was ordered to bury the
corpse inside the post, but again the men re-
fused to pick up the body. On repeated
orders, they eventually brought in the
corpse, but the outpost had no shovels, so
they used knives to dig the grave. They
had no lumber or nails, so they ripped wood
from the walls of their outpost to make the
coffin.
After the grotesque burial, morale was so
low the company commander decided to
transfer the platoon. The 100-man com-
pany ordered to relieve them refused to
obey their transfer order and most of them
defected to the Communists rather than
man the Nga Ba outpost. Most returned
after the province district chiefs were forced
to visit the company of deserters, but the
order to man the outpost was rescinded.
ISOLATION
The influence of the Communists goes,
however, far beyond the terror built with
sniper's bullets.
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678
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
Last month, the Vietcong ordered peasants
and businessmen working or living within
a half mile of the Nga Ba outpost to move
away. The word went out: No one was al-
lowed to move inside the half mile limit.
Rather than sail on the river 20 yards from
the outposts, villagers' sampans were as-
signed to small canals.
One rice miller moved his mill brick-by-
brick, machine-by-machine, to a new spot
nearer government authority. One villager's
reaction: "The Vietcong were very nice to
give him the permission to move his rice
mill. Otherwise, he would have starved to
death. No one would have brought rice to
him to be polished within the half mile
radius of the post."
In monthly propaganda meetings with the
villagers, Vietcong political agents claim "the
Americans are waging an all-out war against
the Vietnamese people. The people have to
make a clear-cut choice between their friends
and their enemies. Those who want to fight
with the Americans can go to the govern-
ment-controlled area. Those who want to
fight against the Americans can stay with us.
There is no third choice."
In Sa Dec, refugee villagers prefer to live
in their sampans moored along the river-
front. They have refused to live in refugee
housing provided by the government.
Many of the wealthier landowners already
have been forced to flee to government-
controlled zones, producing the effect of an
economic purge of the area by the Commu-
nists. Their abandoned lands, especially
fruit groves along the canals, have been
boobytrapped and mined by Red guerrillas.
The Vietcong have warned landowners that
their lands will be confiscated if they allow
their sons to become government soldiers.
The Vietcong forbid landowners to hire
local labor, and terrorize potential workers-
drying up the labor force from both ends.
Once-wealthy landed proprietors must plant
and harvest their own rice-backbreaking
work.
VISITS HALTED
Within the last month, the Vietcong have
withdrawn permission to local residents to
visit friends or relatives in government-
controlled areas. Even the father of one of
the senior generals at the Vietnamese Army
headquarters in Saigon-who previously had
been allowed by the Vietcong to visit his
son-now is forbidden to leave the Vietcong
area.
But the Vietcong efforts are not all just
erosive. They have established efficient-
though unofficial and terroristic-taxation.
Often using children as collectors, they force
millers, small factory owners and business-
men to pay regular levies.
Peasants must turn over to the Reds 40
percent of the rice they grow above their own
family's consumption. Any fish or grain
grown in the Red-controlled area which is
sent into government territory is taxed by
the Vietcong-as if they maintained a na-
tional border.
- SENATE
Hoi An is a provincial capital, only 15
miles south of the strategic airbase of Da
Nang. The change in the marines' mood
illustrates the changing role of American
troops in Vietnam-and some of their prob-
lems.
"We could easily have fought our way to
Hoi An," one marine said recently. "But
then, we would have had to fight our way
back. The essential problem of this war is
not moving your front lines forward. It is
keeping your rear covered."
The key to the problem lies in getting and
keeping the support of the rural population.
Without it, most authorities believe the war
could go on for years.
So it was decided to halt the marines' ad-
vance until the Vietnamese could win over
the local population. The decision brought
dissent from within Marine Corps ranks and
sneers from Army colonels, who claimed
"the marines are afraid to go out and find
the Vietcong." But gradually, the marine
effort outside of Da Nang, under the direc-
tion of Marine Cmdr. Maj. Gen. Lewis Walt,
began to dovetail with the work of the Viet-
namese Government.
THIRD DIMENSION
"In a conventional war, progress is meas-
ured by an advancing front line," one official
explained. "But in this war our outlying
positions are constant. Progress must be
measured in the third dimension. We must
go down into the population to dig out the
Vietcong infrastructure and then rebuild
the local anti-Communist government."
The result of this coordinated effort was
the Five Mountain Villages Campaign, less
than 10 miles southwest of Da Nang and 15
miles from Hoi An. It is the principal cur-
rent pacification program and a pilot case
for the future.
"If this plan doesn't succeed here, it's not
going to succeed anywhere else in the coun-
try," an official said. "We'll really be in seri-
ous trouble then."
The project already has run into some
serious trouble.
The five villages of the campaign are sub-
divided into 19 hamlets, covering a 20-
square-kilometer area. In the complex dwell
42,000 people, of whom about 7 percent are
believed to be related to Vietcong. Snuggled
among lush rice paddies, the villages are
surrounded by the five peaks of mountains
containing gray and salmon-colored marble.
"These marble mountains would make a
great tourist attraction, but you'd be killed
going out there," one marine said.
The pacification campaign has three com-
ponents: U.S. Marines are assigned to secure
the outer limits of the area, patrolling to
prevent the invasion by Communist units;
Vietnamese paramilitary troops maintain se-
curity in the villages; Vietnamese civilian
teams distribute goods, wage psychological
warfare, take censuses, and attempt to undo
the Vietcong's existing political devices and
to bring the villagers to the Government's
side.
"The role of the U.S. Marines is like an
egg," an official said. "Our front lines, on
the rim of the area, are the shell-but like
a shell, the lines can be broken. The vital
installation-the Da Nang airbase is the
yolk, and we also defend that. The white is
the countryside, which we are trying to paci-
So under the noses of government officials
and a major army force, the Communists
have established their own government in
the Mekong Delta. It has almost eroded
away the authority of the anti-Communist
Saigon regime, and, perhaps more signifi-
cantly, has taken major steps toward replac- fy and solidify."
ing it with an authority of their own.
[From the New York Herald Tribune,
Jan. 19, 1966]
VIETNAM: PAST AND PRESENT MARINES'
GREAT EFFORT: SECURING DA NANG
(By Beverly Deepe)
DA NANG, SOUTH VIETNAM.-Last fall, the
battle cry of the U.S. Marines here was:
"We'll be in Hoi An by New Year's Day
1966." Today, they estimate it will be New
Year's 1968.
On October 18, the Vietnamese forces be-
gan their effort, using one headquarters com-
pany and four understrength line companies
of the 59th Regional Forces Battalion. A
civilian cadre of 327 persons was moved in
from provincial headquarters. The Vietnam-
ese commander put them through a 2-week
retraining course. They were joined by five
Vietnamese People's Action Teams (PATS),
of 10 persons each, who were responsible for
census taking and other activities.
To each village, the Vietnamese comman-
January 20, 1966
der, sent one Regional Forces company and
one People's Action Team. In each of the
19 hamlets, he put a civilian cadre team.
"During the third week of the campaign, a
50-man Vietcong platoon broke through the
marine blocking position. They were in our
area shooting things up. They hit us hard,"
an official related.
"Five Regional Force troopers and several
cadremen were killed. Each of our armed
companies was understrength, so we had 15-
man platoons where we should have had 35
men. Fighting against 50 Vietcong, of
course, we lose against those odds.
"Until that we were just beginning to get
the confidence of the people-but after that,
the people clammed up and wouldn't tell us
anything. And it also hurt the morale of our
cadre. One whole 11-man team took off-but
the district chief talked them into coming
back," the official went on.
"Then, four nights later, the same Viet-
cong platoon hit us again. They slipped in
between two Marine patrols, attacked the
regional force headquarters unit of 17 men,
killed several civilian cadre and kidnaped 2
women working with a drama unit. We
haven't seen the women since. One of the
American marines saw action from 50 yards
away but he couldn't open up with his
machinegun-he would have killed more
friendlies than enemies..
"Of course, the marines can't stop all
small-unit infiltration. It would take
marines shoulder-to-shoulder to do that.
And once you had that, the Vietcong would
mortar them from across the river, which
they've already started doing," he said.
Since the late November action, the Viet-
namese and the marines have slightly rein-
forced the area. Now the marines are not
only holding the outer perimeter by exten-
sive patrolling, they also are responsible for
the securing of the civilian cadre in 11 of
the 19 hamlets. Vietnamese troops defend
the remaining eight.
TRY AGAIN
By mid-December, "we started pacifying
again and things were moving slow, but
good," the official said. "The people began
giving us good intelligence and were turning
in some Vietcong. For the first time, on a
Sunday afternoon, families from Da Nang
would come to the villages to visit their rela-
tives. More than 100 families moved back
into the area-but none of the people were
of draft age."
On one night in late December, however,
the Vietcong launched four harassing at-
tacks. They hit the central command post
with mortars and struck another People's
Action Team, killing several.
Gradually, the cadre force fell from 331
to 304. Besides attrition, there were sub-
stantial problems with the cadre because of
inadequate training and the fact that they
were not natives of the villages in which
they were working.
The PAT's equipped, paid, and trained
for political activity and intelligence work
by an arm of the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency had their own troubles. They were
better armed than the Vietnamese troops,
and the local commander wanted to use them
for military security.
One
They refused.
team defected and another had to be trans-
ferred because of local conflicts.
"The biggest headache is that we can't
move our Vietnamese troops and cadre out
of this 20-square-kilometer collection of
hamlets until we have villagers here who
can defend the area," the official said.
"There's not one young man here between
the ages of 10 and 38 whom we can recruit.
We've lost the middle generation, and no one
has begun to find an answer to that prob-
lem."
Before the Marines reach Hoi An-with
their backs protected-80 square kilometers
of land must be pacified. At that, the Ma-
--------------------
- Page 4
--------------------
January 20, 1966
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
rine estimate of New Year's Day, 1968, is not
far away.
BASIN, WYO., POSTMASTER RE-
CEIVES CITATION OF MERIT
Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, it was
my most welcomed privilege this morn-
ing to be present in the office of the
Postmaster General when an old friend,
the postmaster at Basin, Wyo., received
a citation of merit for beautification of
the post office building and grounds.
Postmaster R. J. O'Neill, in coopera-
tion with J. E. Johnstone of the Denver
regional post office, carried out a pro-
gram which included planting of flowers
and shrubbery, and had the cooperation
of a number of the good people of Basin
.
Local organizations assisted in this most
worthwhile project by funishing flowers
and shrubbery.
Mr. O'Neill and 13 other postmasters
met in the reception room of the Post-
master General's Office at 11 this morn-
ing to receive the citations I take this
opportunity to felicitate Mr. O'Neill and
the other postmasters, as well as other
employees of the postal department and
citizens of this Nation who are making
the national beautification program a
significant success.
THE NONPROLIFERATION OF
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Mr. HART. Mr. President, we need
swift action toward a nuclear nonproli-
feration treaty for the simple reason that
we are running out of time. There is no
other issue before the Senate this year-
including even the war in Vietnam-
which is of greater basic importance to
the world and the nations.
The desperate importance of this ques-
tion has been seen, and stated, for many
years by noted scholars and political
leaders. It was recognized by President
John F. Kennedy, who told a press con-
ference on March 21, 1963, that 15 or 20
countries might have nuclear weapons by
1975 and that he was haunted by this
problem. A year and a half later, Secre-
tary of Defense Robert McNamara told
an interviewer that in 10 to 20 years tens
of nations would be capable of having
nuclear weapons, and that the danger to
the world increases geometrically with
the increase in the number of nations
possessing those warheads.
Secretary McNamara explained that
American nuclear warheads then cost
anywhere from roughly half a million
dollars on up, perhaps to a million dol-
dollars. But in the years ahead he
warned:
Because of advances in nuclear technology,
the cost of nuclear weapons will fall dramati-
cally-
McNamara added-
and as the technology becomes simplier, we
can expect more and more nations to acquire
capability for both developing and producing
such weapons.
A year later President Johnson
solemnly warned the world that the
proliferation of nuclear weapons was
the "gravest of all unresolved human
Issues" and he stated:
No. 8 4
-
SENATE
The peace of the world requires firm limits
upon the spread of nuclear weapons.
And as all Members of the Senate are
well aware, the junior Senator from
New York presented two brilliant analy-
ses of these problems in June and Octo-
ber of last year.
Now Mr. President, I am not tech-
nically trained or knowledgeable in mat-
ters of producing nuclear weapons, and
reduction in the cost and time required
I do not know how fast this anticipated
to produce nuclear weapons has taken
place, or what the current figures are.
But I did notice in an Associated Press
dispatch dated October 7, 1965, from
London a statement that the annual re-
port of the British Atomic Energy Au-
thority indirectly revealed that Britain
has been working on research "which
could lead to production of cut-price
atomic and hydrogen bombs."
And I am aware that for many years
scientists in a number of countries have
been working on top-secret efforts to
make the centrifuge method of uranium
separation not only workable, but work-
able at a cost much reduced from the
gaseous diffusion process used by the
present nuclear powers.
Consequently, I have absolutely no
reason to doubt, and have every reason
to agree with, the startling statement
made last June by the junior Senator
from New York:
a
Within a very few years, an investment of
few million dollars-well within the
capacity even of private organizations-will
Once such a
produce nuclear weapons."
capability is in being, weapons will prob-
ably be produced for costs in the hundreds
of thousands of dollars each. Similarly,
delivery systems are far cheaper than they
once were.
One of the wonderful things about
scientific technology is that it rapidly dis-
covers cheaper production methods for
even the most expensive items. Unhap-
pily, this remarkable ability extends to
nuclear weapons as well as tractors and
gumdrops.
It is not too difficult to foresee the day
when atomic bomb production will be
within the ability of any nation that now
possesses even the know-how to effi-
ciently manufacture popguns.
In fact, if a nuclear entrepreneur could
find a permissive host country, it is even
conceivable that he could open an inter-
national fireworks stand that would sell
to all comers.
We already have five nervous fellows
holding shotguns on each other and a
new influx of gunmen will do nothing to
soothe that jittery feeling and calm the
stomach.
This is not a problem for some future
administration to deal with. It is not
a problem for some future Senate to take
seriously while today we satisfy ourselves
with making brief speeches. This is a
problem for this year, this month, this
week, this very day.
The actual work being conducted on
nuclear weapons development is nat-
urally a closely guarded secret in these,
as in other countries, but we do have
some disturbing clues.
In the case of Israel, we know that
there has been grave concern in that be-
679
leaguered country about the work for
several years on rockets by Egypt, as-
sisted by some West German engineers.
And we know that Israel has been push-
ing for a good many years research and
development on her own atomic reactors,
with a considerable amount of assistance
from France.
And as long ago as July 5, 1962, there
was an article in the Washington Post
reporting from Jerusalem that Israeli in-
tellectuals were protesting the building
of atomic weapons by their country.
Perhaps Israel had not then in fact
launched an actual atomic weapons pro-
gram. But the fact remains that this
is a country with a well-advanced reac-
tor program, a country that is rich in
technical personnel, a country deter-
mined to fight for its survival in a hostile
environment-a country, in short, which
might be pressed to develop its own nu-
clear weapons before much longer, if the
present world nuclear anarchy continues.
In the case of India, we have had re-
peated public assurances first from
Prime Minister Nehru and then from
Prime Minister Shastri that India was
not embarking on a nuclear weapons
program. But such expressions of intent
should not lull away our concern.
This is highly unlikely to remain In-
During the
dia's policy indefinitely.
September fighting with Pakistan, a
large group of Parliament members pe-
titioned the Government to begin atomic
bomb production. Should conflict with
her neighbors reerupt, such pressures
might become irresistible.
And if India takes this fateful step,
how great will be the pressures for Paki-
stan to draw scarce resources from its
own urgent economic development ef-
forts in order to follow suit.
And, of course, so, too, will Nasser's
Egypt inevitably follow the same path if
Israel does develop atomic weapons.
Within a few years more, with the
price and difficulty of building these hor-
ror weapons reduced, we may expect such
countries as Sweden, Italy, and Canada
to follow. And, by this time, West Ger-
many may have decided to break her
1954 treaty commitments in order to
start on the road to becoming one of the
most powerful of the burgeoning nuclear
powers, while Japan will doubtless have
redrafted her constitutional inhibitions
and also taken the plunge.
Other countries listed by AEC Chair-
man Glenn Seaborg last summer as be-
ing capable of building their own bombs
before too much longer included Switzer-
land, Brazil, Spain, and Yugoslavia.
Fortunately, if the need for construc-
tive action to deal with this dread pos-
sibility is great, so too is the opportunity
now a great one.
For many months, the United States
and the Soviet Union have been at an
impasse that, basically, involved West
Germany's participation in a European
nuclear defense.
I think Russia's nervousness about
Germany is understandable to any stu-
dent of modern history. Our problem is
to give Germany the feeling of being a
full-fledged member of the European de-
fense team while, at the same time, pro-
viding Russia with positive assurances
-
Date
-
1966, Jan. 20
-
Subject
-
Mansfield, Mike, 1903-2001; United States. Congress--History--20th century; Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Vietnam--Foreign relations--United States; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Press coverage
-
Location
-
United States Capital Building, District of Columbia, United States of America
-
Coordinates
-
38.8897; -77.0059
-
Size
-
20 x 28 cm
-
Container
-
B4, F6
-
Format
-
congressional record
-
Collection Number
-
MS 363
-
Collection Title
-
Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
-
Creator
-
Keever, Beverly Deepe
-
Copyright Information
-
These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
-
Publisher
-
Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
-
Language
-
English
