We are pleased to welcome you here, Congressman Gibbons, and we know your testimony will be helpful to our subcommittee. On behalf of our subcommittee I want to express to you and Mr. Waldie our apology for the long delay and hope you will forgive us.

Please proceed.

STATEMENT OF HON. SAM M. GIBBONS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your courtesy and welcome your comments. As I told Mr. du Pont a while ago, I am not worried about the delay. I have been waiting for about 9 years for this occasion, so a few more minutes or a few hours or a few days will not make that much difference now.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate this opportunity to appear before you on a matter which I believe to be historic in nature. I am not here to assess blame, to call names, or to point fingers at anyone, but I do think we should have a free and frank discussion of our actions.

First, let me say I am a cosponsor of a number of resolutions on subjects now under consideration by your subcommittee.

I joined in sponsorship of House Joint Resolution 1, by Congressman Zablocki and other members of the Foreign Affairs Committee. While I am not totally satisfied with the draft of this resolution, I joined in its cosponsorship because I wanted to express my interest in reasserting the responsibility of the House of Representatives in connection with the warmaking powers. I believe that by the process of erosion, the power to make war and to commit this country to the possibility of war has been concentrated to too great an extent in the executive branch.

House Joint Resolution 1 at least puts the President on notice that he is required to consult with and report to the Congress in a more forthright manner than we have seen in recent years.

I joined with Congressman McClory of Illinois in sponsoring House Concurrent Resolution 334, which provides for a date certain for withdrawal of American forces from South Vietnam, conditioned upon the establishment of a cease-fire, return of all American prisoners, and a simultaneous withdrawal of all outside military forces from South Vietnam. Here again I think the Congress must show its willingness to accept the responsibility for bringing about a peace. Under our system of divided responsibility at our National Government level we cannot assume that the Executive must bear the whole responsibility for the final decision of withdrawal.

I joined with Congressman Chappell and others in the sponsorship of House Joint Resolution 664, which again recognizes the responsibility of the President as Commander in Chief, but also recognizes the shared responsibility that the Congress has with the Executive concerning our warmaking powers.

When I joined with Congressman Wolff and others in the introduction of House Concurrent Resolution 192, I wanted to express my desire that the people of South Vietnam be given every opportunity to express their free will in the elections to be held in October of this year. I realize it is very difficult to conduct an election in a coun

try that is under attack from within and from without and that the standards we impose in our country would not be realistic in South Vietnam, but I become more concerned each day that the conduct of the election in October in Vietnam will fail to meet even the minimal requirements of free elections. From the sketchy reports that I have seen concerning this election, I am led to believe that the ability to be nomi nated for a place on the ballot has been overly restricted.

Some members of this committee will remember I was one of the introducers of a resolution in the Democratic caucus to bring this war to an end by the end of this year. I do not see how it is reasonable to expect that prisoners of war will be returned until an agreement has been reached concerning the end of armed hostilities.

When the history of this era is written, no fair historian can fail to criticize the Congress, particularly the House of Representatives, for its failure to give adequate consideration to our problems in Southeast Asia. Here and now, after all of these years, we are finally having open and public discussions concerning our policy in Southeast Asia. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, for which I voted, originated in this committee with only a minimal amount of discussion and was presented to the House of Representatives under a severe time limitation. While this country has been torn apart by proponents and opponents of the war in Southeast Asia, this Congress has not responded with the hearings, discussions, and debate that a problem of this magnitude deserves.

We must all recall that our country is dedicated to the proposition that government derives all of its just powers from the consent of the governed, and it follows from this principle that no consent can be properly given if the government classifies as secret those matters which should be public knowledge. Neither can consent be given when the elected representatives of the people fail to carry on official and public discussions of vital issues, such as our involvement in Southeast Asia.

As I said earlier in this statement, I believe that the warmaking powers of this Government have become too highly concentrated in the hands of the Executive. I believe it has been far too easy for the executive branch to commit this country to paths leading us to armed confrontation around the world. I think that it has become too easy for our executive branch to make commitments in manpower and other resources without the active oversight of the Congress.

I am glad that this committee has now begun to undertake what I hope will be a searching discussion of the problems that I have outlined. I hope that this committee will be vigorous in its attempt to withdraw the veil of secrecy that so often covers the conduct of our diplomacy. I hope that this committee will report to the House of Representatives proper legislation fixing the time for the cessation of hostilities in Southeast Asia, and will also report to the House of Representatives legislation restricting the use of warmaking powers that have been usurped by the Executive.

Finally, I would hope that this committee would report to the House of Representatives legislation requiring all agencies within its jurisdiction to revise their system of classifying information. It seems to me that the very least that can be done would be to provide for an inventory of those documents presently classified and on an annual

report for those matters that are classified during each consecutive year. A more workable method of declassifying information is needed so that the 200 million Americans who must give their consent to be governed will have a more knowledgeable basis on which to do so.

In considering the resolutions I have introduced and other legislation in this area, I think it would be well for the committee to look into the Javits and Eagleton resolutions on the Senate side, on which I understand hearings have been held. These resolutions contain worthwhile suggestions, I believe.

Thank you again for allowing me to testify before you. I want to commend the committee for its investigation into needed legislation to assure that another Vietnam won't happen.

Mr. GALLAGHER. Thank you, Congressman Gibbons.

The Congress obviously deserves a great deal of criticism and anyone who lived through those days is not without his share of criticism. But I am just wondering what kind of criticism will fall on this Congress if we should pass a resolution with a date certain which events make it impossible for us to keep and, therefore, impose a very inflexible position on the President of the United States, who is seeking to extract us from Vietnam.

I wonder what your feeling on that would be.

Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Chairman, somewhere along the road we are going to have to face the process of withdrawal that is now going on and it will eventually come to an end. We will be down to a force that is so small that it can only perform perhaps a beachhead type of withdrawal from South Vietnam. I think it is better to bargain now; to put forth a solid position that we as a government are willing to make and see what kind of takers we have on it.

I think that it may well come to the fact that we will be forced to shoot our way out of South Vietnam. I hope it does not. I think we are in a better position to bargain now, and I think we have to show the initiative by stating we are going to withdraw, that we are going to withdraw at a time certain and then see what response we get from the

enemy.

Mr. GALLAGHER. Would it not be preferable to allow the withdrawal plan to proceed as it is while there are still options to the President, while he still has some flexibility? My reservation is if we impose inflexibility, we may well be hindering this. This is a purpose of our hearing.

Mr. GIBBONS. As I see it, Mr. Chairman, we have given away all of our bargaining chips. When we made the decision not to bomb North Vietnam, an important chip went down. In 1969 when we said we no longer intended this to be a military victory, we gave away another bargaining chip. When we announced our withdrawal, we gave away another bargaining chip, and when we reduced our forces, we gave away still another. There is so little left that we have to bargain with that we are in the uncomfortable position of having to put as a bargaining chip the thing we have the least control over-and that is what is going to happen to our own prisoners of war.

We have very little left to bargain with except our own good intentions and every day as we continue to withdraw, we chisel away at what little we have left. I think it is going to take some dramatic act of faith on the part of this Government to convince the other side that we do intend to withdraw.

I am sure they don't want any more casualties. I am sure we don't want any more casualties. We still do have some options, but it would take a tremendous upheavel in this country to use those options. Those options are ones that were discussed here earlier an accelerated bombing attack against North Vietnam, the use of ultimate types of weapons against those people, but those are not on the bargaining table and I think we ought to go ahead and set a date for withdrawal, find out what is going to happen as we are going to have to face this sooner or later. I think we are in a better position to face it today, this month, than we will be a month and a half from now when we will have 25,000 fewer combat troops in South Vietnam.

Mr. GALLAGHER. It is those very options, Mr. Gibbons, that make me very nervous; the imposition of a fixed date and the possible incapability of our doing what we in the Congress say we must do. This may lead to the kind of extreme reactions that the President would be forced into or that the public will demand. I wonder if that kind of a position becomes counterproductive to withdrawing all of our troops, which is what Vietnam now should be all about.

Mr. GIBBONS. I have tried to think of what you take with you when you go to the bargaining table in the position we are in right now. Mr. GALLAGHER. We are not really talking much about going to the bargaining table. The other side is not going to bargain with us. They want us out, and when we come out, they may or may not give up our prisoners. They obviously do not want to sit sincerely at the bargaining table and, therefore, if we negate our own options, are we not going to be forced at some point to show muscle again, which is what I believe no one wants to see?

Mr. GIBBONS. There are many ways the prisoners could be returned. We could try third-party options. We have prisoners of theirs we could exchange on a man-for-man basis. We have all kinds of ways we could test the bona fides of the enemy.

We are not now testing the bona fides of the enemy apparently well enough. I must assume everyone wants to see this war come to an end. If we take into account their casualty toll, no one could rationally say they want to go forward with more armed conflict. There is no doubt that our firepower is devastating and whenever they mass enough to do any damage to us, all of the firepower that we are able to concentrate deals them a cruel blow.

So I cannot believe that they want to prolong the war indefinitely. They are going to get from us a pretty awful price, no matter how we do this. I think we have made an unfortunate mistake, a tactical error. By this, I mean that in the bargaining process we told the enemy that our many bargaining positions were based upon something that was wholly in their control, that is, when we put such a high price on the release of our prisoners, we made a terrible blunder. I think the Government in escalating this and in encouraging this has made a mistake. It has always been in the conduct of warfare that prisoners of war were returned once there was a cessation of hostilities.

I have heard these assertions on the floor and the evidence has been given on the floor, yes, we have had returns of POW's prior to cessation of hostilities, but those have usually been sick or wounded or special types of prisoners.

Now, every prisoner is special to me.

Mr. GALLAGHER. I am not really talking about the prisoner issue, which, of course, we all agree on. By giving the date creates precisely the point that we give them another position that is solely in their control: a total inflexible date by which something must happen. If it does not happen, we are right back where we started from.

Mr. GIBBONS. Somebody said a declaration of war. Fortunately weather is on our side right now. What is it-seven or eight a day killed, three or four times that many wounded every day, to say nothing of the financial expense and the social expense that we are paying for this. I think that all those are factors in this equation. Another factor is that we should be willing to risk some things and one of the things we have to be willing to risk is that we will come forward and say we are willing to set a date provided they will give us a firm assurance that they will return those POW's. We can then work out the details.

Mr. GALLAGHER. I don't think we are ever going to get any firm assurance at all. I think the ending of the war depends on ourselves and what we do.

Mr. GIBBONS. We are in a better position, Mr. Gallagher, to know that, this week than we are a year from now.

Mr. GALLAGHER. If that were so, if we got any manifestation at all or including even minimal conditions of prisoner return, I think this committee would jump with enforcement of a fixed-date proposition. It is precisely that gray area at the end of it that if nothing happens will we be forced to declare war, will we be forced back into the bombing that no one wants and the kind of war on a larger scale that no one wants? Or do we just continue to grind down the war regardless of what the other side does, which is about what is happening now?

This is why I direct your continued careful thought on the endthe-war resolution, the fixed-date proposition.

Mr. GIBBONS. I have always considered that the fixed-date proposition was a bargaining position. You announce you are going to get out, you take the kind of action it would take to do that, a resolution by Congress pledging, in effect, that a majority of us support that position and that the President would so adopt, and then you just have to see what can be worked out about how you get those prisoners back. Then you still have the option of when you execute that fixed date or the process of executing it. If we determine that there is going to be no return of those prisoners, then we start to examine our other options and what pressure we can bear upon them to do that.

I just maintain that we are in a better position to fix a date now and say we are going to get out now than we will be when we are down to, say, 50,000 or even 100,000.

Mr. GALLAGHER. Let us assume we do that and nothing happens at all with regard to the prisoners, or we get forced into a very difficult position by having a lot of people killed at the end of it. What do we then do if the resolution says everything ends on December 31, 1971 ? Do you see any possibility of our being forced into a very extreme position which none of us want or do we just take it and go out anyhow?

Mr. GIBBONS. Of course, in making that decision you just have to weigh all of the factors in light of what is actually taking place at that time.