Mr. GREEN. And I would add that we are not talking about only South Vietnam. We are talking about Indochina. That would liquidate this war once and for all. There is a vast panorama beyond if that could be achieved. I think that the countries of the world can join together to help the countries of that area, including North Vietnam. It could be a tremendous reversal. It has been true in the past that out of the war has come a new opportunity. Look at Germany, look at Japan. So there is this prospect, this possibility. As you so strongly state, Mr. Chairman, that possibility is going to depend really upon a negotiated settlement-a negotiated settlement that embraces all of Indochina. Mr. GALLAGHER. Mr. Secretary, in connection with that and in connection with the very strong criticism made of the continuation of the war, what would be involved in the possibility of falling back on a declaration of war? What treaties or American obligations would become operative if Congress forced that position, by forcing a fixeddate withdrawal? Would the President be compelled to have a war situation, if there were no other options for extracting our troops? What happens at that point? What treaties would become operative? Mr. GREEN. I don't know. The precise legal aspects of our position in South Vietnam today are somewhat unclear to me. Mr. GALLAGHER. I am talking now about the declaration of war. Mr. GREEN. You mean in that contingency? Mr. GALLAGHER. Yes; if the prisoners are not returned. Mr. GREEN. I don't know on what basis you would be declaring war. We are fighting there now. This would be a sharp escalation of that war which would be going the opposite direction of the way the American people are leaning. Mr. GALLAGHER. Yes; I quite agree. I point out that testimony has been before this subcommittee questioning whether the SEATO treaty is in effect. If you could for the record Mr. GREEN. I do think there is one thing I would like to add though. This gets down again to keeping flexibility. I have not been through all the resolutions that have been submitted to this committee for discussion. There might be some that would call for a resolution that we would bomb under certain circumstances, and so forth. Mr. GALLAGHER. Yes; there may be. Mr. GREEN. Yes. To me in answering your question I don't think that I should go to the opposite extreme and say the President should never do this or should never do that. It seems to me that the President has to have flexibility in his capacity as the Commander in Chief. It seems to me he has to have flexibility so that the enemy could never presume, could never set limits on what he can do and what he cannot do. If the President's hand is thus untied, he is going to be more effective in carrying out negotiations and also in conveying certain signals to the enemy and not giving the enemy the assurance that nothing will happen, that under certain circumstances they don't have to worry. There should be some concern on the part of Hanoi that something might happen. So in answering your question I don't want to imply that the President should have removed from him that right because he might have to exercise it. I certainly hope it would never happen; but I say he should have that option. Mr. GALLAGHER. I just have several other questions. The withdrawal plans to the best of my knowledge do not envision the withdrawal of American airpower. We have this total superiority in the air and we have the capacity to inflict massive damage on North Vietnam. Would it not be logical to assume, on the issue of prisoners of war, that if our prisoners will not be released until we no longer possess the technological capability to destroy much of North Vietnam? In this sense are not the prisoners a valuable bargaining counter for the North for the withdrawal of the American airpower? Mr. GREEN. They probably will use the prisoners as a form of ransom for getting everything they possibly can. That brings us back to the negotiating process and getting a package. There are lots of elements involved here on that basis if you are dealing with any other reasonable party. I don't think you are dealing with reasonable people in Hanoi; they are extremist. But if you are dealing with any normal party, I think you could find it definitely to their advantage to reach a package solution such as the President proposed last October. They are proposing cease-fire farther down the line. We are proposing ceasefire right off the bat. If we had a cease-fire, then of course, not only would the killing stop but you would have an entirely different situation there. Bombing and all the rest of it could also stop-there would not be that requirement. If it were effectively supervised, this could very well be the end of all the killing. This was one of the principal points in the President's October 7 proposal last year. You know, sometimes I think we just don't keep saying the same things over again hard enough, long enough, consistently enough. The Communists have a much worse formula than we have. It is a highly contentious one but they say it over and over again and they sometimes say it in a beguiling manner that does wear some people down. When you look at the President's proposals of October 7, surely they are more responsive to the feelings of mankind than anything the Communists have come up with. They don't want to have a cease-fire-not until various preconditions are met. They are willing to have a cease-fire with just the United States first, and with the South Vietnamese later. That is, they would go on butchering when we are out. They are handling the prisoners of war issue in a way the Geneva agreement never contemplated. Who ever contemplated a government not receiving its own boys back, not wanting them back, and the prisoners therefore not being able to go back. They are using the prisoners of war as a form of hostage, a form of ransom. Again they are asking a political solution that is tantamount to the United States moving in and getting rid of a government that is elected by the South Vietnamese under the new constitution and replacing it by one that Hanoi wants. These are the kinds of things they are asking for. To me it is outrageous. Now there may be other things in their formulation that are acceptable. Certain things in there give us some hope and maybe we can find a formula for negotiation. I am just touching on several points that stick in my craw and I think stick in the craw of most Americans. Mr. GALLAGHER. Mr. Secretary, I want to conclude with a somewhat theoretical question on the lessons we might learn from our tragic involvement in Vietnam. It strikes me as quite legitimate for America to assist other nations in the process of nation-building; that is, in providing new governments with economic aid and military aid for a stable nation-building. On the other hand, I believe that the United States should clearly aid the established governments in our interests. such as Thailand and Israel when threatened with aggression. What I think we did in Vietnam was to try to do both of these perfectly legitimate things at the same time. We tried to help create a nation and in doing that we wanted to establish it on Jeffersonian principles which are not possible, defend it from its enemies before it could defend itself, or even before it was fully aware that it had a national interest. I wonder, Mr. Secretary, if you agree with this analysis and what comments you might like to offer to this subcommittee as we continue to attempt to meet our legislative responsibilities in the field of foreign affairs and its constitutional obligations as an active partner— or perhaps not so active as we should be-in the formation upon the Nation of foreign policy. One of the things that disturbs me is that we did have moral obligations to assist after doing in Diem as the Pentagon papers so clearly bring out. We felt that certain democratic elements were vital to that assistance, and in so doing we have disturbed the balance that existed there and created a moral obligation to the succeeding governments. Obviously they could not succeed without our restoring that balance, unfortunately at the expense of our American troops. Would you care to comment? Mr. GREEN. You might say, going back to 1954, that when we first got into Vietnam in any major way the French had pulled out and as I recall, there was only part of the city of Saigon and the city of Cholon that were in the hands of Diem's forces. By and large the city was in control of a pirate group at that time. Buttressing what you just said, Mr. Chairman, our assistance broadened all the time, it was not just military but it was in every field. I think the reason is that if you go in to help a country especially as embattled as that and where we thought we had such a stake you cannot just go in militarily because for one thing, people back here will say we are supporting a military regime. You have to demonstrate that this is a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Particularly the Communists are charging that the government does not have the support of the people. As recently as 1969 they were claiming that 80 percent of the people in Vietnam favored the NLF. Therefore, it was necessary to have a pacification program, it was necessary to have a new constitution, to hold elections under the new constitution. Almost all, I say 95 to 97 percent-something like thatof every village and hamlet has some kind of elected official. That helps to establish the point that the people have a government that they want. There is an even more compelling reason for having a democratic process when competing with North Vietnam. We are frustrated in South Vietnam so it is tempting to find a fall guy and charge him with all the sins including there not being a truly democratic process. That is not fair. South Vietnam may not enjoy Jeffersonian democracy but where else in a developing world do you find that? I was in Indonesia. I think they now have the best man to run that government because he is working for the people. I think the Government of Indonesia today is the best government because it is interested in the people and is helping to improve their conditions of life. It may not be Jeffersonian democracy but they did have relatively free elections. Now in South Vietnam, however, it becomes all the more important that you have a free election, and our people are under very tight rules not to get involved in that election or to tip the balance in any way. A free and fair election. This election will be watched to a degree more than any other election has been watched. This is the answer to Madame Binh who wants to go through the laborious process of finding a new government, first by the United States pulling the rug out from under it so it collapses. The next thing demanded by the other side is that there be a grouping of social and political and religious forces aspiring for peace neutrality, independence and democracy which is good Communist language and that they form a new administration and that administration will sit down with the Vietcong and work out a new so-called government of national concord which then will hold elections. So you can imagine what kind of elections that will be by the time you get there. In other words, I do think again the point is not adequately made that we are dealing with a government that has been elected into office under the new constitution, and that that government has observed human rights by and large. There certainly is a free press there. The opposition parties can express themselves through opposition newspapers. You have more newspapers and more foreign correspondents filing uncensored news out of South Vietnam than I believe has ever happened in a war-time situation anywhere in the world. These things are also overlooked, as I say, but they are relevant to your question because the Government of Vietnam leans over backwards to do all these things because they know they are being carefully watched by the world. They want to make the point clear that they are a government of the people, that they do reflect the will of that people. They certainly stand in sharp contrast to North Vietnam where I doubt they have ever had a free election of any kind, shape or form. Mr. GALLAGHER. Do we have anything further? Mr. WOLFF. I don't think so. I just want to thank the Secretary for making so frank a statement and also being so free with his time. Mr. GREEN. I hope, Mr. Wolff, that I was not so frank that I have reason to worry. I also appreciate your questions about the Pentagon papers. I would have been very glad to go on but I think you will agree with me on one point: From now on no one can accuse the State Department of being behind the Times. Mr. GALLAGHER. Ör left at the Post, Mr. Secretary. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary, for your patience and frankness and for bringing such a sense of balance into our record and for providing answers to many of these questions that have been raised by previous witnesses. We are very appreciative. Thank you for taking so much of your time to be here. STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS STATEMENT OF HON. BROCK ADAMS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON THE BALANCE BETWEEN CONGRESS AND THE EXECUTIVE Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. I first want to express my support for these hearings on the Indochina war. I have advocated such hearings for many years because I believe the nation's fundamental constitutional system of checks and balances has been seriously endangered by the change in American policy in Indochina from a Presidential conduct of foreign affairs to a full-scale war lacking constitutional approval by the Senate and the House of Representatives. This has been a long, slow process, but until recently the issue has never been debated or acted upon by the traditional American governmental or political system. The recent publication of the "U.S. Vietnam Relationships, 1945–67" (Pentagon Papers) demonstrates how this occurred piece by piece from the 1954 French withdrawal to the establishment of today's continuing full-scale war. I arrived in Congress in January of 1965 after the August 1964 vote on Vietnam, which is now known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. I remember vividly my first briefings at the White House on the war and my confusion as to why Congress was not more involved in the decision to dispatch troops in the spring of 1965. There was no resolution declaring war and no attempt by House leaders to prepare a detailed authorizing resolution or appropriations limitation on the use of American military forces in Indochina. This involvement was treated as an Executive action under the constitutional power to conduct foreign affairs. After the troops were in action, the power of the Executive was widened by use of "Commander in Chief" constitutional powers. This period can be likened to the famous fairy tale of the emperor's new clothes, with Congress compared to the parents of the innocent child. You will remember in that story that the head of state established a policy of developing a new wardrobe. He was given advice by two counselors on how to proceed in creating the new suit of clothes and how the state's resources would be used for this purpose. Even more important, they developed a policy (accepted and believed in by the people) that the wonderful clothes would remain invisible to everyone who was incompetent to hold office or who was stupid. Of course, the policy was bare because there was no suit of clothes. But no one voiced that essential fact or even debated the whole program while a vast amount of resources, consisting of delicate silk and pure gold thread, were being expended. Finally the day came for the procession. The unclothed emperor appeared and paraded the length of town, with public officials still supporting the "policy" because they did not want to be called incompetent, and the citizens refraining from commenting because they did not want to be called stupid. As happened with us, the innocent children and those who did not care what they were called and thus could be defined as neither incompetent nor stupid stated flatly. "But the emperor has on nothing at all." And, this, of course, is what has happened to all of us. Since this is a time when everyone seems to be examining his own files or somebody else's. I decided to look at my own. I have my letter to the President dated August 11, 1965, in which I advocated that sound economic and political reforms and action must be taken to match our military action. My search continued through other letters and comments, culminating with a state ment on August 9, 1967, as follows: "I followed, and followed and followed. Now I refuse to go any further. We have reached the point where we have to say to the President. 'You've got to do |