Mr. BALL. An "all-or-nothing approach"?

Senator THURMOND. Yes, sir.

It has been used by the State Department in your reply over and over, and I want to know if you have any instance where it does represent State Department policy.

Mr. BALL. Well, I would suppose that in our foreign policy dealings around the world there are many instances where we do not use an “all-or-nothing approach," where it would be totally inappropriate. The whole essence of foreign policy is to try to develop a

Senator THURMOND. If you wish to confer with your aids back there, I have no objection.

Mr. BALL. No, that is all right, thank you.

Now, let us take it in connection with Carthage. An "all-or-nothing approach" as exemplified by Carthage means the destruction and wiping off the earth of a whole civilization. That is not our intention.

STATE EXPLANATION OF DESIRE TO SEEK ACCOMMODATION WITH SOVIET UNION

Senator THURMOND. You might turn to speech No. 154, a speech by Maj. Gen. Chester E. McCarty.

Mr. BALL. Which period is that in, please, Senator?

Senator THURMOND. Category 4, delivered on May 9.

Mr. BALL. Yes, I have it.

Senator THURMOND. 1961.

Turn to the State Department's explanation there, No. 1. Do you see the explanation there?

Mr. BALL. Yes.

Senator THURMOND. Do you see the word "accommodation" used there? This context reiterates statements by a military officer concerning the intent of the Soviet Union to militarily attack the United States could have been used to cast doubt "on the sincerity and good faith of the President's express desire to try to seek an accommodation with the Soviet Union."

Mr. BALL. Senator, when the President went to Vienna, he had just recently been inaugurated; he went to talk with Chairman Khrushchev in order to see the extent to which some areas could be found where tensions might be relieved by ascertaining if there was a way in which some of the Soviet interests could be met while our vital interests were all completely protected.

This is, I may say, the essence of the probe which has been going on with respect to Berlin; namely, to see if there is a possibility of finding ways in which the vital interests of the four powers can be fully protected while, at the same time, the interests of the Soviet Union, that they have expressed, may be accommodated.

Up to this point we have not been able to find such ways, but this is certainly something that any responsible head of state would be looking for.

DISCUSSION ON WHAT ACCOMMODATION PRESIDENT SOUGHT WITH SOVIET

UNION

Senator THURMOND. Are you familiar with what accommodation the President was willing to make to Mr. Khrushchev on that occa

sion, and could you tell us also what Mr. Khrushchev was going to do for us on that occasion?

Mr. BALL. As you probably know, Senator Thurmond, the meeting did not result in any understanding at all except an understanding to try to work toward some neutralization, some defusing, of the situation in Laos.

The other areas which were explored were dead ends.
Senator THURMOND. Again, I ask you :

Are you familiar with what accommodiations the President of the United States was willing to make to Mr. Khrushchev on that occasion?

Mr. BALL. The President of the United States was willing to make only such accommodation as would not result in the giving up or diminution in any way of what we deem to be our vital interests.

Senator THURMOND. And if he did not give up any diminution of our vital interests, how could he make any accommodation to Mr. Khrushchev?

Mr. BALL. It may be that within the area where we have vital interests, that the vital interests of the Soviet Union could still be accommodated.

AUSTRIAN STATE TREATY AS EXAMPLE OF ACCOMMODATION

Let me give you an example.

Take the situation in Austria. This was a case where an arrangement was made which resulted in an Austrian state treaty, which means that there is an independent, free Austria.

Now, this was a situation where the vital interests of the West were protected and where the interests of the Soviet Union were accommodated.

The fact that we have many areas of sharp conflict with the Soviet Union, the fact that we recognize the aggressive intentions of the Communist bloc, does not mean at all that in certain situations there may not be opportunities for the kind of accommodation represented by the Austrian state treaty.

BALL PREFERS TO DISCUSS SPECIFIC ACCOMMODATIONS IN EXECUTIVE

SESSION

Senator THURMOND. Well, this statement by the State Department says:

The President had an express desire to try to seek an accommodation with the Soviet Union on that occasion.

The question I asked is whether you can tell us what he was prepared to do to accommodate Mr. Khrushchev.

Mr. BALL. What the President was prepared to do was to have a conversation with Mr. Khrushchev in an attempt to probe areas where there might be some possibility of accommodation of our interests and their interests.

As it turned out, as I say, no such agreement was arrived at with the exception of an agreement with regard to Laos.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Secretary, he would not go over there and just talk in general terms. He would have something specific in mind. Certainly the State Department would prepare him better than that.

Mr. BALL. He had many specific areas in mind that he wanted to probe and explore.

Senator THURMOND. Are you prepared to tell us what they were? Mr. BALL. I think it would be extremely unwise for me to try to tell this committee in an open session of the conversation which the head of the U.S. Government had with the head of the Soviet Union. Senator THURMOND. So you prefer to answer that in executive session?

Mr. BALL. Yes.

Senator THURMOND. All right, sir.

RESUMPTION OF DISCUSSION ON "ALL-OR-NOTHING APPROACH”

EXPLANATION

Now, I am reassured by your previous testimony before this committee that all the people in the State Department who participated in the review of speeches were "professionals immersed in the mainstream of policy."

I believe those were your

words.

And also that they are familiar with high Soviet and Communist pronouncements.

One of the high Soviet officials, Mr. M. Suslov, who is often characterized as the ideological brains of the Soviets and who is Secretary and member of the Presidium of the Central Committee, frequently refers to the differences between the Communist and the free world as "an irreconcilable conflict of systems."

Would this description, an "irreconcilable conflict of systems," fall within what the State Department characterizes as an "all-or-nothing approach"?

Mr. BALL. Yes.

Let me say that you can have an irreconcilable conflict of systems and you can still have accommodation of mutual interests in limited areas of the world. A great deal of the thrust of U.S. foreign policy, not merely under this administration but under the last, has been to keep constantly probing to see what the possibilities were of relieving tensions in local situations by trying to find solutions to local problems.

I think any responsible administration would do this.

Senator THURMOND. Since the so-called "all-or-nothing approach" recurs and must, therefore, be deleted so often, I assume that you are thoroughly familiar with it.

I am just wondering if you would care to describe or define the idea or the concept any further or to make it any clearer?

Mr. BALL. It is not a concept. It is a phrase which has been used with respect to two or three specific, recommended deletions or changes here, and it has meaning only with respect to those two or three different deletions or changes.

As I say, in reference to Carthage, it means one thing; in reference to something else, it means another.

Senator THURMOND. Well, from reading the material deleted from speeches by the State Department on the ground that it constituted an "all-or-nothing approach," I cannot escape the conclusion that what the State Department objects to is the assertion that ultimately either

communism or freedom must prevail throughout the world, for the two cannot exist side by side indefinitely.

Is this what the State Department calls the "all-or-nothing approach?"

Mr. BALL. I would say, Senator Thurmond, that the question as to how long communism may persist in its present form is one which history will have to answer. What we are concerned with in the State Department and in the United States Government is to make sure that the vital interests of Americans are protected.

I think to look down the long course of history and try to decide exactly how things are going to evolve is very dangerous. Of course, I would state unequivocally, that we believe in the ultimate triumph of the ideas of liberty and freedom.

How those will trimuph, exactly what events will take place, or how it will work out, I think, is difficult to say. The Soviet Union itself is undergoing many changes. The Communist bloc is undergoing many changes. We are at a time of very great change, and I think to be too categorical about these things and oversimplify them does not do us or anybody else any good.

COMPARISON BETWEEN STATE EXPLANATIONS: "EITHER/OR CONCEPT" AND "ALL-OR-NOTHING APPROACH"

Senator THURMOND. In one of the speeches there is a deleted passage which the State Department in its written reply to the committee labeled the "all-or-nothing approach" on which the censor or someone in the State Department commented in the margin of the speech at the time the deletion was made.

In this contemporaneous comment the State Department censor characterized the deleted portion as an "either/or concept."

By that I assume the censor meant that the speaker was stating to his audience that there were only two alternatives for the world, either the freedom way or the Communist way. Since the censor referred, then, to this passage as the "either/or concept" and you now refer to the same passage as the "all-or-nothing approach," can we assume that they are the same thing and that the State Department is really speaking with one voice but merely using different but synonomous terminology?

Mr. BALL. What is the passage, Senator Thurmond, that that refers to?

Senator THURMOND. No. 63, I believe.

Mr. BALL. Which period is that in? Is that the passage with reference to Carthage?

Senator THURMOND. What period are you referring to?

Mr. BALL. You mentioned Speech 63, I believe, Senator Thurmond, and the "all-or-nothing posture" that was indicated there was with reference to the statement in the speech prepared for General Trudeau concerning_Carthage.

Senator THURMOND. What category are you speaking of?

Mr. BALL. It is in the miscellaneous category. I understood you to suggest that this was the speech where the "either/or" language appeared in the margin.

Senator THURMOND. That is right.

Mr. BALL. And had apparently been translated by the reviewer here as "all or nothing." The passage to which it refers is the passage with respect to Carthage, as I understand it.

Senator THURMOND. That is right.

Mr. BALL. And that our feeling is that we are not

Senator THURMOND. The question I want to ask you now is this: Since the censor referred then to this passage as the "either/or concept," and you now refer to the same passage as the "all-or-nothing approach," can we assume that they are the same thing and that the State Department is really speaking with one voice but merely using different but synonomous terminology?

Mr. BALL. Well, in this case they refer to the same thing. They refer to the implication of this as the destruction of the Communist countries in the same way that Carthage was destroyed.

Senator THURMOND. In other words, it is merely using similar or synonymous terminology. Is that what you mean to say?

Mr. BALL. Yes, I think in this case these two phrases mean the same thing. I would not say they mean the same thing in every case. Senator THURMOND. As a matter of fact, would you not agree that the original censor's characterization of such passage as the expression of an "either/or concept" is really more accurately descriptive than the State Department's subsequent terminology of the "all-ornothing approach"?

Mr. BALL. I think in this particular case they mean the same thing. General Trudeau would have spoken about Carthage and then he would have indicated that either we pursue the policies which Rome pursued at Carthage or we go down to ignominy of defeat, and he said this was the choice.

Well, I do not think very many Americans conceive the choice to be between destroying the Soviet Union in the manner in which Carthage was destroyed or going down to defeat, particularly in a nuclear age, where weapon destruction on one side is going to mean

destruction of the other also.

Senator THURMOND. I think there can be no question but that the censor's original characterization of such a passage as an "either/or concept" is more descriptive. Here is how one of such deleted passages reads:

On the outcome of the conflict depends the nature of the future world order. Ultimately, either totalitarian communism will prevail or the freedom familiar to the societies of the West will expand.

I find that falls strictly in the "either/or concept" classification. In reexamining it, I frankly do not see any "all-or-nothing approach" about it. That description just does not fit.

Do you see how you could get all or nothing out of this type passage?

Mr. BALL. That is not the passage, as I understand it, to which this is addressed.

The passage to which this is addressed relates to, first, the language with regard to Carthage, and then the language stating "The outcome will determine

Senator THURMOND. That is correct, that is another passage. They are not in chronological order, and we will have to run through. You might have your aids running through while mine is doing that, too. Maybe we can come back to that.

80752-62-pt. 6 -17