AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT IN THE PHILIPPINES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP71B00364R000200030004-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 5, 2005
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: December 1, 1969
• Content Type: OPEN

Approved For Release 2005/01/27 : CIA-RDP71B00364R000200030004-9
Senate
The Senate met at 10 o'clock a.m. and
was called to order by the Acting Presi-
dent pro tempore (Mr. METCALF).
The Chaplain, the Reverend Edward
L. R. Elson, D.D., offered the following
prayer:
"Not alone for mighty empire, stretching
far o'er land and sea;
Not alone for bounteous harvests, lift
we up our hearts to Thee.
Standing in the living present, memory
and hope between,
Lord, we would with deep thanksgiving,
praise Thee most for things un-
seen."
-WILLIAM P. MERRILL.
As we praise Thee, Lord, for things
unseen, we ask Thy presence with us in
the daily duties which are seen. Make us
apt and able for this day. When we are
weak, make us strong. When we have
fear, give us courage. When we are lone-
ly, be our companion. And enable us so
to work and live that we may be used by
Thee for the making of a better Nation
and the establishment of Thy kingdom
among all men. Amen.
THE JOURNAL
Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, I ask
unanimous consent that the reading of
the Journal of the proceedings of
Wednesday, November 26, 1969, be dis-
pensed with.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-
pore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
MESSAGES FROM THE PRESIDENT
Messages in writing from the President
of the United States submitting nomina-
tions were communicated to the Senate
by Mr. Leonard, one of his secretaries.
EXECUTIVE MESSAGES REFERRED
As in executive session, the Acting
President pro tempore laid before the
Senate messages from the President of
the United States submitting sundry
nominations, which were referred to the
appropriate committees.
,For nominations this day received,
see the end of Senate proceedings.)
LIMITATION ON STATEMENTS
DURING TRANSACTION OF ROU-
TINE MORNING BUSINESS
M;?. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, I ask
unanimous consent that statements in
relation to the transaction of routine
nierning business be limited to 3 minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-
l.ore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1969
WAIVER OF CALL OF THE
CALENDAR
Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, I ask
unanimous consent that the call of the
legislative calendar, under rule VIII, be
dispensed with.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-
pore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
COMMITTEE MEETINGS DURING
SENATE SESSION
Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, I ask
unanimous consent that all committees
be authorized to meet during the session
of the Senate today.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-
pore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT IN THE
PHILIPPINES
Mr. FULBRIGHT. Mr. President, Sen-
ator SYMINGTON's subcommittee recently
completed a series o earings concern-
ing American involvement in the Phil-
ippines. Although substantial portions of
those hearings were deleted by the De-
partment of Defense for security pur-
poses, there still is a tremendous amount
of new information now being made pub-
lic for the first time.
Ward Just, of the Washington Post, did
a brief summary of some of the more in-
teresting parts of the subcommittee hear-
ings, and it was published in the Wash-
ington Post of Sunday, November 30.
I hope my colleagues will read this
article and that it will encourage other
members of the press to take a more
careful look at the published hearings
of the Symington subcommittee.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous con-
sent that the Ward Just article be printed
at this point in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article
was ordered to be printed in the RECORD,
as follows:
OUR AFFAIR WITH THE PHILIPPINES
(By Ward Just)
In the fall of 1966, to a certain amount of
fanfare in the United States, the Philippines
sent a detachment of 2,200 men to South
Vietnam to fight the war. The unit was
known as PHILCAG-Philippines Civic Ac-
tion Group-and was cited by the Johnson
administration as yet another example of
the support the American position had from
"the free world" on the rim of Asia. At the
time, President Johnson expressed his "deep
satisfaction" and that of the American
people at the evidence of Filipino support.
President Ferdinand Marcos, addressing a
Joint Session of Congress in Washington,
proposed an American defensive shield for
non-Communist Asia. He told the Congress:
"Our object must be to hold the line in Viet-
nam and at least to roll back Communist
power behind the 17th parallel."
To anyone who looked closely at it (and
there were a few who did). the Marcos posi-
tion seemed a speck contradictory. If he felt
so strongly about rolling back Communist
power, why was he committing only 2,200
troops to South Vietnam, and noncombatants
at that? Why were Americans not using
Clark Air Base to fly bombing missions
against South Vietnam?
Well, now we have some of the answers
from Senator Symington's Subcommittee on
United States Security Agreements and Com-
mitments Abroad, whose report on the Phil-
ippines was made public last week (reports
on Thailand, Taiwan, and Laos will follow),
It is an extraordinary document, mined with
wonderful ironies and absurdities all of
which combine to throw the United States
into a lover's embrace with a country whose
people probably don't want us around at all,
and a government whose principal preoccu-
pation is cash. And PHILCAG? The short
answer is that the Johnson administration
bought it lock, stock and barrel for payments
totaling about $38 million. But that is only
the tip of the iceberg.
The testimony shows that the U.S. bound
to the Phillipines in a cat's cradle of alli-
ance. Some of this is based on the SEATO
treaty, some of it bilateral, related to (1) the
maintenance of our own bases and (2) the
supposed threat from China or the Soviet
Union; other parts are based on the internal
problems caused by the half-Communist.
half-gangster apparatus of the Huks; still
others appear to be obligations relating to
PHILCAG. It is extremely difficult to sort
out which threat relates to which commit-
ment, and vice versa. Is the air base at Mac-
tan (maintained at $4 million a year, it has
six sorties a day by U.S. aircraft, but is used
by Philippine commercial airlines) kept as
an auxiliary in case of Communist attack, as
a payoff for Clark and Subic Bay, as a quid
pro quo for PHILCAG, or merely because it
is there? Similarly, the Huks. There was this
exchange between Senator Symington and
Lt. Gen. Robert H. Warren, Deputy Assist-
ant Secretary of Defense for military assist-
ance and sales:
Warren: (The U.S. aid) is also to help
the Filipino forces to physically protect
American forces (in the Philippines).
Symington: From whom?
Warren: Internally, sir; to maintain inter-
nal security and stability and, thereby, make
our own activities over there more secure
Symington: In other words we are paying
the Philippine government to protect us
from the Philippine people who do not agree
with the policies of the government or who
do not like Americans?
Warren: To a degree, yes, sir.
That U.S. aid included payment for
battalion of Philippine troops whose casual
ties in pursuit of the dreaded Huks have
been less than a dozen, and many of those in
nonwar-related activities.
The Americans had supplied the Marcos
government with a squadron of 22 F-5
fighter aircraft (cost: $15 million), and the
rationale for that was that the Philippines
would then be able to defend itself against
attack. There was this exchange between
Symington and Lt. Gen. Francis G. Gideon.
commander of the American 13th Air Force
at Clark Air Base:
Symington: . Who would attack the
Philippines from the air?
Gideon: The current principal threats are
the Chicom air force and the U.S.S.R.
Approved For Release 2005/01/27 : CIA-RDP71B00364R000200030004-9
 S 15142
Approved For Release 2005/01/27 : CIA-RDP71B00364R000200030004-9
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE December 1, 1969
Symington: Where would the Soviet
planes come from . ?
Gideon: Well, there are five or six
bases . .
Symington: What type plane would they
use? They would have to use Bears or Bisons
(two types of Soviet long-range aircraft).
Gideon: Yes, sir.
Symington: That is a pretty theoretical
danger. That plane is comparable to the old
B-36. I imagine that danger scares you all
pretty bad. What would you do as they went
by places like Okinawa? Wave at them?
What emerges from this hearing is that
the United States is paying the Philippines
for the privilege of defending it against
attack. Apart from the $38 million for PHIL-
CAG, there is $22.5 million a year for mili-
tary assistance, and beyond that the very
considerable boost to the Philippine economy
from the American bases-air force bases at
Clark, Mactan, and John Hay, and naval
bases at Subic, Sangley and San Miguel,
among others. In all, there are 20 American
military stations in the Philippines, which
pump an estimated $150 million a year into
the economy. This is what has resulted from
a treaty in 1947 which said that the two
countries would act to meet outside threats
"in accordance with its constitutional proc-
esses." By 1964, the language had escalated
to a point where an attack on the Philip-
pines would be considered by the United
States as an attack upon itself and, as such,
"instantly repelled." The bases grew along
with the language, each keeping pace with
the other and none of it reviewed by the
Congress-which should have.
That would seem to be the point of PHIL-
CAG. As Senator Fulbright put it: "My own
feeling is that all we did was go out and hire
the soldiers in order to support our then-
administration's view that so many people
were in sympathy with our war in Vietnam,
and we paid a very high price for it." What
is not generally understood about the Sy-
mington hearings is that an extraordinary
amount of spadework has been needed to
pry out what facts there are about our com-
mitment to the Philippines. As it is, there
are about two dozen blank pages in the re-
port with only the word [deleted] to indicate
what they contain. In fact, they are investi-
gative summaries of theft, assault, murder
and homicide around the American bases.
The Philippine commitment acquired a
momentum of its own, of it depth and vari-
ety out of all proportion to the need-as the
military witnesses before the committee can-
didly conceded. State Department officials
with a stake in past policy, military officials
with their hardware to deploy-all of them
collaborated in the lover's embrace which
costs the taxpayer upwards of-what?-$30
million a year, $50 million?
And what of PHILCAG?
An American official with wide experi-
ence in South Vietnam was queried on the
matter the other day, and replied, "Oh
yes, PHILCAG. They operated in Tay Ninh
Province. They, ah, built one Potemkin vil-
lage, which was largely to impress VIPs.
They were very active in the PX. I think
they built some roads . . .
The official might have added that in
three years, the unit lost 8 killed and 17
wounded in an area considered hostile. Only
recently, apparently anticipating the Syming-
ion Committee report, President Marcos an-
nnounced that the unit was being withdrawn.
He also said that there were no American
payments for the maintenance of the unit in
South Vietnam. Someone ought to look into
that Where did the $38 million go?
THE SONG MY INCIDENT
Mr. FULBRIGHT. Mr. President, Miss
Mary McGrory, one of the best commen-
tators in Washington, has written two
perceptive and sensitive articles about
the massacres of Song My.
One article is entitled "Silence Greets
Viet Massacres." The silence is, I believe,
temporary, and is due to the revulsion,
the horror, with which most Americans
regard this ominous reversion to primi-
tive savagery.
I am confident that the vast majority
of our people are revolted by this occur-
rence and will use their influence to bring
this tragic conflict to an early termina-
tion.
I ask unanimous consent to have the
articles printed at this point in the
RECORD.
There being no objection, the articles
were ordered to be printed in the REC-
ORD, as follows:
SILENCE GREETS VIET MASSACRES
The reaction to reports of mass murder in
a Vietnam village by American GIs has been
outrage in London, silence in Washington
and dismissal in Saigon.
In Britain, the alleged atrocities have
created a government crisis and Harold Wil-
son summoned Ambassador John Freeman
home to help him avert a debate on U.S.
Vietnam policy in the House of Commons.
The Army announced that Lt. William J.
Calley Jr. will face court-martial on charges
of killing "109 Oriental human beings, oc-
cupants of the village of My Lai." The
South Vietnamese government repeated its
contention that "no massacre occurred."
The President gave out three Medals of
Honor, and chatted with the returned astro-
nauts. The Senate debated the tax bill and
the House of Representatives talked about
a subway system for the District of Co-
lumbia.
Two requests have been made for investi-
gations by military committees of Congress.
The public, busy writing letters in support of
Vice President Agnew's attack on the press,
has not been heard from.
The grisly story is being told in bits and
pieces, as GIs around the country stand up
to tell what they know about an event that
was kept secret by the Army for 20 months.
Last night, a former GI named Paul
Meadlo told a CBS audience that he had
shot "about 15 or 20 villagers-and babies"
under specific orders from Lt. Callev. He felt
it was the right thing at the time because
he had lost "a damned good buddy, Bobby
Wilson," but later felt, after he had stepped
on a land mine that God had punished him.
It has been on his conscience.
The country's conscience, so far, has not
been touched, by these and other recitals.
The indignation is all imported. It could be
a case of "all passion spent." The last weeks
have brought the President's speech, the
peace demonstrations, the hardening of atti-
tudes. Is the public resigned, callous or in-
different, to an incident that has been com-
pared in the European press to the Nazi
savagery at Lidice? Is it an inability or a
refusal to believe that American GIs would
kill women and children in cold blood?
Even the bare charges against Lt. Carley
do some damage to the President's conten-
tion that our continued presence is im-
perative to avert a "bloodbath." Already the
Sept. 26 boast that "we have reversed world
public opinion" is eroded.
The Pentagon has withheld comment "to
avoid preudicing the lieutenant's case. But
it withheld publication of the incident
since March 1968. Its first investigation led
to the current Saigon conclusion that it was
artillery Ere. Its second was precipitated by
the personal inquiry of Richard Ridenhour,
a Vietnam veteran now studying at Cali-
fornia's Claremont College. Neither a par-
ticipant nor a witness, Ridenhour inter-
viewed other GIs who knew about "Pink-
ville" and reported his findings in letters to
high government officials, including Defense
Secretary Melvin R. Laird.
The story was broken by Seymour M.
Hersh, a 32-year-old Washington free-lance
writer, who was brought up in Chicago's
"Front Page" school of newspapering. Hersh,
a fast-talking, fast-moving former Pentagon
reporter with the Associated Press, was
briefly Sen. Eugene McCarthy's campaign
press secretary, and is the author of a book
about chemical and biological warfare.
Hersh is against the war, but resents a
London newspaper's designation of him as a
"left-wing nut." He first heard of "Pinkville"
through the tip of an old friend in the
Pentagon who told him early in October
merely that "the Army has a man in court-
martial at Fort Benning, and they have ac-
cused him of killing 75 Vietnamese civilians."
Hersh was "horrified," dropped work on
a book about the Pentagon, "The Ultimate
Corporation," and started out on the trail.
He got the name of George W. Latimer,
Calley's counsel, flew to Salt Lake City to
talk to him.
He got no specifics from Latimer, only
"a sense of the dimensions of the story."
He applied for and got a $1,000 grant from
the Philip M. Stern Foundation for inves-
tigative journalism and started flying around
the country to find sources.
He went to Fort Benning and truged
around for two days before he found Lt.
Calley, who in a lengthy talk told him,
"I'm for the Army." He wrote his first ac-
count on Nov. 13. The next day, Ridenhour
called the Los Angeles Times and told them
he had much more information. Riden-
hour had offered his story to Life and News-
week which had turned it down. Hersh
dashed to Los Angeles to talk to Ridenhour,
who gave him the names of the GI's he had
interviewed.
Meantime, Hersh also visited hawks on
military committees on Capitol Hill-
"doves are never told anything." They had
heard of Pinkville and believed it, but ad-
vised him not to write anything because
"it won't do much good for the Army."
Hersh had, from his Pentagon days, no
trouble believing that the "Army could
know about a case like this and was pro-
ceeding to do nothing about it."
"They were shipping nerve gas around like
it was going out of style, running it through
the countryside without telling people, at
night, through cities. I thought it was an
unspeakable act."
Hersh thinks that the country is suffer-
ing a delayed reaction to the horrors now
unfolding, partly due to the official denials.
"But this is so clear," he says, "we're
doing exactly the things we went into the
war to stop."
WHERE OUR CONSCIENCE DIED
Song My has revealed the full devastation
of the war. Song My has told us not only
what Americans have done to Vietnam but
what Vietnam has done to Americans. The
country's conscience, apparently, died in
that Asian village with the old men, the
women and the children.
The reaction to the reports of mass mur-
der by American soldiers has been not horror
at what happened, but rage at the messen-
gers who are bringing the news.
The South Vietnamese government, anx-
ious to save the American presence, says it
never happened. And, until today, the Amer-
ican government, anxious to save the war,
had said nothing.
An administration which fulminated at
length against even the prospect of violence
on Pennsylvania Avenue during the recent
peace march, seemed reluctant to comment
about slaughter in Song My.
Before today, the one expression from an
administration official was given behind
closed doors. Secretary of Defense Melvin R.
Approved For Release 2005/01/27 : CIA-RDP71B00364R000200030004-9
 Approved For Release 2005/01/27 : CIA-RDP71 Q0364R00020003 00
THE EVENING STAR DATE A
Ambassador to Philippines Tries to Head
"ry A. Byroade says that Philip-
,,,pine-American relations are "in
'trouble . . . that can become
serious if nothing is done about
Byroade gave a major policy
"speech here yesterday amid ris-
->ing Ph i l i p p i n e antagonism
against the United States over
-the Symington subcommittee re-
"'port which has been officially
be an effort to end the hostility
and to set an amicable mood for
coming negotiations between
Manila and Washington over
their military and economic
agreements.
"I think we should face up to
the fact that there are some
problems in our relations that
are not superficial and that have
more deep-seated, serious
roots," he said.
"We should bring, our prob-
lems out into the open and look
at them with a clear, objective
light."
He told Filipinos that the re-
port by a U.S. Senate Foreign
Relations
Sen. S
o. n c u e d statements
'
'
wFi'i
~
were unfortunate and
uncomplimentary" . . . they
were made by but two out of 535
members of our Congress.
"As such they do not represent
the views of all members of the
Senate committee, much less the
Senate as a whole the Congress,
or the rest of the U.S. govern-
Presumably, the two members
Byroade referred to were Sym-
ington and to the Foreign Rela-
tions Committee chairman, Sen.
J. William Fulbright, D-Ark.
The Senate report, amopg
other things, said that the
United States had financed the
1,500-man Filipino contingent in
South Vietnam. Fulbright called
this "the ultimate in corrup-
tion."
Byroade tried to soothe ruffled
women, worthy representatives
of the Republic of the Philip-
0 pines, helping a neighbor in its
(hour of need."
Rift Over Sym rngton Report~.
eelings_here over the Symington
reports suggestion that the Fili-
pino force in Vietnam was a
mercenary one.
"Many bitter things have been
said about the arrangements for
the support" of the Filipinos in
Vietnam, Byroade said. "In ev-
ery war in this century that it
has fought, the United States
has shared its resources with its
allies."
He said the word "mercenar-
y" dishonors "not only Philcag
(the Filipino unit) but also th'
whole concept of allies banding
together - sharing together -
in dealing with a situation of
interest and concern to all."
He said, "It seems to me that
irritation over the nature of this
testimony has somehow made
Philcag the symbol of U.S.-
Philippine tension and obscured
the fact that it is a group of
dedicated professional men and
Approved For Release 2005/01/27 : CIA-RDP71B00364R000200030004-9