ESCALATION, AMERICAN OPTIONS, AND PRESIDENT NIXON'S WAR MOVES - PART II

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CIA-RDP80-01601R000300350058-1
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3
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December 9, 2016
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November 13, 2000
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58
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May 11, 1972
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STATI NTL STATI NTL A SECOND LOOK AT THE AUSTRIAN SITUATION HON. FRANK J. BRASCO OF NEW YORK IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, May 11, 1972 Mr. BRASCO. Mr. Speaker, very re- cently a group of young American Jews were involved in an altercation at the Austrian Embassy in Washington. It seems there was sonic physical contact 'involv'ing the Austrian Ambassador to the United States. In the process, a swastika flag was hung from the front of the embassy inI question. A message was attached to the flag, asking Ameri- cans to refrain from visiting "Nazi Aus- tria.". I certainly deplore the violation of the grounds of the Austrian Embassy. And I hold no brief for those who would lay hands upon any ambassador of a sover- eign state with.. which the United States maintains correct relations. But this in- cident deserves a little more research, particularly into reasons for such an outburst by young people who are law- breakers in a very different sense of the word than is ordinarily understood by our general public. Austria is the spiritual home of nazism. Hitler was a native of Linz, Aus- tria. Adolph Eichmann was also a citi- zen of that country. Austria's very name in the old European lexicon was "Oester., reich," which really means an eastern extension of the "Reich." The Nazi movement was exceptionally strong from the start in this nation. When. "Anschluss" arrived with Ger- many, cheering mobs of Hitler's sym- pathizers lined her roads to welcome his armies ,first, and himself later. Antisemitism has deep roots in the Austrian consciousness, even, as some inight say, in the soul of this small na- tion. Large numbers of native Austrians not only fought for and served Hitler ardently unto death, but also were in- volved in many stupefying crimes of the Nazi regime. Hundreds of thousands of Austrians had more than a nodding acquaintance with the eastern portions of Europe which fell swiftly under Nazi domination at the start of the Second World War. These ivere sin-led out, although thou- sands voluhteercd cheerily, to administer conquered territories, all of which coIl- tained large numbers of Jews. Austria was a Nazi nation to its last corpuscle, participating in a thousand ways in what the Hitler regime planned and carried forth across the face of Eu- rope. Many of those tried and executed or imprisoned as a result of the Nurem- berg trials were Austrian nationals. As Nazi hordes spilled over and took control of Eastern Europe, an adminis- trative Infrastructure -was created every- where across these conquered territories. Gauleiters, or area governors, were set up, with a complete power, structure be- neath them, charged with exploitation of lands and extermination of undesirables. They were in charge of enforcing laws, producing slave labor in massive quanti- ties and running a variety of activities. Among these were extermination camps, where upward of 6 million innocent Jewys were murdered methodically, and toward the close of the war, on an as- sembly-line basis. Many of the people who staffed scores of death camps were Austrians. Many of those who dealt with the daily administration of mass murder were Austrians. - Hundreds and hundreds of death trains weekly crisscrossed Europe. Many car- ried Jews to their doom. Others carried loot from across Europe to feed and clothe Nazi Germany and Austria. Tens of millions of non-Jewish Euro- peans were exploited and murdered by this administrative infrastructure, which cooperated fully on a daily basis with the German Army, Gestapo, and SS. Einsatzgruppen roamed areas behind frontlines, their sole purpose to round up and exterminate Jews, gypsies, and other so-called "undesirables." Many assassins in ? their ranks were Austrians. In fact, sonic of the most unspeakable crimes committed on a daily basis in the Second World War upon noncombatants were committed by Austrians. After the war, an international outcry sought and obtained trial of the worst of these war criminals. Many trials were hold across Europe for years, as these men and women were sought out,. se- cured, brought to the bar, and con- demned to death or long prison terms. One nation was an exception to this rule of law: Austria. Her population harbored a massive ratio of niefnbers of the Nazi Party. Tens. of thousands of war criminals found their way back to Austria, quietly melt- ing back into the mass of the population, secure in the knowledge that few neigh- bors, if any, would betray them to authorities. Their confidence was well placed, for most such neighbors were in fact sympathizers, if not actual partici- pants in the worst of these deeds. The same was true of the police authorities. The man who arrested Anne Frank and sent her to Belseni was recently discov- ered as an Austrian policeman. Over the years a few stout hearts who have never forgotten clamored for Aus- tria to bring some of these butchers to trial. I speak of concentration camp com- mandants, camp guards, and the like. Some were openly living under their own ,names, even though they were widely known to be guilty of unspeakable crimes. ' At last, in the past year, a few token trials were put on by Austrian authori- ties. And the entire Western World looked on in disbelief and shock at the result. At Auschwitz, 3 million Jews were ex- terminated on an orderly assembly-line basis. Some men who designed and built these extermination facilities were brought to trial and found innocent of any criminal activity. Austria did not blanch at that. She put on a second trial. The defendant was typ- ical of a certain class of Nazi war crim- inal, of which there are thousands alive and well. today in Austria. This beast was a former Nazi SS officer in the Mau- thausen Concentration Camp, a mass murder facility. His name is Johann Goal, and he acknowledged in open court that in 1944 he commanded a. section at this camp called the "Stairway of Death." According to witness testimony, pris- oners were forced to drag 110-pound stones lip 186 steep steps of a stone quarry. Those who did not perish on the steps were thrown into an electric fence when they reached the top. Gogl's name, according to testimony, was on the death orders. Gogi, like the rest of his kind, said he did not knpw what was being done; that his name was forged. His attorneys pro- duced a petition signed by 268 persons, virtually the entire adult population of his home village of Ottnang, declaring he could not be guilty because he dedicated his life to saving life, a reference to his membership In a mountain rescue unit. How touching. This, then, is what Austria conceals beneath her smiling facade of mountains, skiing, snow an'_ "gemtitlichkeit," Come to happy Austria and vacations with all the jolly old butchers of noncombatants. For they are everywhere in that accursed nation, and the entire world knows it. Austria sees fit to infuriate civilization by staging nonsense trials of the scum of the earth, and then acquits them. We all know the real story., None of these people. will ever be punished for their unspeakable deeds. After all, who were those they murdered? Who cares? And it was so long- ago, wasn't it? Where are the great voices of consci- ence who plead for even-hatncledness in the Middle East? I hear them not. I see them not. I say, let Austria claim her own and hug them to her national bosom. She de- serves them. And they deserve her. These young demonstrators who perpetrated the action against the Austrian Embassy did not do a nice thing. They did not do a legal thing. But they certainly did an understandable one. ESCALATION, AMERICAN OPTIONS, AND PRESIDENT NIXON'S WAR MOVES-PART II HON. RONALD V. BELLUMS OF CALIFORNIA IN THE HOUSE OF EEPRESENTATIVFS Thursday; May 11, 1972 Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Speaker, follow- ing is the continuation of study materials on American involvement in Indochina which were first put into the RECORD on May 10, 1972, and which the Government Printing Office did not have room to print fully. The rest of the materials follow: Approved .For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80-016018000300350058-1 STATIN,TL ,pprgred Fctrd0htmiMAL03Wd May 1A sionable and the less-gifted even more so. It is therefore imperative that this particular group have teachers with great -expertise, patience, and warm, reassuring personalities. Mrs. Degason exemplifies these qualities to the finest degree. Her city, State, and the children she has helped all owe her a great debt of gratitude. HON. CARL ALBERT If the goal of better llealtli for all Americans Is to be achieved in our day, or in our children's day, then the Con- gress will have to show more concern for Federal health programs In the coming fiscal year than the Nixon administration has shown. It is a duty that cannot be ignored by the Members'of the House. It is our responsibility to the health and well-being of our people. PLEA .1 OR NATIONAL REPENTANCE HON. BELLA S. ABZUG OF OKLAIIO.MA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Wednesday, May 10, 1972 Mr. ALBERT. Mr. Speaker, the people of the United States surely rank their personal health of utmost importance among their many needs. This, is true in every corner of the country, from our smallest rural coniniu- nities to our largest industrial cities. It is true of rich Americans as well as poor Americans. It is true among all ages of our people. It is even true of Democrats and Republicans alike. 'I;ogetlher, we beets to achieve the goal of better health throughout the lives of all the people of this Nation. Is there a national health crisis? There is indeed. , What do we need to do about it? We need to work toward preventive health care for all 'Americans. We need to train young men and women in the many health professions-and we need to train them now, before the already serious shortages iii health personnel be- come critical.-We need'to advance the knowledge of medicine through research that is simultaneously broad and specific. We need to make more health services available to more people. We need to re- duce the high costs of curing illness. We need to give extra support to those health-care institutions and training fa- -eilities that are in financial distress. On the part of the Federal Govern- ment, these needs can be met only through the authorized programs of the Department of. Health, Education, and Welfare. Yet with its proposed budget for fiscal .year 1973, the Nixon administra- tion would let all too many of these needs go unmet. President Nixon may have acknowl- edged a national health crisis in his pub- lic speeches, but he has not taken it into full account in his budget recommenda- tions. There is too little evidence in this budget that the President ranks concern for health as highly as the general public does. in the proposed 1973 budget, health manpower programs are severely cur- tailed. Grants for building or moderniz- ing hospitals, community clinics, and health schools are all but eliminated. Worthy programs to combat mental ill- ness and alcoholism are not allowed to grow. Important health services, de- signed to deliver adequate care to all Americans, are held in place or actually reduced, considering increased operat- ing costs and Federal pay raises. Most of the research institutes are given In- creases that amount to only half the an- nual inflation rate for health research. OF NEW YORIC IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, May 11, 1972 Mrs. ABZUG. Mr. Speaker, this morn- ing, I was privileged to receive a most elo- quent "Plea for National Repentance" over the inhuman terror we have wrought in Southeast Asia, This statement is being circulated in petition form and will be presented to Congress at a later (late. I include the item in the RECORD at the conclusion of these remarks, I am also including "War is Peace," a paper on the President's latest escalation by Fred Branfnian. Mr. Branfinan, who is director of Project Air War, is one of the foremost experts on our. air tactic's and weaponry in Indochina, and I coin- mend his paper to you. The articles follow: A PLEA rOR NATIONAL' REPENTANCE AND A PETITION TO THE CONGRESS OF TILE UNITED STATES Whereas, millions of Vietnamese, Cam- bodians and Laotians have been maimed and uprooted from their holies and more Ulan one-half inil'ion killed; Whereas, more than 50.000 Americans have been killed in Indo-China and 300,000 have suffered casualties; Whereas, the lands alid cities of Vietnam, .Cambodia, and Laos have been devastated by napalm, defoliants, bombs and all the vast arsenal of the automated air war; Whereas, the lives of United States prison- ers held by the North Vietnamese are now threatened by the further escalation of the tear; Whereas, the War waged by the United States in Inclo-China wastes our human and material resources and weakens our security rather than insuring it; Whereas, the United States armed forces continue to impose upon the people of Viet- nam the Thiess government dictatorship, thus depriving the Vietnamese people the in- alienable right of freedom; Whereas, the peace of the whole world is threatened by the recent escalation of the war by the United States, including the mining of Vietnam harbors, thus risking the beginning of World War III; We, the undersigned citizens of the United States repent of our own complicity in this sin against the Providence of God and this crime against humanity; and we call for a national time of mourning and repentance, We petition the Congress of the United States to take its proper responsibility for ending participation by the United States in the war in Indo-China by cutting off funds used for the prosecution of the war, that sanity and justice may be restored in the foreign relations of the United States gov- ernment. rently direcV, 6f Project Air War, a research group in Washington, D.C. He is editor of Voices From The Plain o1 Jars, to be pub- lished this month by Harper and Row.) "All entrances to the North Vietnamese ports will be mined . United States forces have been directed to take appropriate pleasures within the internal and claimed territorial waters of North Vietnam to in- terdict the delivery of any supplies. Rail and all other cO111I11UIlicatiOllS will be cut off to the maximum extent possible. Air and naval strikes against military targets in North Vietnam will continue . . . You want peace. I want peace . . . and that is why, my fel- low Americans, tonight I ask you for your support of this decision-a decision which has only one purpose-not to expand the war, not to escalate the war, but to end this. war and to win the kind of peace that will last, With God's help, with your support, we will accomplish that great goal."-Richard Nixon, May 8, 1972. George Orwell predicted that the leaders of major powers would come to wage war by machine and call it peace; that they would annihilate distant and unseen societies from the air even as they constantly reiterated their earnest desires for peace at home. On May 8,'1072, Richard Nixon announced the most serious and dramatic set of esca- lations in the Indochina war, removing the last remaining restraints on automated war observed by his predecessor; at the sane time, he used the terms "peace" or "ending the war" on 19 separate occasions in a 17- minute talk. He didn't quite claim that "-war is peace." But then he did not have to. His speech was one of the most striking attempts to rewrite. history in recent mem- ory. Virtually every sentence in It contra- dicted the written record, ranging from the writings of Lacouturc and Fall, to the Pell- tagon and Kissinger papers, to today's news- papers, Two tons of bombs were exploding every 60 seconds as lie solemnly declared "I, too, want to end this war;" mines were being laid in and around Soviet vessels as he called upon the Soviet Union not to "slide back into the dark shadows of a previous age." It is as much in wonderment as dismay that one turns to an analysis of some of the more striking.distortions and outright false- hoods of this remarkable speech: 1. INVASION--FIVE tVEEKS AGO, ON EASTER WEEKEND, THE COMMUNIST ARMIES OF NORTII VIETNAIII LAUNCHED A MASSIVE INVASION OF SOUTH VIETNAM" The very basis of the 1954 Geneva Settle ment on Vietnam is that Viet Nam is one. country. 'rhere is no reference to a "South Vietnam." The 17th parallel, far from being an "international border" as the President claimed in his April 26 speech, was merely a temporary military demarcation line. Point 8 of the Joint Declaration by the 9 powers guaranteeing the settlement specifically states that: "the military demarcation line is provisional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary." This 'line was only in force for 300 days following July 21, 1954, and was meant merely to mark time until r, 1956 election which would unite Viet Nam. When the Diem regime did not allow this election, the 17th parallel lost any legal, political, or moral meaning. The cancellation of the elections threw the Issue of who would rule in Viet Nam back to the Vietnamese theniseives. 2. ORIGINS-"WE AMERICANS DID NOT CHOOSE TO RESORT TO WAR-IT HAS BEEN FORCED UPON us" In fact, the United States did indeed uni- laterally choose this war two decades ago, WAR IS PEACE when the Truman Administration decided to pay 3/4 of the costs of the war for the (By ? Fred Branfnian) French between 1950 and 1954. And the (NOTE.-Mr. Branfnian spent 4 years in Geneva Accords were barely signed when 11.1 Laos, from 1967 through 1971. He is cur- August 1954, while Mr. Nixon was vice- Approved For Release 2001./03/04: CIA-RDP80-01601 R000300350058.-1 DALLAS, TEX, NEWS Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA- OFMf11601 R00 242,928 284,097 MAY 11197`x? r7 Q By ROBERT E. BASISIN A number of persons were There is no evidence that. Washington Bureau called in for a last minute re-- Connally had a pre-eminent view of his speech, which in the final delibera- House White was made at 9 p.m., Wash- place House denied Wednesday re- ington time. I tions. A decision of the kind ports that the advice of two . Nixon spent approximately Nixon announced Monday men . influenced President 20 minutes with Connally, night involves too many ele- 'Nixon finally on his decision talking in a philosophical ments of the government, all to mine North Vietnamese manner about the decision, of which must be taken into ports and otherwise interdict which had already been traffic into the Communist niade and 'was not subject to account. --ilu it must be recog. change at that point. Connal "I think it would be a mis- ly's advice on the long-range take," press secretary Ron- economic effects of the ac- aid Ziegler said,. "to assume tion was sought. that Connally and Kissinger Nixon had asked Connally were the only ones with to attend the meeting of the whom the President consult- National Security Council, of ed." which. Connally is not a The New York Times and member, because he was ? CBS implied that Nixon's de- aware of the domestic and cislon was reached only after political connotations of the he had ,talked with Treasury action that he contemplated: Secretary John B. Connally The former Texas governor, and' his national security ad- whose role in foreign finan- vi~e'r, Dr. Henry Kissinger. cial affairs is significant, A New York Times dis- was considered an appropri- patch spoke of "final, sober ate official to be included in private talks with the two the NSC's discussion, men who were closest to him There were ?? others who during his deliberations." conferred with Nixon Mon- The facts of the situation day afternoon, but none of are somewhat different, ac- them influenced a decision cording to White House that had already been made ized, has been in favor of strong military action in Vietnam ever since the Unit- ed States involvement start- ed there. He supported Pres- dent Johnson in all of his ac- tions in Vietnam. Undoubted- ly, if called upon for advice, he would have advised Nixon to take just theaction he-did on the mining of the North- Vietnamese harbor. But administration sourdeg make it clear that Connally- was' not the man who madg;, the decision. It was the Pres? ident of the United States.-, sources. and could only be made by, Nixon apparently made his the President. decision within the last week, The 'President consulted but he wished to consult as with Kissinger, of course, at many people as possible be- some length because he had- fore announcing it. been to Moscow and Paris Monday morning he called recently. But he also con- `the National Security Council ferred with Secretary of into session. There was a State William P. Rogers, who ,general discussion of Viet- had been summoned home namese policy, -and Nixon from Europe, Defense-Secre- outlined his plans. tary Meluiaird, CIA direc- Later he Richard Helms an&mem- wettt to the execs- bers of-thejoint chiefs of live e office building, across staff. the, street from the White Nixon had deliberated over House, where he has a se- his action for about a week. eluded office. His final decision was made during last weekend while he was at Camp David. I Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80-01601 R000300350058-1