SENATOR FULBRIGHT - ADVISE AND DISSENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200910026-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 18, 1999
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: February 1, 1966
• Content Type: PREL

DATE:
CBS .&PECCA pp 1 February 1966
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CBS Television
SENATOR FULBRIC}HT
10:0 d F.M.
ADVISE AND DISSENT
ANNOUNCER: As part of its can tinning coverage of the Viet Nam
question, CBS News presents: Fulbright--Advise and Dissent, Senator
J. William Fulbright, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Com-
mittee, and an outspoken critic of the Administration's policy in
Viet Nam, is questioned in this recorded interview by CBS News Cor-
respondents Eric Sevareid and Martin Agronaky. First, Mr, Agronsky.
MARTIN AGRONSIY: Senator, do you feel the policy the President
is following now in Viet Nam now is a wise one?
SENATOR J.. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT: Well, with respect to the refer-
ral to the United Nations, I certainly do; under the circumstances,
I think.this is the best thing he could do. I have already expressed
my reservations about resuming bombing. I think this was too bad.
I wish he'd been more patient about resuming bombing. I don't think
that helps It. But in any case, he's done that, and I don't wish to
quarrel about it. I think we have to accept it. But I do approve
of going to the United Nations. I know there's much skepticism about
its operating, but the circumstances have changed since that was
last discussed, and I'm hopeful, surely, that they will do something
In the United Nations,
ERIC SEVAREID: Senator Fulbright, you've spent a great part
.of.your life studying American foreign policy and the history therbof.
We're now suggesting arbitration of this war4 Has this country ever
agreed before in a war to submit to arbitration by others?
FULBRIGHT: I don't recall it. I must say, I wouldn't want to
pose as the kind of expert your first statement supposes. I've spent
most of my time in public life studying the problems of Arkansas,
and foreign relations are just one of my duties. Nevertheless, I
know of no precedent for that, but I think it's a good.one under
these oiroumstanoesb It's progressed to the point where we've
created this South' Vietnamese government and we're committed to it
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by reiteration of the word commitment -- I find it very difficult
to find any what I call legal commitment: through treaty basis, the
usual kind of commitment that we have in NATO, for example -- I
find it very difficult. The explanation that SEATO is the origin
ofthis leaves me very cold -- I'm very dubious about the validity
of these arguments about our commitments. It's a commitment
largely by reiteration of the word that we're committed -- it's a
self-generating commitment. But there we are. And therefore I
have to modify my feeling to the extent that I'd like to cooperate
in getting out of this. It does me no good really, to say we
shouldn't have been there, I'm trying to explain why there is so
much feeling about this -- it's very unusual under these circum-
stances.
SEVAREID: Senator, do you feel that what President Johnson
has been doing in the last year in Viet Nam is in consistent line
with the so-called commitments of Presidents Eisenhower and
Kennedy?
FULBRIGHT: President Johnson, in all honesty, inherited this
,situation, It had become quite substantial when he came on the
scene, and he was presented with a very difficult situation. There
were as many as I recall it, about 20,000 of our people there in the
.time of the Tonkin incident, but substantial, but nothing like now.
I.regret that the President ever started the bombing, and that much
greater efforts -- this offensive for peace which has just been
held -- I regret it wasn't engaged in before we ever became.
Involved -- but that's hindsight. I don't wish to be too critical,
goodness knows that's a difficult job, and he inherited a very
difficult situation, and I don't think it's profitable or helpful
to' be too critical of that period now, and I have to say myself
that I've played a part in that, that I'm not at all proud of.
And at the time'of the Bay of Tonkin, I should have had greater
foresight in the consideration. of that resolution -- that would have
been a good time to have precipitated a debate, and a re-examination,
re-evaluation of our involvement, and under the influences that
existed then -- it was during just the beginning of the presidential
campaign -- I was very much a partisan in that campaign, for Johnson,
for the Administration. I disapproved of the statements of Gold-
water, and I went along with the urging, I may say, of the
Administration. I think it's a terrible situation that we're in --
.I'm hoping we can find an honorable way out of it. I do not wish
to see this escalate into a war -- I do not believe in the Secretary'
theory that this should be the proper place for a confrontation, to
destroy forever the. Idea that the wars of liberation can succeed.
It seems to me not an appropriate place for that. I think that if
you're ever going to have it -- I hope we don't ever have it -- I'm
not for any confrontation of that sort, of violence, but even if you
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s'aould have it this is a very bad place, and very bad circumstances.
7hat's, why I think this history is significant -- we shouldn't
,ever have a confrontation where there is any doubt about the
justification for our particular part at that time, that particular
incident.
SEVAREIA: Well the Secretary of State, Senator, seems to
equate Communist China with Hitler's Germany of the Thirties --
that'is he feels this is basically an aggressive force that unless
one stops them at an early stage, as in Viet Nam now, thinking again
of Hitler's course of action, that you will end up with a great big
war -- that it will all get out of hand. Do you subscribe to that
analogy?
FULBRIGHT: I'm afraid I do not I do not.. This is,a very
complicated situation. In the first place I think we have come to
grossly exaggerate at least the present power of China to carry a
war, beyond her borders,. from a logistical point of view -- naval,
modern weapons and soon. 'She has great vast armies -- it would be
a.terrible mistake"to invade her, as the Japanese proved, and nearly
everyone'else has proved -- and I think you'd agree to that. But I
do not equate her with Hitler.
China has a history that is quite different. Actually, if you
want to go into this, I think that the Chinese have every reason to
hate the West -- the history of Western treatment of China, beginning
certainly with the opium Wars is a most disgraceful period of any I
can think of in our history. They have all of the furious feelings,
hatred for the West -- what we should be doing, is try to find ways
to rectify the terrible wrongs that we and all the other Western
countries have.inflicted on China. This is imbedded in them.
it reminds me a little bit of the feelings of the South after
reconstruction, if I may use an illustration. These things get in
people's blood -- it takes. time to get over it, and the Chinese
talk very bad, they Cie very offensive. But coming back to Viet
Nam, I don't want to be too critical of it -- as.I said, I've
admitted that I have made a mistake -- I wasn't conscious of this.
Ism not an expert on this area, and perhaps I have no business
talking about it, but you've asked me to come here and talk-about
it,, and in my position of Chairman, I feel I can't refuse -- I don't
profess to be any great expert on it. When I'm asked to say some-
thingg I feel ' I ought to. This is more a feeling than it is an
ttel'eotual analysis of all these elements. There's much about
s I don't know.
When they say only the President has the information to make a
decision in many respects, that's right -- but we. have to give
.advice. I think the advice that the Constitution contemplated for
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us is to reflect the common man's feeling about what he does know
about these things, by instinct. But the great United States --
this enormously powerful country, becoming involved on the basis we
did here, and taking it out on a little country of -- whatever it
is -- 14 million people, to prove some vast point, of the success
of-the communist plot, as they call it -- is not very becoming to
us. if we want to confront, if we really are confronting China if this is really a threat, why don't we attack China or Russia,
have it out with someone our own size?
SEVAREID: You certainly don't advocate that?
FULBRIGHT: I do not -- of course I don't. I don't even
advocate attacking'North Viet Nam. I don't at all. I think our
whole purpose of policy should be the other way -- I think we should
try to find -- and'we can afford it -- this business of our prestige,
to me doesn't appeal at all. If any country could ever afford to
withdraw, let's say, or to mediate, or conciliate, be conciliating,
in this case -- we can -- nobody is going to think we're a, paper
tiger because we make a settlement here.
After all, the Russians have withdrawn, in several instances,
and nobody ever thought they were no longer of any account in the
world, that they're apaper tiger, as they say. They withdrew from
(Pocalla?) --I don't know all the circumstances, they withdrew; they
got out of Austria, after long travail; and they got out of
Azerbaijani, they got out of Cuba -- why didn't they stand up and say,
our prestige is involved, these Americans can't push us around, and
bar gads we'll have it out. I'm glad they did. I think they were
wrong in going there, but this has some bearing on it. United
States isn't goingto lose, on the contrary, I think we'd gain a
.lot of stature if we were wise and magnanimous, in seeking a settle-
ment of this, and I hope it will come out of the United Nations.
AGRONSKY: Senator, the whole thrust of your... observations
teems to be that we haven't.bean sincerely seeking a settlement.
Dc you feel that we've been hypocritical about that?
PULBRIGHTI Well, you don't want me to make personal comments
about our officials -- I don't think that's a proper question for
no to say hypocritical -- I would question wisdom, and I think this
his legitimate always, I mean as a representative of the people of
Arkansas, it's my duty, within what little information and.Judgment
I have, to try to use it, and I do question the judgment in-this
instsnoe, and I think we were misled by this preoccupation with
what has been called so often the international conspiracy of
communism. Many people still use this, completely ignoring the
.split between the various countries -- they say that's not true,
it's just a trick to trick us, to mislead us, and we have much of
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that left, and 1 on minimize tfte anger of a country like
Russia -- the eventual danger, China. And now is the time to try
to get this back on the track so that when China does become a
very powerful country, with the capacity for aggression, beyond
her borders, that 'she won't still be of the disposition to do so.
That ought to be our objective.
SEVAREID: Senator, you say you're questioning only the
wisdom of these policies, but you have questioned more than that
in the past. You have said, in the connection of the Dominican
intervention that the government has not been candid with the
American people -- they haven't come clean with us. Senator Morse
.
said the other day that if.the files of your Foreign Relations
.Committee were opened, people would be surprised at what they had,
T assume, not been told. What do you feel about it?
FULBRIGHT Well now, these are two different ones. I don't
want to get to generalizing too much. In the case of the Dominican
Republic, I think it is very clear that there was a difference in
the announced objective of the intervention, and the real objective
of.the intervention. That's the closest that I can think of, of.
being a diversion between the fact and the stated fact. In the
case of the briefings that have taken place over the years in
regard to Viet Nam, my best guess is that those who briefed us
erroneously, were themselves misled and didn't understand the
situation. I mean I cannot believe that people like McNamara, who
is one of the principal briefers, and Taylor -- these are men that
I think are of the highest integrity -- I wouldn't for a moment
try to insinuate that they would try to mislead us -- I don't think
so. I think they are very fine men, I mean I have the greatest
respect for them.
And I think that for reasons I don't quite understand, what
they told us about the situation, the progress of the war, did not
turn out to be accurate.
SEVAREID: But, Senator, this raises a very serious kind of
permanent question of how our Administration actions and conclusions
on.the facts at any moment, to be double-checked. Maybe the press
has failed. You have come in well after the fact on the Dominican
;Republic, and said it was wrong. You come along now, 18 months
attar the resolution of the Tonkin Gulf, and said that shouldn't.
have been done that way,
In there a way that the Senate, for example, can be in at the
.. 11
--
FULBRIGHT: There is no possible way for the senate, We can't
h g our oven -- a of ko and all
At-of that - we
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have six overworked professional staff members of my committee --
we've always traditionally relied upon the Administration, and I
think we always will. I don't think it's feasible to do this. And
S?..1~U v..dp 4:at th alp ...
You will recall that there was a garey ou y the Administration
against certain journalists in Viet Nam, saying they were misleading
the public. Well the journalists proved to be right, I think, by
,the course of events.
The same way in the Dominican Republic. In my view many of the
.reports of what took place,"by journalists, proved to be more
accurate than some of the official reports. I don't know how this
'happens -- or why SEVAREID: What good '. is. the- advice of the Senate, if it is
always well after the fact.., and too late. What's wrong with the
mechanism?
FULBRIGHT: It isn't much good, I don't think in many oases --
we,u,aually go along with the-Administration, as I say, as. akind of
a general conscience of the people I suppose. I can't recall many
great contributions made to the foreign policies of this.co.untry.
Loan recall the Senate's action on the League of Nations, which I
;think was a disaster, and they.. don't always do right, and I may
not be correct in my judgment either. I try to be restrained about
it.
AGRONSKY: Senator Fuibright, North Viet Nam has declared today
that it would consider any resolutions the UN Security Council, on
Viet Nam,,as invalid, and insist that we must go.back to the 1954
Geneva convention.
FULBRIGHT: Well, as a matter of fact, I have suggested, as
others, that at the reconvening of the Geneva conference, under
,the-chairmanship of Great Britain and Russia, would be an appropriate
way to approach this matter. President Johnson has from time to time
stated the Geneva accords as the basis for negotiation, the starting
place to see if we could reach a settlement, so that if that's the
,way they wish it, and they're willing to participate, and the oo-
chairmen are willing to call it, this would seem to me to be a very
good recommendation of the Security Council. The Security Council,
As I.understand it, has a free rein, to recommend whatever they
think might being these parties together and have negotiations
so I would see nothing wrong with that. I regret that they refuse
to come to the UN -- I would prefer, now that it's started, that
they come to the UN, and make their own case, even if that's the
result. I think it's terrible that they're so contemptuous of the
UN -- I don't approve of that at all, but we're dealing with a fact,
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and if this is the only way to get it, I see nothing particularly
wrong, because this has been advocated.
In fact we urged the calling, the re-convening of it -- the
British I think proposed it, and the Russians refused -- this was
a year or two ago, if my memory serves we right.
AGRONSKY: You've repeatedly called for the involvement of
the Viet Congo Do you think they should be involved in this
instance again?
FULBRIGRT: It would seem to me that this is a purely
practical matter, not a theoretical one, that they are the army
in being -- we are told that. they have somewhere in the neighborhood
of 236 to 250,000 men, which is the core of the fighting in South
Viet Nam. They are the (rebel?) so to speak against the regime
which we support, the key regime -- I would think they were a
proper party to a negotiation, because if you negotiate over their
heads, you arrive at agreements that they're not involved in, they
can. keep on fighting. This could be a futile thing.
AGRONSKY': You feel we must accept the Viet Cong participation
.to end this thing?
FULBRIGHT: I believe that it's necessary, because they're the
;b,oys.doing the fighting. They have the guns -- they're killing our
people, and that's where you want to start. If you have a cease-
fire, who do you have a cease-fire with? Do you have it with
;Hanoi, or do you have it with the Viet Cong? Directly --'the
theory of the Administration seems to be that Hanoi absolutely
controls it all -- I'm not sure this is clear. These people that
are doing the fighting in the field, I'm sure they are allied with
them -- they undoubtedly talent advice and orders from General (Chiat?)
because he's a superior kind of a director, but they also have a
being of their own, they have representatives abroad.' It could well
be these people haven't tasted to some degree of control of their
own affairs, might like it, and they might like to -- in fact it
might be wise to try to develop a little more division between the
Viet Cong and Hanoi, I think it might serve our purposes.
SEVAREID: Senator, the Russians apparently are moving.into
North Viet New a little bit more all the time. Much talk of putting
in sophisticated weapons. They seem to want to get into a position
politically between the Chinese and Ho Chi Minh's regime, to become
the dominant foreign influence with Hanoi. Isn't it possible that
as time goes by, and this war is still on, that a settlement really
is going to be made between us and the Soviet Union?
FULBRIGHT: I think they ought to be involved. They are a
great power, in that area -- not only that area -- but in the
world, and I think they ought to be involved, and therefore I am
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very muc in avor o that. hink It wou be a good th nga
My guess is -- and it is purely a guess of course -- that on
balance they would rather like to see this settled before it gets
out of hand. Why else did they become -- inject themselves,
apparently successfully in the controversy between Pakistan and
India? Some of our beat advisers in their professional (extent?)
said that was utterly utterly impossible that the Russians could
do anything, it was just a propaganda gesture -- but it worked.
SEVAREID: Senator Fuibright, the Secretary of State has
Said recently that he thinks the world on the whole is further
`away from the danger of nuclear war than it has been in the pasta
I take it you don't agree with that?
FULBRIGHT: I don't think human nature has gone through any
great change in recent years. I. think we're subject to many of.,the
same ills that have afflicted us from the beginning. It's.going to
take some very major and persistent effort on the part of wise
leaders to make a change in the kind of instinct, feelings, emotions,
and so on that have resulted in ware before. This is why I've had
.such great hopes that our country, with this unprecedented economic
power, ,:'physical power, invulnerable in a sense,,insofar as_ you can
accept nuclear weapons, to so many things that afflicted other
countries, and no real ambitions. . . that we might play a real
leading role in changing the course of events that lead periodically
to ...these wars.
I don't see any ground for the optimism that you indicate. I
didn't know the Secretary had thought that -- he didn't evidence
Any optimism before my committee the other day, and I didn't
.realize that he felt we were in much better state than before.
AGRONSRX: Might the optimism not derive for the Secretary,
for his feeling that the Russians also want peace?
FULBRIGHT; I don't know -- I don't recall his having stated
that. I really can't read the mind of the Secretary of State. I
think I'm not a very good authority --
SEVARTID; Isn't it generally true, Senator, that people
.responsible for the conduct of policy, like a president, or a
secretary of state, just cannot afford the luxury of public
pessimism?
FULBRIGHT: Well I don't know about that. It seems to me that
we'd all get along better if we say what we think -- whether it's
.pessimistic, or optimistic, and I mentioneda moment ago -..this
thing troubles me about prestige, and the nations have always been
afflicted with this saving face. I can see our little countries,
that are on the make and hasn't much to support it, must be very
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cautious of its dignity and so on. Our country, it seems to me, can
afford to be magnanimous, where a small country cannot afford to,
maybe, in the eyes of the world, and it seems that because we could
do things that no other country could do, without people thinking
we are degenerate, or soft, or weak, or all that sort of thing.
We wouldn't lose face, wend gain face in m
o
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i
if
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on,
we would act
wisely andemagnanimously, and generously in these situations, becaus4
SEVAREID: Senator Pulbright, I think we have come to the and
of our allotted time here. You've been very patient, and very
responsive. Weld both like to thank you very much.
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