WORLD. OUTLOOK.
PERSPE CTIVE MONDIALE
Vol. 4, No. 1 February 4, 1966
under Hitler. He said that the J.S. is "the major aggressor" and an "international outlaw" without "a scintilla of international right" in conducting its "unilateral war."
He challenged Johnson to make public a series of documents on the Southeast Asian situation locked in the safe of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"Let the administration tell us what they've been doing in Thailand," he went on. Thailand is the site of naval and air bases from which air strikes on north Vietnam have been launched.
Morse disclosed that the senatorial delegation he headed’ was briefed in Hong Kong and told tinat further escalation would leave China no alternative but to come into the conflict. He intimated that this would be welcomed by some | “preventive warriors" in the Pentagon. - ,
He stated that no majou » Country in Asia supported “the U. s. war and that other nations merely gave lip service to it. He. pointed to the secret Mansfield report which concluded that if. the United States did not settle the affair by negotiation, the alternative prospect was "a continuation of the conflict in the direction of a general war on the Asian mainland." 7° —
The president ought to request Congress for a declaration” of war, Morse said, "if he wants to take hundreds of thousands cf - American boys to their death." The administration refusés to make this request, Morse explained, because it knows that the U. Se couldn't enforce a declaration cf war. - its own allies, for example, would not discontinue shipments to north Vietnam. Furthermore, if bombs were dropped on Hafioi and Heiphong, Russians might be killed and Russian ships sunk waich would bring the’ USSR directly into the conflict.
Morse reported that he was among a group of congressmen who visited the Russian ambassador. Morse asked what tne reaction of the Soviet Union would be if the United States should bomb the nuclear installations of the Chinese. The Russian ambassador responded, said Morse, by asking him if he could give the date when this would occur. The implication; from the context in which Morse put it, was that if the United States attacks China, the Soviet Union-would have no-choice: but to .back its Chinese. ally. to the ‘Bilt. This would signify :the® beginning: of World War. AIL: :
"Morse agreed with. his ‘fektlow senators ‘that tine U. ‘s. can't get-out of Vietnam. He wants. to halt the proyected escalation .. and bring other nations in-by referring the issue to the U.N, Security Council for "arbitration." He would prefer to have Asia policed by en international force rather than by the United States alone.
"Do we move forward or do we move out?" asked Republican
an
Senator Mundt. Speaking for the administration, Democratic Senators Boggs and Stennis, both from the South, asserted that this was no time to talk of "running out." The U.S., they argued, must go ahead with full force ‘to'wan. 2. > “OPAL
_ We must meet the threat of "Asiatic Communism," proclaimed Stennis. ° Unless *the United: States takes a firm stand now, weakness will’ invite additional uprisings in Latin America, “Africa... “éven in Europe. — oe - ~
Boges compared * Vietnam with: Greece “and: ‘Rurkey ‘at - the end of "world War II." Just as Washington stood -firm there and "dh Ber-— lin and Cuba" against the Soviet (Union, SO at must now stand against China. a oe co - ~
Morse announced that te would: intireduee: a ‘Yesolution: to test the President's power to conduct'’“an undeclared: and’ -illegal-‘war." ‘Johnson seeks legal sanction for his escalation -in’-the c ongressional resolution passed in August 1964 at the time of the. Gulf of: _Tonkin incident. He and his supporters claim that this was the ‘equivalent of a declaration of war: and: gives him authority for whatever action he wants bo. undertake in- Southeast Asia.
This is being’ contested -by- Chairman Fulbright: ‘and other members of. the Senate Foreign Relations: Committee who resist deepening intervention in Vietnam.’ One of' them,;*Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, "who was on the television panel, ‘told Secretary of State Rusk January 2%: "Personally, I'm scared to death that we are on the way to World War ITI."
This high-level debate > ‘over foreign policy which the administration has been trying to avoid, has been precipitated by similar apprehensions among the American people about the administration's course. Morse took cognizance of this when he made a direct appeal to the American people riot to trust the -¢ommander in chief but to stop the héadlong plunge ‘toward disaster by making known theiz opposition | to his foreign policy. i
Some of ‘Johnson's top| aavisers nave said: ‘that. the war ~ gould go on for at ‘least six to seven years. ~ In an article on "the awesome twosome," the president and Defense Secretary McNamara, Tom Wicker, New York Times Wasnington correspondent, wrote on. January 40 that. Vietnam is "the one ma Jor problem they have. yet too sate and _-the. one that may yet, prove ‘their downfall. wo Ha a The point is. to. prevent, ‘the rest of humanity ‘from | eoing | .. down with them. — oa
The way to block that is not by ‘substituting the interven- -tion of the U.N.Security Council for that of the United States, as Morse | proposes, but by ‘insisting on the withdrawal of. American troops. so that. the ‘Vietnamese wilt be: free: to ‘decide their. own fate. u Be
et ol
Pay Wide "Credibility Gap" Still There
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