in 1955, by bipartisan majorities in both Houses of Congress; the declarations which we joined our SEATO and ANZUS allies in making at their Ministerial Council meetings in 1964 and 1965; the joint congressional resolution of August 1964, which was approved by a combined vote of 504 to 2.

Our commitment is to assist the Government and people of South Vietnam to repel this aggression, thus preserving their freedom. This commitment is to the South Vietnamese as a nation and people. It has continued through various changes of government, just as our commitments to our NATO allies remain unaltered by changes in government.

Continued escalation of the aggression by the other side has required continued strengthening of the military defenses of South Vietnam. Whether still more American military personnel will be needed will depend on events, especially on whether the other side continues to escalate the aggression. As the President has made plain, we will provide the South Vietnamese with whatever assistance may be necessary to ensure that the aggression against them is effectively repelled—that is, to make good on

our commitment.

The pursuit of a peaceful settlement

As President Johnson and his predecessors have repeatedly emphasized, our objective in southeast Asia is peace-a peace in which the various peoples of the area can manage their own affairs in their own ways and address themselves to economic and social progress.

We seek no bases or special position for the United States. We do not seek to destroy or overturn the Communist regimes in Hanoi and Peiping. We ask only that they cease their aggressions, that they leave their neighbors alone.

Repeatedly, we and others have sought to achieve a peaceful settlement of the war in Vietnam.

We have had many talks with the Soviet authorities over a period of more than 4 years. But their influence in Hanoi appears to be limited. Recently, when approached, their response has been, in substance: You have come to the wrong address-nobody has authorized us to negotiate. Talk to Hanoi.

We have had a long series of talks with the Chinese Communsts in Warsaw. Although Peiping is more cautious in action than in word, it is unbending in its hostility to us and plainly opposed to any negotiated settlement in Vietnam.

There have been repeated contacts with Hanoi. Many channels are open. And many have volunteered to use them. But so far there has been no indication that Hanoi is seriously interested in peace on any terms except those which would assure a Communist takeover of South Vietnam.

We and others have sought to open the way for conferences on the neighboring states of Laos and Cambodia, where progress toward peace might be reflected in Vietnam. These approaches have been blocked by Hanoi and Peiping.

The United Kingdom, as cochairman of the Geneva conferences, has repeatedly sought a path to a settlement-first by working toward a new Geneva conference, then by a visit by a senior British statesman. efforts were blocked by the Communistsand neither Hanoi nor Peiping would even receive the senior British statesman.

Both

In April, President Johnson offered unconditional discussions with the governments concerned. Hanoi and Peiping called this offer a "hoax."

Seventeen nonalined nations appealed for a peaceful solution, by negotiations without preconditions. We accepted the proposal. Hanoi and Red China rejected it with scorn calling some of its authors "monsters and freaks."

The President of India made a constructive proposal for an end to hostilities and an Afro-Asian patrol force. We welcomed this proposal with interest and hope. Hanoi and Peiping rejected it as a betrayal.

In May, the United States and South Vietnam suspended air attacks on North Vietnam. This action was made known to the other side to see if there would be a response in kind. But Hanoi denounced the pause as "a wornout trick" and Peiping denounced it as a "swindle." Some say the pause was not long enough. But we knew the negative reaction from the other side before we resumed. And we had paused previously for more than 4 years while thousands of armed men invaded the south and killed thousands of South Vietnamese, including women and children, and deliberately destroyed schoolhouses and playgrounds and hospitals and health centers and other facilities that the South Vietnamese had built to improve their lives and give their children a chance for a better education and better health.

In late June, the Commonwealth Prime Ministers established a mission of four of their members to explore with all parties concerned the possibilities for a conference leading to a just and lasting peace. Hanoi and Peiping made it plain that they would

not receive the mission.

Mr. Harold Davies, a Member of the British Parliament, went to Hanoi with the approval of Prime Minister Wilson. But the high officials there would not even talk with him. And the lower-ranking officials who did talk with him made it clear that Hanoi was not yet interested in negotiations, that it was intent on a total victory in South Vietnam. As Prime Minister Wilson reported to the House of Commons, Mr. Davies met with a conviction among the North Vietnamese that their prospects of victory were too imminent for them to forsake the battlefield for the conference table.

We and others have made repeated efforts at discussions through the United Nations. In the Security Council, after the August attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin, we supported a Soviet proposal that the Government of North Vietnam be invited to come to the Security Council. But Hanoi refused.

In April, Secretary General U Thant considered visits to Hanoi and Peiping to explore the possibilities of peace. But both those Communist regimes made it plain that they did not regard the United Nations as competent to deal with that matter.

The President's San Francisco speech in June requested help from the United Nations membership at large in getting peace talks started.

In late July the President sent our new Ambassador to the United Nations, Arthur J. Goldberg, to New York with a letter to Secretary General U Thant requesting that all the resources, energy and immense prestige of the United Nations be employed to find ways to halt aggression and to bring peace in Vietnam. The Secretary General has already accepted this assignment.

We sent a letter to the Security Council calling attention to the special responsibility in this regard of the Security Council and of the nations which happen to be members of the Council. We have considered from time to time placing the matter formally before the Security Council. But we have been advised by many nations—and by many individuals who are trying to help to achieve a peaceful settlement that to force debate and a vote in the Security Council might tend to harden positions and make useful explorations and discussions even more difficult.

President Johnson has publicly invited any and all members of the United Nations to do all they can to bring about a peaceful settlement.

By these moves the United States has intended to engage the serious attention and

efforts of the United Nations as an institution, and its members as signatories of its charter, in getting the Communists to talk rather than fight-while continuing with determination an increasing effort to demonstrate that Hanoi and the Vietcong cannot settle the issue on the battlefield.

We have not only placed the Vietnam issue before the United Nations, but believe that we have done so in the most constructive ways. The conditions for peace

What are the essential conditions for peace in South Vietnam?

In late June, the Foreign Minister of South Vietnam set forth the fundamental principles of a "just and enduring peace." In summary, those principles are:

An end to aggression and subversion.

Freedom for South Vietnam to choose and shape for itself its own destiny "in conformity with democratic principles and without any foreign interference from whatever sources."

As soon as aggression has ceased, the ending of the military measures now necessary by the Government of South Vietnam and fend South Vietnam; and the removal of foreign military forces from South Vietnam.

the nations that have come to its aid to de

And effective guarantees for the freedom of the people of South Vietnam.

We endorse those principles. In essence, they would constitute a return to the basic purpose of the Geneva accords of 1954. Whether they require reaffirmation of those accords or new agreements embodying these essential points, but with provision in either case for more effective international machinery and guarantees, could be determined in discussions and negotiations.

Once the basic points set forth by South Vietnam's Foreign Minister were achieved, future relations between North Vietnam and South Vietnam could be worked out by peaceful means. And this would include the question of a free decision by the people of North and South Vietnam on the matter of reunification.

When the aggression has ceased and the freedom of South Vietnam is assured by other means, we will withdraw our forces. Three Presidents of the United States have said many times that we want no permanent bases and no special position there. Our military forces are there because of the North Vietnamese aggression against South Vietnam and for no other reason. When the men and arms infiltrated by the North are withdrawn and Hanoi ceases its support and guidance of the war in the South, whatever remains in the form of indigenous dissent is a matter for the South Vietnamese themselves. As for South Vietnamese fighting in the Vietcong or under its control or influence, they must in time be integrated into their national society. But that is a process which must be brought about by the people of South Vietnam, not by foreign diplomats.

Apart from the search for a solution in Vietnam itself, the U.S. Government has hoped that discussions could be held on the problems concerning Cambodia and Laos. We supported the proposal of Prince Sihanouk for a conference on Cambodia, to be attended by the governments that participated in the 1954 conference, and noted the joint statement of the Soviet Union and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, in April, to the effect that both favored the convening of conferences on Cambodia and Laos. Subsequently, however, Hanoi appeared to draw back and to impose conditions at variance with the Cambodian proposal.

We look beyond a just and enduring peace for Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia, to the day when Peiping will be ready to join in a general settlement in the Far East-a general settlement that would remove the threat of aggression and make it possible for all the

peoples of the area to devote themselves to economic and social progress.

Several of the nations of Asia are densely populated. And high rates of population growth make it difficult for them to increase per capita incomes. The solution to these problems cannot be found through external aggression. They must be achieved internally within each nation.

As President Johnson has said, the United States stands ready to assist and support cooperative programs for economic development in Asia. Already we are making available additional funds for the development of the Mekong Valley. And we are taking the lead in organizing an Asian Development Bank, which we hope will be supported by all the major industrialized nations, including the Soviet Union. We would welcome membership by North Vietnam, when it has ceased its aggression.

Those are our objectives-peace and a better life for all who are willing to live at peace with their neighbors.

The present path

I turn now to the specific actions we are taking to convince Hanoi that it will not succeed and that it must move toward a peaceful solution.

Secretary McNamara is appearing before the appropriate committees of the Congress to discuss the military situation within South Vietnam in detail. In essence, our present view is that it is crucial to turn the tide in the south, and that for this purpose it is necessary to send substantial numbers of additional American forces.

The primary responsibility for defeating the Vietcong will remain, however, with the South Vietnamese. They have some 545,000 men in military and paramilitary forces. Despite losses, every branch of the armed forces of South Vietnam has more men under arms than it had 6 months ago. And they are making systematic efforts to increase their forces still further. The primary missions of American ground forces are to secure the airbases used by the South Vietnamese and ourselves and to provide a strategic reserve, thus releasing South Vietnamese troops for offensive actions against the Vietcong. In securing the airbases and related military installations, American forces are pushing out into the countryside to prevent buildups for surprise attacks. And they may be used in emergencies to help the South Vietnamese in combat. But the main task of rooting out the Vietcong will continue to be the responsibility of the South Vietnamese. And we have seen no sign that they are about to try to shift that responsibility to us. On the contrary, the presence of increasing numbers of American combat troops seems to have stimulated greater efforts on the part of the fighting men of South Viet

nam.

At the same time, on the military side, we shall maintain, with the South Vietnamese, our program of limited air attacks on military targets in North Vietnam. This program is a part of the total strategy. We had never expected that air attacks on North Vietnam alone would bring Hanoi to a quick decision to cease its aggression. Hanoi has been committed to its aggression too long and too deeply to turn around overnight. It must be convinced that it faces not only continuing, and perhaps increased, pressure on the north itself, but also that it simply

cannot win in the south.

The air attacks on the North have also had specific military effects in reducing the scale of increased infiltration from the North. Finally, they are important as a warning to all concerned that there are no longer sanctuaries for aggression.

It has been suggested in some quarters that Hanoi would be more disposed to move to negotiations and to cease its aggression if we stopped bombing the North. We do not

rule out the possibility of another and longer pause in bombing, but the question remains-and we have repeatedly asked it: What would happen from the North in response? Would Hanoi withdraw the 325th Division of the Regular Army, which is now deployed in South Vietnam and across the line in Laos? Would it take home the other men it has infiltrated into the South? Would it stop sending arms and ammunition into South Vietnam? Would the campaign of assassination and sabotage in the South cease? We have been trying to find out what would happen if we were to suspend our bombing of the North. We have not been able to get an answer or even a hint.

Those who complain about air attacks on military targets in North Vietnam would carry more weight if they had manifested, or would manifest now, appropriate concern about the infiltrations from the North, the high rate of military activity in the South, and the ruthless campaign of terror and assassination which is being conducted in the South under the direction of Hanoi and with its active support.

The situation in South Vietnam

Let me now underline just a few points about the political and economic situation in South Vietnam. For we know well that, while security is fundamental to turning the tide, it remains vital to do all we can on the political and economic fronts.

All of us have been concerned, of course, by the difficulties of the South Vietnamese in developing an effective and stable government. But this failure should not astonish us. South Vietnam is a highly plural society striving to find its political feet under very adverse conditions. Other nations-new and old-with fewer difficulties and unmolested by determined aggressors have done no better. South Vietnam emerged from the French Indochina war with many political factions, most of which were firmly antiCommunist. Despite several significant initial successes in establishing a degree of political harmony, the government of President Diem could not maintain a lasting unity among the many factions. The recent shifting and reshuffling of Vietnamese Governments is largely the continuing search for political unity and a viable regime which can overcome these long-evident political divisions.

And we should not forget that the destruction of the fabric of government at all levels

has been a primary objective of the Vietcong.

The Vietcong has assassinated thousands of local officals-and health workers and

schoolteachers and others who were helping to improve the life of the people of the countryside. In the last year and a half, it has killed, wounded, or kidnaped 2,291 village officials and 22,146 other civiliansthese on top of its thousands of earlier victims.

.Despite the risks to themselves and their families, Vietnamese have continued to come forward to fill these posts. And in the last 6 years, no political dissenter of any consequence has gone over to the Vietcong. The Buddhists, the Catholics, the sects, the Cambodians (of which there are about a million in South Vietnam), the Montagnards-all the principal elements in South Vietnamese political life except the Vietcong itself, which is a very small minorityremain overwhelmingly anti-Communist.

The suggestion that Ho Chi Minh probably could win a free election in South Vietnam is directly contrary to all the evidence we have. And we have a great deal of evidence, for we have Americans-in twos and threes and fours and sixes-in the countryside in all parts of Vietnam. In years past Ho Chi Minh was a hero throughout Vietnam. For he had led the fight against the Japanese and then against the French. But his glam

our began to fade when he set up a Communist police state in the North-and the South, by contrast, made great progress under a non-Communist nationalist government. Today the North Vietnamese regime is badly discredited. We find the South Vietnamese in the countryside ready to cooperate with their own government when they can do so with reasonable hope of not being assassinated by the Vietcong the next night.

At the present time, somewhat more than 50 percent of the people of Vietnam live in areas under control of their government. Another 25 percent live in areas under shifting control. And about 25 percent live in areas under varying degrees of Vietcong control. But even where it succeeds in imposing taxes, drafting recruits, and commandeering labor, the Vietcong has not usually been able to organize the area. We have a good deal of evidence that Vietcong tax exactions and terrorism have increasingly alienated the villagers. And one of the problems with which the South Vietnamese Government and we have to deal is the large scale exodus from the central highlands to the coastal areas of refugees from the Vietcong.

It is of the greatest significance that, despite many years of harsh war, despite the political instability of the central government, and despite division of their country since 1954, the people of South Vietnam fight on with uncommon determination. There is no evidence among politicians, the bureaucracy, the military, the major religious groups, the youth, or even the peasantry of a desire for peace at any price. They all oppose surrender or accommodation on a basis which would lead to a Communist takeover. The will to resist the aggression from the North has survived through periods of great stress and remains strong.

The central objective of our foreign policy is a peaceful community of nations, each free to choose its own institutions but cooperating with one another to promote their mutual welfare. It is the kind of world order envisaged in the opening sections of the United Nations Charter. But there have been and still are important forces in the world which seek a different goal-which deny the right of free choice, which seek to expand their influence and empires by every means including force.

The bulwark of peace

In defense of peace and freedom and the right of free choice:

We and others insisted that the Soviets

withdraw their forces from Iran.

We went to the aid of Turkey and Greece. We joined in organizing the European reAtlantic Alliance. covery program and in forming the North

We and our allies have defended the freedom of West Berlin.

We and 15 other nations joined in repelling the aggression in Korea.

We have joined defensive alliances with many other nations and have helped them to strengthen their defensive military forces.

We supported the United Nations in its efforts to preserve the independence of the Congo.

We insisted that the Soviet Union withdraw strategic weapons from Cuba.

Had we not done these things-and others-the enemies of freedom would now control much of the world and be in a position to destroy us or at least to sap our strength by economic strangulation.

For the same basic reasons that we took all those other measures to deter or to repel aggression, we are determined to assist the people of South Vietnam to defeat this aggression.

In his last public utterance, recorded only half an hour before his death, a great and beloved American, Adlai Stevenson, said:

"There has been a great deal of pressure on me in the United States from many

sources to take a position-a public position-inconsistent with that of my Government. Actually, I don't agree with those protestants. My hope in Vietnam is that resistance there may establish the fact that changes in Asia are not to be precipitated by outside forces."

I believe, with the President, that "once the Communists know, as we know, that a violent solution is impossible, then a peaceful solution is inevitable."

The great bulwark of peace for all freemen-and therefore of peace for the millions ruled by the adversaries of freedom-has been, and is today, the power of the United States and our readiness to use that power, in cooperation with other free nations to deter or to defeat aggression, and to help other free nations to go forward economically, socially, and politically.

We have had to cope with a long series of dangerous crises caused by the aggressive appetites of others. But we are a great nation and people. I am confident that we will meet this test, as we have met others.

THE TASKS OF DEFENSE

(Statement by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, before the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, August 4, 1965)

The issue in Vietnam is essentially the same as it was in 1954 when President Eisen

hower said:

"I think it is no longer necessary to enter into a long argument or exposition to show the importance to the United States of Indochina and of the struggle going on there. No matter how the struggle may have started, it has long since become one of the testing places between a free form of government and dictatorship. Its outcome is going to have the greatest significance for us, and possibly for a long time into the future.

"We have here a sort of cork in the bottle, the bottle being the great area that includes Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, all of the surrounding areas of Asia with its hundreds of millions of people. * * *"

The nature of the conflict

What is at stake in Vietnam today is the ability of the free world to block Communist armed aggression and prevent the loss of all of southeast Asia, a loss which

in its ultimate consequences could drastically alter the strategic situation in Asia and the Pacific to the grave detriment of our own security and that of our allies. While 15 years ago, in Korea, Communist aggression took the form of an overt armed attack, today in South Vietnam, it has taken the form of a large-scale intensive guerrilla operation.

The covert nature of this aggression, which characterized the earlier years of the struggle in South Vietnam, has now all but been stripped away. The control of the Vietcong effort by the regime in Hanoi, supported and incited by Communist China, has become increasingly apparent.

The struggle there has enormous implications for the security of the United States and the free world, and for that matter, the Soviet Union as well. The North Vietnamese and the Chinese Communists have chosen to make South Vietnam the test case for their particular version of the so-called wars of national liberation. The extent to which violence should be used in overthrowing non-Communist governments has been one of the most bitterly contested issues between the Chinese and the Soviet Communists.

Although the former Chairman, Mr. Khrushchev, fully endorsed wars of national liberation as the preferred means of extending the sway of communism, he cautioned that "this does not not necessarily mean that the transition to socialism will everywhere and in all cases be linked with armed uprising

in South Vietnam Essential to a proper understanding of the

"Peaceful coexistence cannot replace the revolutionary struggles of the people. The transition from capitalism to socialism in any country can only be brought about through proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat in that country. * * The vanguard of the proletariat will remain unconquerable in all circumstances only if it masters all forms of struggle-peaceful and armed, open and secret, legal and illegal, parliamentary struggle and mass struggle, and so forth." (Letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, June 14, 1963.)

Their preference for violence was even more emphatically expressed in an article in the Peiping People's Daily of March 31, 1964:

"It is advantageous from the point of view of tactics to refer to the desire for peaceful transition, but it would be inappropriate to emphasize the possibility of peaceful transition. *** the proletarian party must never substitute parliamentary struggle for proletarian revolution or entertain the illusion that the transition to socialism can be achieved through the parliamentary road. Violent revolution is a universal law of proletarian revolution. To realize the transition to socialism, the proletariat must wage armed struggle, smash the old state machine and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. ***”

"Political power," the article quotes Mao Tse-tung as saying, "grows out of the barrel of a gun."

Throughout the world we see the fruits of these policies and in Vietnam, particularly, we see the effects of the Chinese Com

munists' more militant stance and their hatred of the free world. They make no secret of the fact that Vietnam is the test case, and neither does the regime in Hanoi. General Giap, head of the North Vietnamese Army, recently said that "South Vietnam is the model of the national liberation movement of our time. * * * If the special warfare that the U.S. imperialists are testing in South Vietnam is overcome, then it can be defeated everywhere in the world." And, Pham Van Dong, Premier of North Vietnam,

recognition of the fact that the so-called insurgency there is planned, directed, controlled, and supported from Hanoi.

True, there is a small dissident minority in South Vietnam, but the government could cope with it if it were not directed and supplied from the outside. As early as 1960, at the Third Congress of the North Vietnamese Communist Party, both Ho Chi Minh and General Giap spoke of the need to "step up" the "revolution in the South." In March 1963 the party organ Hoc Tap stated that the authorities in South Vietnam "are well aware that North Vietnam is the firm base for the southern revolution and the point on which it leans, and that our party is the steady and experienced vanguard unit of the working class and people and is the brain and factor that decides all victories of the revolution."

Through most of the past decade the North Vietnamese Government denied and went to great efforts to conceal the scale of its personnel and materiel support, in addition to direction and encouragement, to the Vietcong.

It had strong reasons to do so. The North Vietnamese regime had no wish to force upon the attention of the world its massive and persistent violations of its Geneva pledges of 1954 and 1962 regarding noninterference in South Vietnam and Laos.

However, in building up the Vietcong forces for a decisive challenge, the authorities in North Vietnam have increasingly dropped the disguises that gave their earlier support a clandestine character.

Through 1968, the bulk of the arms infiltrated from the North were old French and American models acquired prior to 1954 in Indochina and Korea.

Now, the flow of weapons from North Vietnam consist almost entirely of the latest arms acquired from Communist China; and the flow is large enough to have entirely reequipped the main force units, despite the capture this year by government forces of thousands of these weapons and millions of rounds of the new ammunition.

Likewise, through 1963, nearly all the personnel infiltrating through Laos, trained and equipped in the North and ordered South, were former southerners.

But in the last 18 months, the great ma

of South America."

It is clear that a Communist success in South Vietnam would be taken as proof that the Chinese Communists' position is correct and they will have made a giant step forward

in their efforts to seize control of the world Communist movement.

Furthermore, such a success would greatly increase the prestige of Communist China among the nonalined nations and strengthen the position of their followers everywhere. In that event we would then have to be prepared to cope with the same kind of aggression in other parts of the world wherever the existing governments are weak and the social structures fragmented. If Communist armed aggression is not stopped in Vietnam, as it was in Korea, the confidence of small nations in America's pledges of support will be weakened and many of them, in widely separated areas of the world, will

feel unsafe.

Thus, the stakes in South Vietnam are far greater than the loss of one small country to communism. Its loss would be a most serious setback to the cause of freedom and would greatly complicate the task of preventing the further spread of militant Asian communism. And, if that spread is not halted, our strategic position in the world will be weakened and our national security directly endangered.

of them-have been ethnic northerners, mostly draftees ordered into the People's Army of Vietnam for duty in the South. And it now appears that, starting their journey through Laos last December, from one to three regiments of a North Vietnamese regular division, the 325th Division of the North Vietnamese Army, have deployed into the Central Highlands of South Vietnam for combat alongside the Vietcong.

Thus, despite all its reasons for secrecy, Hanoi's desire for decisive results this summer has forced it to reveal its hand even

more openly.

promise. The economy was growing and the Government seemed firmly in control. Therefore, in early 1963, I was able to say: "*** victory over the Vietcong will most likely take many years. But now, as a result of the operations of the last year, there is a new feeling of confidence, not only on the part of the Government of South Vietnam but also among the populace, that victory is possible."

But at the same time I also cautioned:

"We are not unmindful of the fact that the pressure on South Vietnam may well continue through infiltration via the Laos corridor. Nor are we unmindful of the possibility that the Communists, sensing defeat in their covert efforts, might resort to overt aggression from North Vietnam. Obviously, this latter contingency could require a greater direct participation by the United States. The survival of an independent government in South Vietnam is so important to the security of all southeast Asia and to the free world that we must be prepared to take all necessary measures within our capability to prevent a Communist victory."

Unfortunately, the caution voiced in early 1963 proved to be well founded. Late in 1963, the Communists stepped up their efforts, and the military situation began to deteriorate. The Diem government came under increasing internal pressures, and in November it was overthrown. As I reported in February 1964:

"The Vietcong was quick to take advantage of the growing opposition to the Diem government and the period of uncertainty following its overthrow. Vietcong activities were already increasing in September and continued to increase at an accelerated rate in October and November, particularly in the delta area. And I must report that they have made considerable progress since the coup."

Following the coup, the lack of stability in the central government and the rapid turnover of key personnel, particularly senior military commanders, began to be reflected in combat operations and throughout the entire fabric of the political and economic structure. And, in 1964, the Communists greatly increased the scope and tempo of their subversive efforts. Larger scale attacks became more frequent and the flow of men and supplies from the north expanded. The incidence of terrorism and sabotage rose

rapidly and the pressure on the civilan pop

ulation was intensified.

The deteriorating military situation was clearly reflected in the statistics. South Vietnamese combat deaths rose from 5,650 in 1963 to 7,450 in 1964 and the number of weapons lost from 8,250, to 14,100. In contrast, Vietcong combat deaths dropped from 20,600 to 16,800 and, considering the 16,800 and, considering stepped-up tempo of activity, they experienced only a very modest rise in the rate of weapons lost (from 5,400 to 5,900).

At various times in recent months, I have called attention to the continued buildup of Communist forces in South Vietnam. I pointed out that although these forces had not been committed to combat in any significant degree, they probably would be after the start of the monsoon season. It is now clear that these forces are being committed in increasing numbers and that the Communists have decided to make an all-out attempt to bring down the Government of South Vietnam.

The entire economic and social structure is under attack. Bridges, railroads, and highways are being destroyed and interdicted. Agricultural products are being barred from the cities. Electric powerplants and communication lines are being sabotaged. Whole villages are being burned and their population driven away, increasing the refugees burden on the South Vietnamese Government.

In addition to the continued infiltration of increasing numbers of individuals and the acceleration of the flow of modern equipment and supplies organized units of the North Vietnamese Army have been identified in South Vietnam. We now estimate the hard core Vietcong strength at some 70,000 men, including a recently reported increase in the number of combat battalions. In addition, they have some 90,000 to 100,000 irregulars and some 30,000 in their political cadres; i.e., tax collectors, propagandists, etc. We have also identified at least three battalions of the regular North Vietnamese Army, and there are probably considerably more.

At the same time the Government of South Vietnam has found it increasingly difficult to make a commensurate increase in the size of its own forces, which now stand at about 545,000 men, including the regional and local defense forces but excluding the national police.

Combat deaths on both sides have been mounting for the South Vietnamese from an average of 143 men a week in 1964, to about 270 a week for the 4-week period ending July 24 this year. Vietcong losses have gone from 322 a week last year to about 680 a week for the 4-week period ending July 24

Most important, the ratio of South Vietnamese to Vietcong strength has seriously declined in the last 6 or 7 months from about 5 to 1 to about 3 or 32 to 1; the ratio of combat battalions is substantially less. This is far too low a ratio for a guerrilla war even though the greater mobility and firepower provided to the South Vietnamese forces by the United States help to offset that disadvantage.

The South Vietnamese forces have to defend hundreds of cities, towns, and hamlets while the Vietcong are free to choose the time and place of their attack. As a result, the South Vietnamese are stretched thin in defensive positions, leaving only a small central reserve for offensive action against the Vietcong, while the latter are left free to concentrate their forces and throw them against selected targets. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Vietcong retains most of the initiative.

Even so, we may not as yet have seen the full weight of the Communist attack. Presently, the situation is particularly acute in the northern part of the country where the

Communists have mobilized large military

forces which pose a threat to the entire region and its major cities and towns. Our air attack may have helped to keep these forces off balance but the threat remains and it is very real.

Clearly, the time has come when the people of South Vietnam need more help from us and other nations if they are to retain their freedom and independence.

We have already responded to that need with some 75,000 U.S. military personnel, including some combat units. This number will be raised to 125,000 almost immediately with the deployment of the Air Mobile Divi

sion and certain other forces. But, more

help will be needed in the months ahead and additional U.S. combat forces will be required to back up the hard-pressed Army of South Vietnam. Two other nations have provided combat forces-Australia and New Zealand. We hope that by the end of this year others will join them. In this regard, the Koreans have just recently approved a combat division for deployment to Vietnam, which is scheduled to arrive this fall.

Role of U.S. combat forces in South Vietnam

As I noted earlier, the central reserve of the South Vietnamese Army has been seriously depleted in recent months. The principal role of U.S. ground combat forces will be to supplement this reserve in support of the frontline forces of the South Vietnamese Army. The indigenous paramilitary forces

will deal with the pacification of areas cleared of organized Vietcong and North Vietnamese units, a role more appropriate for them than for our forces.

The Government of South Vietnam's strategy, with which we concur, is to achieve the initiative, to expand gradually its area of control by breaking up major concentrations of enemy forces, using to the maximum our preponderance of airpower, both land and sea based. The number of fixed-wing attack sorties by U.S. aircraft in South Vietnam will increase manifold by the end of year. Armed helicopter sorties will also increase dramatically over the same period, and extension use will be made of heavy artillery, both land based and sea based. At the same time our air and naval forces will continue to interdict the Vietcong supplies line from North Vietnam, both land and sea.

Although our tactics have changed, our objective remains the same.

We have no desire to widen the war. We have no desire to overthrow the North Vietnamese regime, seize its territory or achieve the unification of North and South Vietnam by force of arms. We have no need for permanent military bases in South Vietnam or for special privileges of any kind.

What we are seeking through the planned military buildup is to block the Vietcong offensive, to give the people of South Vietnam and their armed forces some relief from the unrelenting Communist pressures-to give them time to strengthen their government, to reestablish law and order, and to revive their economic life which has been seriously disrupted by Vietcong harassment and attack in recent months. We have no illusions that success will be achieved quickly, but we are confident that it will be achieved much more surely by the plan I have outlined.

Increases in U.S. military forces Fortunately, we have greatly increased the strength and readiness of our Military Establishment since 1961, particularly in the kinds of forces which we now require in southeast The Active Army has been expanded divisions. from 11 to 16 combat ready Twenty thousand men have been added to the Marine Corps to allow them to fill out their combat structure and at the same time facilitate the mobilization of the Marine Corps Reserve. The tactical fighter squadrons of the Air Force have been increased by

51 percent. Our airlift capability has more

than doubled. Special forces trained to deal with insurgency threats have been multiplied elevenfold. General ship construction and conversion has been doubled.

the expanded force has been During this same period, procurement for increased greatly: Air Force tactical aircraft-from $360 million in 1961 to about $1.1 billion in the original fiscal year 1966 budget; Navy aircraft-from $1.8 billion to $2.2 billion; Army helicopters from 286 aircraft to over 1,000. Procurement of ordnance, vehicles and related equipment was increased about 150 percent in the fiscal years 1962-64 period, compared with the preceding 3 years. The tonnage of modern nonnuclear air-to-ground ordnance in stock tripled between fiscal year 1961 and fiscal year 1965. In brief, the Military Establishment of the United States, today, is in far better shape than it ever has been in peacetime to face whatever tasks may lie ahead.

Nevertheless, some further increases in forces, military personnel, production, and construction will be required if we are to deploy additional forces to southeast Asia. and provide for combat consumption while at the same time, maintaining our capabilities to deal with crises elsewhere in the world.

To offset the deployments now planned to southeast Asia, and provide some additional forces for possible new deployments, we propose to increase the presently authorized

force levels. These increases will be of three types: (1) Additional units for the Active Forces, over and above those reflected in the January budget; (2) military personnel augmentations for presently authorized units in the Active Forces to man new bases, to handle the larger logistics workload, etc.; and (3) additional personnel and extra training for selected Reserve component units to increase their readiness for quick deployment. We believe we can achieve this buildup without calling up the Reserves or ordering the involuntary extension of tours, except as already authorized by law for the Department of the Navy. Even here the extension of officer tours will be on a selective basis and extensions for enlisted men will be limited, in general, to not more than 4 months.

The program I have outlined here today and the $1.7 billion amendment to the fiscal year 1966 Defense appropriation bill now before the committee will, in the collective judgment of my principal military and civilian advisers and myself, provide the men, materiel, and facilities required to fulfill the President's pledge to meet the mounting aggression in South Vietnam, while at the same time maintaining the forces required to meet commitments elsewhere in the world.

THE CHALLENGE OF HUMAN NEED

(Address by the President to the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, the White House, May 13, 1965)

The third face of the war

The war in Vietnam has many faces. There is the face of armed conflict-of terror and gunfire-of bomb-heavy planes and campaign-weary soldiers. * *

The second face of war in Vietnam is the quest for a political solution-the face of diplomacy and politics-of the ambitions and the interest of other nations.

The third face of war in Vietnam is, at once, the most tragic and most hopeful. It is the face of human need. It is the untended sick, the hungry family, and the illiterate child. It is men and women, many without shelter, with rags for clothing, struggling for survival in a very rich and a very fertile land.

It is the most important battle of all in which we are engaged.

For a nation cannot be built by armed power or by political agreement. It will rest on the expectation by individual men and women that their future will be better than their past.

It is not enough to just fight against something. People must fight for something, and the people of South Vietnam must know that after the long, brutal journey through the dark tunnel of conflict there breaks the light of a happier day. And only if this is so can they be expected to sustain the enduring will for continued strife. Only in this way can longrun stability and peace come to their land.

And there is another, more profound reason. In Vietnam communism seeks to really impose its will by force of arms. But we would be deeply mistaken to think that this was the only weapon. Here, as other places in the world, they speak to restless people people rising to shatter the old ways which have imprisoned hope-people fiercely and justly reaching for the material fruits from the tree of modern knowledge.

It is this desire, and not simply lust for conquest, which moves many of the individual fighting men that we must now, sadly, call the enemy.

It is, therefore, our task to show that freedom from the control of other nations offers the surest road to progress, that history and experience testify to this truth. But it is not enough to call upon reason or point to examples. We must show it through action and we must show it through accomplishment, and even were there no war-either

hot or cold-we would always be active in humanity's search for progress.

This task is commanded to us by the moral values of our civilization, and it rests on the inescapable nature of the world that we have now entered. For in that world, as long as we can foresee, every threat to man's welfare will be a threat to the welfare of our

own people. Those who live in the emerging community of nations will ignore the perils of their neighbors at the risk of their own prospects.

Cooperative development in southeast Asia

This is true not only for Vietnam but for every part of the developing world. This is why, on your behalf, I recently proposed a massive, cooperative development effort for all of southeast Asia. I named the respected leader, Eugene Black, as my personal representative to inaugurate our participation in these programs.

Since that time rapid progress has been made, I am glad to report. Mr. Black has met with the top officials of the United Nations on several occasions. He has talked to other interested parties. He has found increasing enthusiasm. The United Nations is already setting up new mechanisms to help carry forward the work of development.

In addition, the United States is now prepared to participate in, and to support, an Asian Development Bank, to carry out and help finance the economic progress in that area of the world and the development that we desire to see in that area of the world.

So this morning I call on every other industrialized nation, including the Soviet Union, to help create a better life for all of the people of southeast Asia.

Surely, surely, the works of peace can bring men together in a common effort to abandon forever the works of war.

But, as South Vietnam is the central place of conflict, it is also a principal focus for our work to increase the well-being of people.

It is that effort in South Vietnam, of which I think we are too little informed, which I want to relate to you this morning.

Strengthening Vietnam's economy

We began in 1954, when Vietnam became independent, before the war between the north and the south. Since that time we have spent more than $2 billion in economic help for the 16 million people of South Vietnam. And despite the ravages of war, we have made steady, continuing gains. We have concentrated on food and health and education and housing and industry.

most developing countries, South Unlike many, it has large uncrowded areas Vietnam's economy rests on agriculture. of very rich and very fertile land. Because of this, it is one of the great rice bowls of the entire world. With our help, since 1954, South Vietnam has already doubled its rice production, providing food for the people as well as providing a vital export for that nation.

We have put our American farm knowhow to work on other crops. This year, for instance, several hundred million cuttings of a new variety of sweet potato, that promises a sixfold increase in yield will be distributed to these Vietnamese farmers. Corn

output should rise from 25,000 tons in 1962 to 100,000 tons by 1966. Pig production has more than doubled since 1955. Many animal diseases have been eliminated entirely.

Disease and epidemic brood over every Vietnamese village. In a country of more than 16 million people with a life expectancy of only 35 years, there are only 200 civilian doctors. If the Vietnamese had doctors in the same ratio as the United States has doctors, they would have not the 200 that they do have but they would have more than 5,000 doctors.

We have helped vaccinate, already, over 7 million people against cholera, and millions more against other diseases. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese can now receive treatment in the more than 12,000 hamlet health stations that America has built and has stocked. New clinics and surgical suites are scattered throughout the entire country: and the medical school that we are now helping to build will graduate as many doctors in a single year as now serve the entire civilian population of South Vietnam.

Education is the keystone of future development in Vietnam. It takes trained people to man the factories, to conduct the administration, and to form the human foundation for an advancing nation. More than a quarter million young Vietnamese can now learn in more than 4,000 classrooms that America has helped to build in the last 2 years; and 2,000 more schools are going to be built by us in the next 12 months. The number of students in vocational schools has gone up four times. Enrollment was 300,000 in 1955, when we first entered there and started helping with our program. Today it is more than 1,500,000. The 8 million textbooks that we have supplied to Vietnamese children will rise to more than 15 million by 1967.

Agriculture is the foundation. Health, education, and housing are the urgent human needs. But industrial development is the great pathway to their future.

When Vietnam was divided, most of the industry was in the North. The South was barren of manufacturing and the foundations for industry. Today more than 700 new or rehabilitated factories-textile mills and cement plants, electronics and plasticsare changing the entire face of that nation. New roads and communications, railroad equipment, and electric generators are a spreading base on which the new industry can, and is, growing.

Progress in the midst of war

All this progress goes on, and it is going to continue to go on, under circumstances of staggering adversity.

Communist terrorists have made aid programs that we administer a very special target of their attack. They fear them. because agricultural stations are being destroyed and medical centers are being burned. More than 100 Vietnamese malaria fighters are dead. Our own AID officials have been wounded and kidnaped. These are not just the accidents of war. They are a part of a deliberate campaign, in the words of the Communists, "to cut the fingers off the hands of the Go"ernment."

We intend to continue, and we intend to increase our help to Vietnam.

Nor can anyone doubt the determination of the South Vietnamese themselves. They have lost more than 12,000 of their men since I became your President a little over a year ago.

But progress does not come from investment alone, or plans on a desk, or even the directives and the orders that we approve here in Washington. It takes men. Men must take the seed to the farmer. must teach the use of fertilizer. Men must help in harvest. Men must build the schools,

Men

Men

and men must instruct the students. must carry medicine into the jungle, and treat the sick, and shelter the homeless. And men-brave, tireless, filled with love for their fellows are doing this today. They are doing it through the long, hot, danger-filled Vietnamese days and the sultry nights.

The fullest glory must go, also, to those South Vietnamese that are laboring and dying for their own people and their own nation. In hospitals and schools, along the rice fields and the roads, they continue to labor, never knowing when death or terror may strike.

How incredible it is that there are a few who still say that the South Vietnamese do