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I'm delighted to have as my guest today the distinguished journalist David Schoenborn Mr Schoenborn has followed events in Vietnam for almost a quarter of a century and has recently written a book entitled Vietnam how we got in how to get out it gives a brief history of our involvement there and then poses and answers the questions that all of us are asking about our role in Vietnam Mr schönbrunn has one top awards in almost every medium of communication radio television magazines and books and is perhaps best known for his C.B.S. News broadcasts Mr Schoenborn peace negotiations a recently begun in Paris why do you feel they have started now. Well I think the whole world wants peace and expects peace and the leaders in Hanoi very sensitive to world opinion and they said Of course they wouldn't talk with us until we stopped all bombing and in fact they now have decided they would talk but they don't call it talks they call it contacts and they kind of use this distinction in order to have an excuse to sit down with us because if they said no the whole world would be disappointed now they know that world opinion sympathizes with them and they don't want to lose that sympathy they've also know that you thought it kept promising just do something make a gesture and they'll sit down they couldn't let you down either Besides they've gained something very important even in these preliminary contacts and that is we are not bombing high fon Hanoi or the Chinese front which is a very great danger so they've got that much off their back and they've given up very little because all they've done is to sit down to begin talks which they hope in any case will end up eventually but are getting out and so I think it's there says a devotee to opinion and they're feeling that in an American presidential campaign they can help those of us who want peace by showing that they are reasonable people and not the truculent inflexible intransigent communists What is your assessment of the prospects for the contacts that are going on. Not very good I'm very pessimistic about it well Mr Johnson Mr Rusk Mr Clifford Mr Harriman all of our main spokesman have said over and over again in the past few weeks that we are committed to the independence of South Vietnam. And if we are committed to the independence of a nation that we call South Vietnam then there's no hope for peace because Hanoi and the National Liberation Front are committed to a racing the independent nation of South Vietnam and remaking their country into the one country that they wanted to be and when we talk also of South Vietnam we're talking about a Western oriented noncommunist south yet now that's what the war is all about I have not seen one official statement from Washington that indicates any acceptance of a ceasefire and an American withdrawal and a solution in Vietnam by the Vietnamese themselves we keep saying over and over again that all outside interference must stop and they and we consider that North Vietnam is outside interference in South Vietnam and they do not they consider it is their country and that's the point that we have to get over or there is no hope for peace at all I do not believe that Mr Johnson is going to enter into an agreement that will permit the withdrawal of American troops that will look like an American defeat he said many times will not accept a fake solution what does he mean by a fake solution he means he won't accept the communist come into power and they won't stop fighting until they come to power so I don't think anything you can be done until there's a new president after January nine hundred sixty nine when it's children in your book you document the origins of our commitment to the subtitle because. How we got in how to get out you know what is the nature of our commitment President Johnson keeps talking about sound commitment to free people south. How strong and how much is it binding upon Well it really depends on how one defines the word commitment there's not the slightest doubt that Mr Johnson committed himself. To maintaining a noncommunist South Vietnam Mr Rust committed himself now to did he also commit you and me as American citizens I don't think so I think that our country can only be committed by a treaty that has been solidly discussed and ratified by the Senate of the United States so that all of our representatives have had an opportunity to deal with the matter and that is not how we got involved in Vietnam we got involved in Vietnam by executive decision right down the line without the citizens or their representatives being properly informed or consulted let's take for example the SEATO Mr Rusk says they where they are under seat Oh I have reprinted the SEATO treaty in my book so that citizens can read it for themselves don't believe me or anybody else read it and you will see that SEATO commits us only to consult with our allies or to take a constitutional decision it is not a commitment for action and those are the exact words of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles testifying before the Senate so that we are not legally committed under siege at all the only real commitment Mr Johns can point to is the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the very man who floor manage that Senator Fulbright said I was had they didn't tell me the full facts I am now against it so I don't believe that there is any legal commitment and I also do believe that the United States has violated the charter of the United Nations by entry unilaterally into this Vietnamese civil war that was on at the time I think there is no solemn legal moral commitment of the American people there are commitments that have been taken by individual Americans even on the highest level the president but I don't think the president can commit all the citizens of the United States in the manner in which he did it by executive decision well how can I mean there's such a descriptor. Between what you're saying with the person saying how can the who haven't figured out I mean you're implying that the president saying things to mislead the public well I can quote The American Society of Newspaper Editors which in convention about four or five weeks ago in Washington said that this government has deliberately distorted and deceived the American public yes that is that's what's known as the credibility gap now the president took a decision which was an unwise one and he is now attempting to justify his decision he's searching as I would have I made the same mistake I suppose Oh no I wouldn't I think I confess that I was wrong but the president is trying to justify a policy which is a wrong policy now what can the citizens do you say Well they've got to inform themselves you can't have an opinion unless you know what the facts are now we ought to every citizen of the United States should read the Geneva Accords That's why I reprint of that in my book and once again I say don't believe anybody read the original documents for yourself and the truth will jump out of the documents for example the Geneva documents the Geneva Accords said very clearly that there should be a ceasefire that there should be no foreign bases no foreign military alliance in South Vietnam a thaw that all foreign troops at the time they were French should be withdrawn from South Vietnam that there should be free elections in one thousand nine hundred fifty six to decide the self-determination of the Vietnamese people now why were those records carried out the record of history shows quite clearly where they were and carried out a dictator Godin's yam was put into power was supported by the United States of America he was a Catholic and the communist and he refused to go along with the agreements he refused to hold elections and so the yet mean the league for independence led by which you mean in the communists picked up their guns again they had already defeated the French they laid their guns down to a lections elections weren't held this is a red. That of history which is beyond dispute and they picked up the guns to go back to war for the independence of their country they had every right to do so we meddled in that we came in and decided that we were going to keep half of that country out of the hands of the Communists now we had no legal right to do so we had no moral right to do so. That is why I think the American people can make up their own minds if they inform themselves and it's not so difficult there are a few pieces of paper to read the Geneva Accords are the final declaration are two pages long no that's not too much to read the C.D.O. treaty maybe runs six or seven pages they can read that my book has all of the documents in the appendix because I'm a really firm believer in the common sense of the American people I think the Americans want to do what's right if they know what's right and I believe they have not been properly informed that's why I wrote the book to lay the record before them and then they can make up their own minds now if they don't want to take the effort of reading the documents then they can choose between opposing views then they have given up the great opportunity that democracy gives them for political action we are a free people we have information given to us and we can take a position it's really a duty then what about the next arguments even those people that say we should never got me in and there was no real commitment that we have to wonder say that now that we're there now that we have meddled we can't leave the mess that we've made without cleaning it up well I agree the mess has to be cleaned up but that doesn't mean that we have to fight on for a victory that not only cannot be won but should not be won if we're wrong to be there then we shouldn't fight it any longer there should be an honorable way out and there are many ways it can be suggested I propose one but I claim no missions and this is not the only way it's. As for the I think consideration of the public and then come up with their own solutions one thing I think we cannot do we cannot turn tail and run we are responsible and must clean up the mess and logistically you couldn't pull five hundred thousand troops out quickly anyway so I think that what we should be working for at conferences such as that in Paris and elsewhere while we should be working for is a cease fire and to turn the decision away from the battlefield to the ballot box and let the Vietnamese decide by themselves now if the Vietnamese do not want to hold elections if the regime in Saigon doesn't want to talk to the react on if they want to fight will be my guest I mean if you want to have a civil war Go ahead my country had a civil war so did many others I don't think we should be interfering we American should propose a cease fire and during that cease fire we should withdraw our troops we should call upon Britain and Russia China and all of the great powers to respect the front tears of all the countries of Southeast Asia to offer whatever aid we can to them if but to let them settle their own affairs by themselves by whatever means they wish to settle their own affairs but isn't that the very crux of the problem is that the when he is that the communists have enough force now to terrorize the nation and to obstruct elections and that if we withdrew that the government that we were supporting would fall immediately coming to take over well we have to ask ourselves the question How popular is the government we are supporting if it would be for the minute we withdrew why are they on able to rally the forces of the people to fight for freedom against communism how come that it's the communists who are able to rally the people and maybe the people prefer the communists If so well that's their decision now you say they may obstruct elections they stopped fighting in one nine hundred fifty four to wait for elections our side refused to hold elections we are stuck to the elections not the communists so we're badly placed to make that accusation. In your opinion would it be possible to have meaningful elections at this point with the violent bitterness and hatred. Murderous tendencies that build up over the years I think it's very difficult to hold meaningful elections during a war or immediately after a war and that is precisely why the negotiators in Geneva in fifty four very wisely provided a two year period of calm before election ceasefire separation of forces and a two year waiting period I think that that is not impossible to restore that very same idea and yes I think meaningful elections can then be held but only if foreign troops are withdrawn How can you hold meaningful elections when there are eighteen troops occupying your soil and the only alien troops in Vietnam are our troops we keep talking about North Vietnam as a foreign force and we've got to get it into our minds that North Vietnam is part of Vietnam it is not a foreign force and never was until we artificially divided the country so I think that meaningful elections in their terms can be not on our terms I don't they can hold an election there ever as free and meaningful as one let's say here in New York City but after all how meaningful of the elections in Alabama and Mississippi are we going to be purists and demand in Vietnam elections that are more free than in our own country and some parts of our own country I don't see our current our country demanding free elections in Athens or in Brazil or in Guatemala or in other places where we are quite content with a regime which a military dictatorships where not calling for free elections in Thailand where they haven't had an election for eighteen years why should Vietnam be singled out for the one world wide pure example of the free is kind of elections our position is obviously quite hypocritical let them have their kind of elections their way it's their country. Not ours but one thing in your book that I wondered about it seemed to me that you portray women and the it coming they were liberators of the country and the national forces but you. Didn't emphasize at all the fact that they are also ruthless and that they terrorize and it's only a somewhat one sided portrayal of the threat and in the genuine threat of an act of ruthless and forceful communist takeover in the country I'm not saying that the people who are defending are all right in the commies are all wrong with that they're both sides of a great deal and it seemed to me in your book you didn't emphasize. Portray fully the genuine threat of communist forceful takeover I don't believe that there's such a thing as a threat of a forceful communist takeover and if my book is one sided it is because I have been come convinced by scholarship and personal experience that there is only one side to the case for example when the Japanese were occupying Vietnam there was one group of people who organized to fight the Japanese and they were our allies fighting on our side and they'd been promised by Roosevelt that their country would be free and not become a colony again now these people were led by ho to mean mean was and is a communist many people in the camp of course were not terminus but in any case the Communists were the leading force we were ourselves and allied with the Soviet Union too against Hitler now when the Japanese were defeated these people came out of the underground and pronounced the fact that their country was henceforth free surely they had a right to be free people surely they also had a right to be communist if they wanted to that's their business I deplore the fact that they communist I also deplore the fact that we didn't seek some accommodation with them as we did at one time with Tito we might have done so but to me it is the record is quite clear the Vietnamese people led by communists. It's fought for the freedom and independence of their country first against the Japanese and then against the French when the French tried to reconquer the colony Now this is not a forcible communist takeover by arms against the wishes of the people there was no other great party opposing the communists the majority of the people worked within the Viet mean the league for independence which was communist lead for the independence of their country and they won the war against the French and that was that and it should have ended there now they leaned over backwards to accommodate world opinion they agreed to stop fighting as I said after the M.B. and food and to hold an election to see what the people wanted now General who is our president at the time has written in his memoirs that had the elections been held Holcim mean would have won by eighty percent if Eisenhower himself says that eighty percent of the people were backing whole then that's the story right there from all of the evidence that it wasn't a forcible communist takeover by arms that they had defeated the French and they had the majority of the people with them we then came and helped a certain group of noncommunist a minority who didn't want to live under the communists and we helped create a civil war atmosphere and so now there's a civil war being fought there are no outside forces. Troops helping them they don't have Chinese soldiers or Russian soldiers the way the sideline regime has American soldiers so why don't we just get out and see what the people of Vietnam really do want you say they're ruthless and they're terroristic everybody and war is ruthless and terroristic sure they use terrorists so do we need pound bombs our terror or bombs our terror there is terrible and more terrible than knives ruthless or great powers are ruthless there's this everywhere but that's not really the point the point is what is the crux of the matter. The crux of the matter is the people of Vietnam wanted after a century of French colonial rule to be free and independent and they were free and independent until we stepped in to change the course of events. When the the other major concern that people express about concessions made now and negotiations and the fact that we would withdraw eventually is that the whole balance in the in Southeast Asia in the Far East will change and that kind of domino theory perhaps more sophisticated than just literally one country forming after another but that the kind of revolutionary movements that were so successful in Vietnam would become much stronger in other countries what is your feeling about this concern Well I don't I don't think the record of history bears that out this theory is based upon the kind of the notion that communism is some sort of an infectious disease or that it spreads by example or that people hold revolutions because somebody else was successful that's not what happens Revolutions occur because of a whole set of peculiar national circumstances that I'm telling that to take up a gun and to revolt now those circumstances are very different in each country for example in the history of Southeast Asia we find most of the countries have been for centuries colonized by foreign powers but Thailand which is what we call Siam never was colonized the conditions in Siam a very different from the conditions for example in Indonesia now in the wake of World War two It was very clear that there was one great motivating force around the world that had nothing to do with communism or anything else and that was the desire for people to have national identity Algerians wanted to be Algerians not French Moroccans wanted to be more rock and Palestinians wanted to have the Nation of Israel Egypt wanted to be Egypt and not a British colony and the Vietnamese wanted to be the Etna. He's now this great force was nationalism Now when any body can identify himself with this great powerful motivating force he is well ahead towards success in a revolution Now interestingly enough in most of the countries of Southeast Asia noncommunist forces identified themselves with nationalism and managed therefore to put the communists down an example of that is Burma Burma is a military regime its not a democratic regime a tall Nonetheless the leaders of Burma identify themselves successfully with the nationalist aspirations of their people and the communist did not and the Communists got nowhere at all in them the same thing is true in Thailand the same thing is true in Indonesia where the Indonesian anti communist identify themselves with the struggle against Holland to free their country and they became free the one country in Asia outside of China where the communists successfully identify themselves with nationalism was Vietnam Holcim mean lead his people against the French there was no outstanding noncommunist leader who was able to do that there's also a second force that is very peculiar to the Vietnamese situation and that is a disgruntled dispossessed peasantry when you have a large landless peasants hungry for land and a people hungry for national identity and of you can persuade them that you best can answer that need you're going to win your revolution and Hoshi mean was able to persuade his people that one he was the leader of nationalism for their own flag to get rid of the French and to be their own country and that he would bring about land reforms and give the peasant land now when you've got those two things working for you you win when you don't have the working for you you don't win and the communists do not have those things working for them in other countries in Asia so use. See it is a sociological political economic phenomenon it is not some kind of methodology called communist revolution and although other Communists might say gee they won and we had not let's give it a try they're not going to win unless they can identify themselves with these forces and they haven't done so and may I take the of verse side of the coin that if they when we say it will encourage others well how about cases in which the communists lost did that discourage them for example we put down the Greek communist uprising did that discourage CASTRO No So it's not encouragement or discouragement is what are the conditions what is the quality of the leadership one of the great historic motivating forces of the people and in Vietnam the communists succeeded and I don't see the communists succeeding any where in Southeast Asia the way they did in Vietnam. I guess behind this concern is the fear of the threat of China's this mysterious and virtually aggressive country what is your assessment of how real this danger is. Well I think America has a paranoid fear of China and almost no knowledge of the country we talk so glibly about Chinese expansionism the Chinese have not expanded I notice that you very carefully used verbal aggressiveness they have been verbal be aggressive but they are not send soldiers out the way the Russians did or let us say the way the United States has done in crossing over from tears into other people's countries China is a very large hundred China is going through a neurotic period of our own therefore unquestionably China is a danger the question is how do we handle the Chinese danger do we send five hundred thousand of our sons underneath the front tier of China under China's nose driving our even madder and making her even more dangerous or do we try to come to grips with China and help China come out of her own neurotic period I do not deny the China is a danger but I feel that we have handled the Chinese danger as badly as we possibly could have let Mr Sharon bring you've traveled throughout this country recently giving lectures and talking to the people in the United States about Vietnam what is your feeling of what the effect of withdrawal of making concessions quote unquote to the canniest would be on the American public Well I think we're going to have a crisis in this country that may last a couple of months and I think after that will be forgotten but we will have a very critical period when the American people become aware of the fact that a lot of their sons have died in vain that we finally got into a war that we didn't win and although one group of people are going to be saying we ended it honorably another group of people are going to be saying that we lost the. We were you merely aided and there's going to be a bad period in our country as there was you may remember after the war in Korea a lot of people said we lost in career that we chickened out that we should have gone all the way and there was a really violent debate in America at the end of the Korean penguin jump talks nobody talks about it anymore it's been forgotten I think that will eventually happen in Vietnam but it's going to be more bitter in Vietnam because career at least was a stalemate and here although many of us are going to argue it's an honorable settlement others are going to say that it's a sellout that we were defeated and so I think there's going to be bad times in America indeed I think the important negotiations we ought to talk about are not the negotiations between America and the Vietnamese his but negotiations between Americans between hawks and doves and dogs and have the knowledge and eagles and chickens and vultures and all of the creatures in the aviary of American politics and I think our leaders are faced with an enormous responsibility to do everything they can to prevent our society from being torn apart there are many things dividing Americans now and I think we're going to have a very serious emotional crisis in this country are you. Studying and reporting on events in the Far East for almost a quarter century if this war were settled what do you fear range prospects for development. That depends on the great powers if Russia and Britain and America and France will work together if they will try to bring China into the United Nations if they will all re-examine their foreign policies and realize that the competitive nation state rivalry of centuries past is a great danger in the thermonuclear age and they must make the United Nations a viable instrument if they'll give aid through the United Nations cooperatively then I think the. Aspects a very good if however we see the kind of vicious jungle of nation state fighting which is typified world affairs continuing in the thermo nuclear age that is a very real danger ahead for all of us as for Asia Asia has been unstable for two thousand years it's a little much to ask to make it stable overnight by some quick packaged scheme in Washington on Moscow or Peking or elsewhere it's going to be a slow process ninety five percent of the people are illiterate they're ignorant they're diseased they're hungry there's a monumental task you're not going to get stability unless you eliminate hunger. Disease and ignorance how can you build stability unless you get some kind of an educated and healthy population this is going to take a half a century at least so I think that trying to solve problems by sending soldiers as we have done is precisely the wrong way to face the monumental complex slow moving solutions which are possible in Asia. Finally what role do you think America should play you are against our involvement in something like this where you're fighting communism What positive role do you see America playing well I think you've got to begin by saying what America should not do before you can say what America should do it should not try to be the policeman of the world it just cannot possibly work now in a positive way I've already indicated I believe we should work more through the United Nations and we have I think our aid programs should not be given under our flag alone because they come they become tied in with patriotism and with projection of power and with aspirations of national policies which then lead the other side to counter act and then they send in their aid programs you get a war of aid programs I think we should challenge the Russians dollar for ruble to give our money to. Gether to the World Health Organization to the Food and Agriculture Organization the proposals for this kind were made in the past of the one nine hundred fifty five summit meeting generally go to one point propose that every great power reduce its defense budget by one percent and create a pool of monies to help the poor peoples of the world I think the real problem of the future is not the east west struggle but the rich poor struggle and indeed in this struggle the peoples of Africa South America Asia look upon Russia not as a Communist country but as a white industrial country they put them in the same basket with us I think that's a good thing to propose and I think that we have to try to reach them and totally of foreign policy to find out why the things went wrong in Vietnam so they shouldn't go wrong again I am against any return to isolationism but I'm equally against the continuation of interventionism So we need a new kind of internationalism which is the best spirit of America and that I think is making the United Nations stronger trying to work with other powers challenging them to meet us to really to to face the real problem of the world the great poverty ignorance and disease of the entire human race and we are all of us creatures of God Mr Schoenborn thank you so much for this interview my guest has been the noted journalist David Shondra and whose most recent book is entitled The how we got him how to get out thank you and goodbye for now.