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JOHN KERRY DELIVERING HIS TESTIMONY
BEFORE THE COMMITTEE
On the Vietnam War
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 John
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It follows the full text transcript of
John Kerry's Testimony, his speech delivered
before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington
D.C. — April 22, 1971. |
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page 2.
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LEGISLATIVE
PROPOSALS
RELATING TO THE WAR IN SOUTHEAST ASIA |
The committee met,
pursuant to notice, at 11:05 a.m., in Room 4221,
New Senate Office Building, Senator J. W.
Fulbright (Chairman) presiding.
Present: Senators
Fulbright, Symington, Pell, Aiken, Case, and
Javits.
The CHAIRMAN. The
committee will come to order.
OPENING STATEMENT
The committee is
continuing this morning its hearings on
proposals relating to the ending of the war in
Southeast Asia. This morning the committee will
hear testimony from Mr. John Kerry, and, if he
has any associates, we will be glad to hear from
them. These are men who have fought in this
unfortunate war in Vietnam. I believe they
deserve to be heard and listened to by the
Congress and by the officials in the executive
branch and by the public generally. You have a
perspective that those in the Government who
make our Nation's policy do not always have and
I am sure that your testimony today will be
helpful to the committee in its consideration of
the proposals before us.
I would like to
add simply on my own account that I regret very
much the action of the Supreme Court in denying
the veterans the right to use the Mall.
[Applause.]
I regret that. It
seems to me to be but another instance of an
insensitivity of our Government to the tragic
effects of this war upon our people.
I want also to
congratulate Mr. Kerry, you, and your associates
upon the restraint that you have shown,
certainly in the hearing the other day when
there were a great many of your people here. I
think you conducted yourselves in a most
commendable manner throughout this week.
Whenever people gather there is always a
tendency for some of the more emotional ones to
do things which are even against their own
interests. I think you deserve much of the
credit because I understand you are one of the
leaders of this group.
I have joined with
some of my colleagues, specifically Senator
Hart, in an effort to try to change the attitude
of our Government toward your efforts in
bringing to this committee and to the country
your views about the war.
I personally don't
know of any group which would have both a
greater justification for doing it and also a
more accurate view of the effect of the war. As
you know, there has grown up in this town a
feeling that it is extremely difficult to get
accurate information about the war and I don't
know a better source than you and your
associates. So we are very pleased to have you
and your associates, Mr. Kerry.
At the beginning
if you would give to the reporter your full name
and a brief biography so that the record will
show who you are.
Senator JAVITS.
Mr. Chairman, I was down there to the veterans'
camp yesterday and saw the New York group and I
would like to say I am very proud of the
deportment and general attitude of the group.
I hope it
continues. I have joined in the Hart resolution,
too. As a lawyer I hope you will find it
possible to comply with the order even though,
like the chairman, I am unhappy about it. I
think it is our job to see that you are suitably
set up as an alternative so that you can do what
you came here to do. I welcome the fact that you
came and what you are doing. [Applause.]
The CHAIRMAN. You
may proceed, Mr. Kerry.
STATEMENT OF JOHN KERRY, VIETNAM VETERANS
AGAINST THE WAR
Mr. KERRY. Thank
you very much, Senator Fulbright, Senator Javits,
Senator Symington, Senator Pell. I would like to
say for the record, and also for the men behind
me who are also wearing the uniforms and their
medals, that my sitting here is really symbolic.
I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one
member of the group of 1,000, which is a small
representation of a very much larger group of
veterans in this country, and were it possible
for all of them to sit at this table they would
be here and have the same kind of testimony.
I would simply
like to speak in very general terms. I apologize
if my statement is general because I received
notification yesterday you would hear me and I
am afraid because of the injunction I was up
most of the night and haven't had a great deal
of chance to prepare.
WINTER SOLDIER
INVESTIGATION
I would like to
talk, representing all those veterans, and say
that several months ago in Detroit, we had an
investigation at which over 150 honorably
discharged and many very highly decorated
veterans testified to war crimes committed in
Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but
crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the
full awareness of officers at all levels of
command.
It is impossible
to describe to you exactly what did happen in
Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings
of the men who were reliving their experiences
in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the
absolute horror of what this country, in a
sense, made them do.
They told the
stories at times they had personally raped, cut
off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from
portable telephones to human genitals and turned
up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies,
randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in
fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle
and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and
generally ravaged the countryside of South
Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war,
and the normal and very particular ravaging
which is done by the applied bombing power of
this country.
We call this
investigation the "Winter Soldier
Investigation." The term "Winter Soldier" is a
play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776 when he
spoke of the Sunshine Patriot and summertime
soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because
the going was rough.
We who have come
here to Washington have come here because we
feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could
come back to this country; we could be quiet; we
could hold our silence; we could not tell what
went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what
threatens this country, the fact that the crimes
threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the
crimes which we are committing that threaten it,
that we have to speak out.
FEELINGS OF MEN
COMING BACK FROM VIETNAM
I would like to
talk to you a little bit about what the result
is of the feelings these men carry with them
after coming back from Vietnam. The country
doesn't know it yet, but it has created a
monster, a monster in the form of millions of
men who have been taught to deal and to trade in
violence, and who are given the chance to die
for the biggest nothing in history; men who have
returned with a sense of anger and a sense of
betrayal which no one has yet grasped.
As a veteran and
one who feels this anger, I would like to talk
about it. We are angry because we feel we have
been used in the worst fashion by the
administration of this country.
In 1970 at West
Point, Vice President Agnew said "some glamorize
the criminal misfits of society while our best
men die in Asian rice paddies to preserve the
freedom which most of those misfits abuse," and
this was used as a rallying point for our effort
in Vietnam.
But for us, as
boys in Asia whom the country was supposed to
support, his statement is a terrible distortion
from which we can only draw a very deep sense of
revulsion. Hence the anger of some of the men
who are here in Washington today. It is a
distortion because we in no way consider
ourselves the best men of this country; because
those he calls misfits were standing up for us
in a way that nobody else in this country dared
to, because so many who have died would have
returned to this country to join the misfits in
their efforts to ask for an immediate withdrawal
from South Vietnam, because so many of those
best men have returned as quadriplegics and
amputees, and they lie forgotten in Veterans'
Administration hospitals in this country which
fly the flag which so many have chosen as their
own personal symbol. And we cannot consider
ourselves America's best men when we are ashamed
of and hated what we were called on to do in
Southeast Asia.
In our opinion,
and from our experience, there is nothing in
South Vietnam, nothing which could happen that
realistically threatens the United States of
America. And to attempt to justify the loss of
one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos
by linking such loss to the preservation of
freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse,
is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and
it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has
torn this country apart.
We are probably
much more angry than that and I don't want to go
into the foreign policy aspects because I am
outclassed here. I know that all of you talk
about every possible alternative of getting out
of Vietnam. We understand that. We know you have
considered the seriousness of the aspects to the
utmost level and I am not going to try to dwell
on that, but I want to relate to you the feeling
that many of the men who have returned to this
country express because we are probably angriest
about all that we were told about Vietnam and
about the mystical war against communism.
WHAT WAS FOUND AND
LEARNED IN VIETNAM
We found that not
only was it a civil war, an effort by a people
who had for years been seeking their liberation
from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also
five found that the Vietnamese whom we had
enthusiastically molded after our own image were
hard put to take up the fight against the threat
we were supposedly saving them from.
We found most
people didn't even know the difference between
communism and democracy. They only wanted to
work in rice paddies without helicopters
strafing them and bombs with napalm burning
their villages and tearing their country apart.
They wanted everything to do with the war,
particularly with this foreign presence of the
United States of America, to leave them alone in
peace, and they practiced the art of survival by
siding with whichever military force was present
at a particular time, be it Vietcong, North
Vietnamese, or American.
We found also that
all too often American men were dying in those
rice paddies for want of support from their
allies. We saw first hand how money from
American taxes was used for a corrupt
dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in
this country had a one-sided idea of who was
kept free by our flag, as blacks provided the
highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam
ravaged equally by American bombs as well as by
search and destroy missions, as well as by
Vietcong terrorism, and yet we listened while
this country tried to blame all of the havoc on
the Vietcong.
We rationalized
destroying villages in order to save them. We
saw America lose her sense of morality as she
accepted very coolly a
My Lai and refused to
give up the image of American soldiers who hand
out chocolate bars and chewing gum.
We learned the
meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything
that moves, and we watched while America placed
a cheapness on the lives of Orientals.
We watched the
U.S. falsification of body counts, in fact the
glorification of body counts. We listened while
month after month we were told the back of the
enemy was about to break. We fought using
weapons against "oriental human beings," with
quotation marks around that. We fought using
weapons against those people which I do not
believe this country would dream of using were
we fighting in the European theater or let us
say a non-third-world people theater, and so we
watched while men charged up hills because a
general said that hill has to be taken, and
after losing one platoon or two platoons they
marched away to leave the high for the
reoccupation by the North Vietnamese because we
watched pride allow the most unimportant of
battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because
we couldn't lose and we couldn't retreat, and
because it didn't matter how many American
bodies were lost to prove that point. And so
there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and
Hill 881's and Fire Base 6's and so, many
others.
VIETNAMIZATION
Now we are told
that the men who fought there must watch quietly
while American lives are lost so that we can
exercise the incredible arrogance of
Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.
Each day——
[Applause.]
The CHAIRMAN. I
hope you won't interrupt. He is making a very
significant statement. Let him proceed.
Mr. KERRY. Each
day to facilitate the process by which the
United States washes her hands of Vietnam
someone has to give up his life so that the
United States doesn't have to admit something
that the entire world already knows, so that we
can't say that we have made a mistake. Someone
has to die so that President Nixon won't be, and
these are his words, "the first President to
lose a war."
We are asking
Americans to think about that because how do you
ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?
How do you ask a man to be the last man to die
for a mistake? But we are trying to do that, and
we are doing it with thousands of
rationalizations, and if you read carefully the
President's last speech to the people of this
country, you can see that he says, and says
clearly:
But the issue,
gentlemen, the issue is communism, and the
question is whether or not we will leave that
country to the Communists or whether or not we
will try to give it hope to be a free people.
But the point is
they are not a free people now under us. They
are not a free people, and we cannot fight
communism all over the world, and I think we
should have learned that lesson by now.
RETURNING VETERANS
ARE NOT REALLY WANTED
But the problem of
veterans goes beyond this personal problem,
because you think about a poster in this country
with a picture of Uncle Sam and the picture says
"I want you." And a young man comes out of high
school and says, "That is fine: I am going to
serve my country." And he goes to Vietnam and he
shoots and he kills and he does his job or maybe
he doesn't kill, maybe he just goes and he comes
back, and when he gets back to this country he
finds that he isn't really wanted, because the
largest unemployment figure in the country—it
varies depending on who you get it from, the VA
Administration 15 percent, various other sources
22 percent. But the largest corps of unemployed
in this country are veterans of this war, and of
those veterans 33 percent of the unemployed are
black. That means 1 out of every 10 of the
Nation's unemployed is a veteran of Vietnam.
The hospitals
across the country won't, or can't meet their
demands. It is not a question of not trying.
They don't have the appropriations. A man
recently died after he had a tracheotomy in
California, not because of the operation but
because there weren't enough personnel to clean
the mucous out of his tube and he suffocated to
death.
Another young man
just died in a New York VA hospital the other
day. A friend of mine was lying in a bed two
beds away and tried to help him, but he
couldn't. He rang a bell and there was nobody
there to service that man and so he died of
convulsions.
I understand 57
percent of all those entering the VA hospitals
talk about suicide. Some 27 percent have tried,
and they try because they come back to this
country and they have to face what they did in
Vietnam, and then they come back and find the
indifference of a country that doesn't really
care, that doesn't really care.
LACK OF MORAL
INDIGNATION IN UNITED STATES
Suddenly we are
faced with a very sickening situation in this
country, because there is no moral indignation
and, if there is, it comes from people who are
almost exhausted by their past indignations, and
I know that many of them are sitting in front of
me. The country seems to have lain down and
shrugged off something as serious as Laos, just
as we calmly shrugged off the loss of 700,000
lives in Pakistan, the so-called greatest
disaster of all times.
But we are here as
veterans to say we think we are in the midst of
the greatest disaster of all times now because
they are still dying over there, and not just
Americans, Vietnamese, and we are rationalizing
leaving that country so that those people can go
on killing each other for years to come.
Americans seem to
have accepted the idea that the war is winding
down, at least for Americans, and they have also
allowed the bodies which were once used by a
President for statistics to prove that we were
winning that war, to be used as evidence against
a man who followed orders and who interpreted
those orders no differently than hundreds of
other men in Vietnam.
We veterans can
only look with amazement on the fact that this
country has been unable to see there is
absolutely no difference between ground troops
and a helicopter crew, and yet people have
accepted a differentiation fed them by the
administration.
No ground troops
are in Laos, so it is all right to kill Laotians
by remote control. But believe me the helicopter
crews fill the same body bags and they wreak the
same kind of damage on the Vietnamese and
Laotian countryside as anybody else and the
President is talking about allowing that to go
on for many years to come. One can only ask if
we will really be satisfied only when the troops
march into Hanoi.
REQUEST FOR ACTION
BY CONGRESS
We are asking here
in Washington for some action, action from the
Congress of the United States of America which
has the power to raise and maintain armies, and
which by the Constitution also has the power to
declare war.
We have come here,
not to the President, because we believe that
this body can be responsive to the will of the
people, and we believe that the will of the
people says that we should be out of Vietnam
now.
EXTENT OF PROBLEM
OF VIETNAM WAR
We are here in
Washington also to say that the problem of this
war is not just a question of war and diplomacy.
It is part and parcel of everything that we are
trying as human beings to communicate to people
in this country, the question of racism, which
is rampant in the military, and so many other
questions also, the use of weapons, the
hypocrisy in our taking umbrage in the
Geneva
Conventions and using that as justification for
a continuation of this war, when we are more
guilty than any other body of violations of
those Geneva Conventions, in the use of free
fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search
and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture
of prisoners, the killing of prisoners, accepted
policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is
what we are trying to say. It is part and parcel
of everything.
An American Indian
friend of mine who lives in the Indian Nation of
Alcatraz put it to me very succinctly. He told
me how as a boy on an Indian reservation he had
watched television and he used to cheer the
cowboys when they came in and shot the Indians,
and then suddenly one day he stopped in Vietnam
and he said "My God, I am doing to these people
the very same thing that was done to my people."
And he stopped. And that is what we are trying
to say, that we think this thing has to end.
WHERE IS THE
LEADERSHIP?
We are also here
to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where
are the leaders of our country? Where is the
leadership? We are here to ask where are
McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatric and so many
others. Where are they now that we, the men whom
they sent off to war, have returned? These are
commanders who have deserted their troops, and
there is no more serious crime in the law of
war. The Army says they never leave their
wounded.
The Marines say
they never leave even their dead. These men have
left all the casualties and retreated behind a
pious shield of public rectitude. They have left
the real stuff of their reputations bleaching
behind them in the sun in this country.
ADMINISTRATION'S ATTEMPT TO DISOWN VETERANS
Finally, this
administration has done us the ultimate
dishonor. They have attempted to disown us and
the sacrifice we made for this country. In their
blindness and fear they have tried to deny that
we are veterans or that we served in Nam. We do
not need their testimony. Our own scars and
stumps of limbs are witnesses enough for others
and for ourselves.
We wish that a
merciful God could wipe away our own memories of
that service as easily as this administration
has wiped their memories of us. But all that
they have done and all that they can do by this
denial is to make more clear than ever our own
determination to undertake one last mission, to
search out and destroy the last vestige of this
barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to
conquer the hate and the fear that have driven
this country these last 10 years and more, and
so when, in 30 years from now, our brothers go
down the street without a leg, without an arm,
or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be
able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not
a filthy obscene memory but mean instead the
place where America finally turned and where
soldiers like us helped it in the turning. Thank
you. [Applause.]
The CHAIRMAN. Mr.
Kerry, it is quite evident from that
demonstration that you are speaking not only for
yourself but for all your associates, as you
properly said in the beginning.
COMMENDATION OF
WITNESS
You said you
wished to communicate. I can't imagine anyone
communicating more eloquently than you did. I
think it is extremely helpful and beneficial to
the committee and the country to have you make
such a statement.
You said you had
been awake all night. I can see that you spent
that time very well indeed. [Laughter.] Perhaps
that was the better part, better that you should
be awake than otherwise.
PROPOSALS BEFORE COMMITTEE
You have said that
the question before this committee and the
Congress is really how to end the war. The
resolutions about which we have been hearing
testimony during the past several days, the
sponsors of which are some members of this
committee, are seeking the most practical way
that we can find and, I believe, to do it at the
earliest opportunity that we can. That is the
purpose of these hearings and that is why you
were brought here.
You have been very
eloquent about the reasons why we should proceed
as quickly as possible. Are you familiar with
some of the proposals before this committee?
Mr. KERRY. Yes, I
am, Senator.
The CHAIRMAN. Do
you support or do you have any particular views
about any one of them you wish to give the
committee?
Mr. KERRY. My
feeling, Senator, is undoubtedly this Congress,
and I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but I do
not believe that this Congress will, in fact,
end the war as we would like to, which is
immediately and unilaterally and, therefore, if
I were to speak I would say we would set a date
and the date obviously would be the earliest
possible date. But I would like to say, in
answering that, that I do not believe it is
necessary to stall any longer. I have been to
Paris. I have talked with both delegations at
the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional
Revolutionary Government and of all eight of
Madam Binh's points it has been stated time and
time again, and was stated by Senator Vance
Hartke when he returned from Paris, and it has
been stated by many other officials of this
Government, if the United States were to set a
date for withdrawal the prisoners of war would
be returned.
I think this
negates very clearly the argument of the
President that we have to maintain a presence in
Vietnam, to use as a negotiating block for the
return of those prisoners. The setting of a date
will accomplish that.
As to the argument
concerning the danger to our troops were we to
withdraw or state that we would, they have also
said many times in conjunction with that
statement that all of our troops, the moment we
set a date, will be given safe conduct out of
Vietnam. The only other important point is that
we allow the South Vietnamese people to
determine their own future and that ostensibly
is what we have been fighting for anyway.
I would,
therefore, submit that the most expedient means
of getting out of South Vietnam would be for the
President of the United States to declare a
cease-fire, to stop this blind commitment to a
dictatorial regime, the Thieu-Ky-Khiem regime,
accept a coalition regime which would represent
all the political forces of the country which is
in fact what a representative government is
supposed to do and which is in fact what this
Government here in this country purports to do,
and pull the troops out without losing one more
American, and still further without losing the
South Vietnamese.
DESIRE TO
DISENGAGE FROM VIETNAM
The CHAIRMAN. You
seem to feel that there is still some doubt
about the desire to disengage. I don't believe
that is true. I believe there has been a
tremendous change in the attitude of the people.
As reflected in the Congress, they do wish to
disengage and to bring the war to an end as soon
as we can.
QUESTION IS HOW TO
DISENGAGE
The question
before us is how to do it. What is the best
means that is most effective, taking into
consideration the circumstances with which all
governments are burdened? We have a precedent in
this same country. The French had an experience,
perhaps not traumatic as ours has been, but
nevertheless they did make up their minds in the
spring of 1954 and within a few weeks did bring
it to a close. Some of us have thought that this
is a precedent, from which we could learn, for
ending such a war. I have personally advocated
that this is the best procedure. It is a
traditional rather classic procedure of how to
end a war that could be called a stalemate, that
neither side apparently has the capacity to end
by military victory, and which apparently is
going to go on for a long time. Speaking only
for myself, this seems the more reasonable
procedure.
I realize you want
it immediately, but I think that procedure was
about as immediate as any by which a country has
ever succeeded in ending such a conflict or a
similar conflict. Would that not appeal to you?
Mr. KERRY. Well,
Senator, frankly it does not appeal to me if
American men have to continue to die when they
don't have to, particularly when it seems the
Government of this country is more concerned
with the legality of where men sleep than it is
with the legality of where they drop bombs.
[Applause.]
The CHAIRMAN. In
the case of the French when they made up their
mind to take the matter up at the conference in
Geneva, they did. The first thing they did was
to arrange a ceasefire and the killing did
cease. Then it took only, I think, two or three
weeks to tidy up all the details regarding the
withdrawal. Actually when they made up their
mind to stop the war, they did have a ceasefire
which is what you are recommending as the first
step.
Mr. KERRY. Yes,
sir; that is correct.
The CHAIRMAN. It
did not drag on. They didn't continue to fight.
They stopped the fighting by agreement when they
went to Geneva and all the countries then
directly involved participated in that
agreement.
I don't wish to
press you on the details. It is for the
committee to determine the best means, but you
have given most eloquently the reasons why we
should proceed as early as we can. That is, of
course, the purpose of the hearing.
Mr. KERRY.
Senator, if I may interject. I think that what
we are trying to say is we do have a method. We
believe we do have a plan, and that plan is that
if this body were by some means either to permit
a special referendum in this country so that the
country itself might decide and therefore avoid
this recrimination which people constantly refer
to or if they couldn't do that, at least do it
through immediate legislation which would state
there would be an immediate ceasefire and we
would be willing to undertake negotiations for a
coalition government. But at the present moment
that is not going to happen, so we are talking
about men continuing to die for nothing and I
think there is a tremendous moral question here
which the Congress of the United States is
ignoring.
The CHAIRMAN. The
Congress cannot directly under our system
negotiate a ceasefire or anything of this kind.
Under our constitutional system we can advise
the President. We have to persuade the President
of the urgency of taking this action. Now we
have certain ways in which to proceed. We can,
of course, express ourselves in a resolution or
we can pass an act which directly affects
appropriations which is the most concrete
positive way the Congress can express itself.
But Congress has
no capacity under our system to go out and
negotiate a cease-fire. We have to persuade the
Executive to do this for the country.
EXTRAORDINARY
RESPONSE DEMANDED BY EXTRAORDINARY QUESTION
Mr. KERRY. Mr.
Chairman, I realize that full well as a study of
political science. I realize that we cannot
negotiate treaties and I realize that even my
visits in Paris, precedents had been set by
Senator McCarthy and others, in a sense are on
the borderline of private individuals
negotiating, et cetera. I understand these
things. But what I am saying is that I believe
that there is a mood in this country which I
know you are aware of and you have been one of
the strongest critics of this war for the
longest time. But I think if we can talk in this
legislative body about filibustering for
porkbarrel programs, then we should start now to
talk about filibustering for the saving of lives
and of our country. [Applause.]
And this, Mr.
Chairman, is what we are trying to convey. I
understand. I really am aware that there are a
tremendous number of difficulties in trying to
persuade the Executive to move at this time. I
believe they are committed. I don't believe we
can. But I hope that we are not going to have to
wait until 1972 to have this decision made. And
what I am suggesting is that I think this is an
extraordinary enough question so that it demands
an extraordinary response, and if we can't
respond extraordinarily to this problem then I
doubt very seriously as men on each that we will
be able to respond to the other serious
questions which face us. I think we have to
start to consider that. This is what I am trying
to say.
If this body could
perhaps call for a referendum in the country or
if we could perhaps move now for a vote in 3
weeks, I think the people of this country would
rise up and back that. I am not saying a vote
nationwide. I am talking about a vote here in
Congress to cut off the funds, and a vote to
perhaps pass a resolution calling on the Supreme
Court to rule on the constitutionality of the
war, and to do the things that uphold those
things which we pretend to be. That is what we
are asking. I don't think we can turn our backs
on that any longer, Senator.
The CHAIRMAN.
Senator Symington?
WITNESS' SERVICE
DECORATIONS
Senator SYMINGTON.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Kerry, please move
your microphone. You have a Silver Star; have
you not?
Mr. KERRY. Yes, I
do.
Senator SYMINGTON.
And a Purple Heart?
Mr. KERRY. Yes, I
do.
Senator SYMINGTON.
How many clusters?
Mr. KERRY. Two
clusters.
Senator SYMINGTON.
So you have been wounded three times.
Mr. KERRY. Yes,
sir.
Senator SYMINGTON.
I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN.
Senator Aiken. [Applause.]
NORTH VIETNAMESE
AND VC ATTITUDE TOWARD DEFINITE WITHDRAWAL DATE
Senator AIKEN. Mr.
Kerry, the Defense Department seems to feel that
if we set a definite date for withdrawal when
our forces get down to a certain level, they
would be seriously in danger by the North
Vietnamese and the Vietcong. Do you believe that
the North Vietnamese would undertake to prevent
our withdrawal from the country and attack the
troops that remain there?
Mr. KERRY. Well,
Senator, if I may answer you directly I believe
we are running that danger with the present
course of withdrawal because the President has
neglected to state to this country, exactly what
his response will be when we have reached the
point that we do have, let us say, 50,000
support troops in Vietnam.
Senator AIKEN. I
am not telling you what I think. I am telling
you what the Department says.
Mr. KERRY. Yes
Sir; I understand that.
Senator AIKEN. Do
you believe the North Vietnamese would seriously
undertake, to impede our complete withdrawal?
Mr. KERRY. No, I
do not believe that the North Vietnamese would
and it has been clearly indicated at the Paris
peace talks they would not.
Senator AIKEN. Do
you think they might help carry the bags for us?
[Laughter.]
Mr. KERRY. I would
say they would be more prone to do that than the
Army of the South Vietnamese. [Laughter.]
[Applause.]
Senator AIKEN. I
think your answer is ahead of my question.
[Laughter.]
SAIGON
GOVERNMENT'S ATTITUDE TOWARD COMPLETE WITHDRAWAL
DATE
I was going to ask
you next what the attitude of the Saigon
government would be if we announced that we were
going to withdraw our troops, say, by October
1st, and be completely out of there—air, sea,
land—leaving them on their own. What do you
think would be the attitude of the Saigon
government under those circumstances?
Mr. KERRY. Well, I
think if we were to replace the Thieu-Ky-Khiem
regime and offer these men sanctuary somewhere,
which I think this Government has an obligation
to do since we created that government and
supported it all along. I think there would not
be any problems. The number two man at the
Saigon talks to Ambassador Lam was asked by the
Concerned Laymen, who visited with them in Paris
last month, how long they felt they could
survive if the United States— would pull out and
his answer was 1 week. So I think clearly we do
have to face this question. But I think, having
done what we have done to that country, we have
an obligation to offer sanctuary to the perhaps
2,000, 3,000 people who might face, and
obviously they would, we understand that, might
face political assassination something, else.
But my feeling is that those 3,000 who may have
to leave that country.
ATTITUDE OF SOUTH
VIETNAMESE ARMY AND PEOPLE TOWARD WITHDRAWAL
Senator AIKEN. I
think your 3,000 estimate might be a little low
because we had to help 800,000 find sanctuary
from North Vietnam after the French lost at
Dienbienphu. But assuming that we resettle the
members of the Saigon government, who would
undoubtedly be in danger, in some other area,
what do you think would be the attitude of the
large, well-armed South Vietnamese army and the
South Vietnamese people? Would they be happy to
have us withdraw or what?
Mr. KERRY. Well,
Senator, this obviously is the most difficult
question of all, but I think that at this point
the United States is not really in a position to
consider the happiness of those people as
pertains to the army in our withdrawal. We have
to consider the happiness of the people as
pertains to the life which they will be able to
lead in the next few years.
If we don't
withdraw, if we maintain a Korean- type presence
in South Vietnam, say 50,000 troops or
something, with strategic bombing raids from
Guam and from Japan and from Thailand dropping
these 15,000 pound fragmentation bombs on them,
et cetera, in the next few years, then what you
will have is a people who are continually
oppressed, who are continually at warfare, and
whose problems will not at all be solved because
they will not have any kind of representation.
The war will
continue. So what I am saying is that yes, there
will be some recrimination but far, far less
than the 200,000 a year who are murdered by the
United States of America, and we can't go around
President Kennedy said this many times. He said
that the United States simply can't right every
wrong, that we can't solve the problems of the
other 94 percent of mankind. We didn't go into
East Pakistan; we didn't go into Czechoslovakia.
Why then should we feel that we now have the
power to solve the internal political struggles
of this country?
We have to let
them solve their problems while we solve ours
and help other people in an altruistic fashion
commensurate with our capacity. But we have
extended that capacity; we have exhausted that
capacity, Senator. So I think the question is
really moot.
Senator AIKEN. I
might say I asked those questions several years
ago, rather ineffectively. But what I would like
to know now is if we, as we complete our
withdrawal and, say, get down to 10,000, 20,000,
30,000 or even 50,000 troops there, would there
be any effort on the part of the South
Vietnamese government or the South Vietnamese
army, in your opinion, to impede their
withdrawal?
Mr. KERRY. No. I
don't think so, Senator.
Senator AIKEN. I
don't see why North Vietnam should object.
Mr. KERRY. I don't
for the simple reason, I used to talk with
officers about their—we asked them, and one
officer took great pleasure in playing with me
in the sense that he would say, "Well, you know
you Americans, you come over here for 1 year and
you can afford, you know, you go to Hong Kong
for R. & R. and if you are a good boy you get
another R. & R. or something you know. You can
afford to charge bunkers, but I have to try and
be here for 30 years and stay alive." And I
think that that really is the governing
principle by which those people are now living
and have been allowed to live because of our
mistake. So that when we in fact state, let us
say, that we will have a ceasefire or have a
coalition government, most of the 2 million men
you often hear quoted under arms, most of whom
are regional popular reconnaissance forces,
which is to say militia, and a very poor militia
at that, will simply lay down their arms, if
they haven't done so already, and not fight. And
I think you will find they will respond to
whatever government evolves which answers their
needs, and those needs quite simply are to be
fed, to bury their dead in plots where their
ancestors lived, to be allowed to extend their
culture, to try and exist as human beings. And I
think that is what will happen.
I can cite many,
many instances, sir, as in combat when these men
refused to fight with us, when they shot with
their guns over in this area like this and their
heads turned facing the other way. When we were
taken under fire we Americans, supposedly
fighting with them, and pinned down in a ditch,
and I was in the Navy and this was pretty
unconventional, but when we were pinned down in
a ditch recovering bodies or something and they
refused to come in and help us, point blank
refused. I don't believe they want to fight,
sir.
OBLIGATION TO
FURNISH ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE
Senator AIKEN. Do
you think we are under obligation to furnish
them with extensive economic assistance?
Mr. KERRY. Yes,
sir. I think we have a very definite obligation
to make extensive reparations to the people of
Indochina.
Senator AIKEN. I
think that is all.
The CHAIRMAN.
Senator Pell.
Senator PELL.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the witness knows, I
have a very high personal regard for him and
hope before his life ends he will be a colleague
of ours in this body.
GROWTH OF
OPPOSITION TO WAR
This war was
really just as wrong, immoral, and unrelated to
our national interests 5 years ago as it is
today, and I must say I agree with you. I think
it is rather poor taste for the architects of
this war to now be sitting as they are in quite
sacrosanct intellectual glass houses.
I think that this
committee, and particularly Chairman Fulbright,
deserve a huge debt of gratitude from you and
everyone of your men who are here because when
he conducted hearings some years ago when we
were fighting in Vietnam. At that time the word
"peace" was a dirty word. It was tied in with
"appeasement" and Nervous Nellies and that sort
of thing. Chairman Fulbright and this committee
really took public opinion at that time and
turned it around and made "peace" a respectable
word and produced the climate that produced
President Johnson's abdication.
The problem is
that the majority of the people in the Congress
still don't agree with the view that you and we
have. As the chairman pointed out, and as you
know as a student of political science, whenever
we wanted to end this war, we could have ended
this war if the majority of us had used the
power of the purse strings. That was just as
true 5 years ago as it is today.
I don't think it
is a question of guts. We didn't have the desire
to do that and I am not sure the majority has
the desire to do that yet. Whenever we want to
as a Congress, we could do it. We can't start an
action, but we can force an action with the
purse strings.
I think it is
wonderful you veterans have come down here as a
cutting edge of public opinion because you again
make this have more respect and I hope you
succeed and prevail on the majority of the
Congress.
VOTING OF VETERANS
AND NONVETERANS CONCERNING VIETNAM WAR
It is interesting,
speaking of veterans and speaking of statistics,
that the press has never picked up and
concentrated on quite interesting votes in the
past. In those votes you find the majority of
hawks, were usually nonveterans and the majority
of doves were usually veterans. Specifically, of
those who voted in favor of the
Hatfield-McGovern end-the-war amendment in the
last session of the Congress 79 percent were
veterans with actual military service. Of those
voting against the amendment, only 36 percent
were veterans.
Now on the
sponsors of the Cooper-Church amendment you will
find very much the same statistics. Eighty-two
percent were veterans as compared to 71 percent
of the Senate as a whole being veterans. So I
would hope what you are doing will have an
effect on the Congress.
OBLIGATION TO
SOUTH VIETNAMESE. ALLIES
I have two
questions I would like to ask you. First, I was
very much struck by your concern with asylum
because now I see public opinion starting to
swing and Congress passing legislation. Before
they wouldn't get out at all; now they are
talking about getting out yesterday. When it
comes to looking after the people who would be
killed if we left or badly ruined, I would hope
you would develop your thinking a little bit to
make sure that American public opinion, which
now wants to get out, also bears in mind that
when we depart we have an obligation to these
people. I hope you will keep to that point.
ACTIONS OF
LIEUTENANT CALLEY
Finally, in
connection with Lieutenant Calley, which is a
very emotional issue in this country, I was
struck by your passing reference to that
incident.
Wouldn't you agree
with me though that what he did in herding old
men, women and children into a trench and then
shooting them was a little bit beyond the
perimeter of even what has been going on in this
war and that that action should be discouraged.
There are other actions not that extreme that
have gone on and have been permitted. If we had
not taken action or cognizance of it, it would
have been even worse. It would have indicated we
encouraged this kind of action.
Mr. KERRY. My
feeling, Senator, on Lieutenant Calley is what
he did quite obviously was a horrible, horrible,
horrible thing and I have no bone to pick with
the fact that he was prosecuted. But I think
that in this question you have to separate guilt
from responsibility, and I think clearly the
responsibility for what has happened there lies
elsewhere.
I think it lies
with the men who designed free fire zones. I
think it lies with the men who encouraged body
counts. I think it lies in large part with this
country, which allows a young child before he
reaches the age of 14 to see 12,500 deaths on
television, which glorifies the John Wayne
syndrome, which puts out fighting man comic
books on the stands, which allows us in training
to do calisthenics to four counts, on the fourth
count of which we stand up and shout "kill" in
unison, which has posters in barracks in this
country with a crucified Vietnamese, blood on
him, and underneath it says "kill the gook," and
I think that clearly the responsibility for all
of this is what has produced this horrible
abberation.
Now, I think if
you are going to try Lieutenant Calley then you
must at the same time, if this country is going
to demand respect for the law, you must at the
same time try all those other people who have
responsibility, and any aversion that we may
have to the verdict as veterans is not to say
that Calley should be freed, not to say that he
is innocent, but to say that you can't just take
him alone, and that would be my response to
that.
Senator PELL. I
agree with you. The guilt is shared by many,
many, many of us, including the leaders of the
get-out-now school. But in this regard if we had
not tried him, I think we would be much more
criticized and should be criticized. I would
think the same fate would probably befall him as
befell either Sergeant or Lieutenant Schwarz of
West Virginia who was tried for life for the
same offense and is out on a 9 months commuted
sentence. By the same token I would hope the
quality of mercy would be exercised in this
regard for a young man who was not equipped for
the job and ran amuck. But I think public
opinion should think this through. We who have
taken this position find ourselves very much in
the minority.
Mr. KERRY. I
understand that, Senator, but I think it is a
very difficult thing for the public to think
through faced with the facts. The fact that 18
other people indicted for the very same crime
were freed and the fact among those were
generals and colonels. I mean this simply is not
justice. That is all. It is just not justice.
Senator PELL. I
guess it is the revolutionary adage. When you
see the whites of their eyes you are more
guilty. This seems to be our morality as has
been pointed out. If you drop a bomb from a
plane, you don't see the whites of their eyes.
I agree with you
with the body count. It is like a Scottish
nobleman saying, "How many grouse were caught on
the moor." Four or five years ago those of us
who criticized were more criticized.
Thank you for
being here and I wish you all success.
[Applause.]
The CHAIRMAN.
Senator from New Jersey.
Senator CASE.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is page 1 of 2 of John Kerry's speech. Go to
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