Remarks to Committee Members on the Need for Additional Appropriations for Military Purposes in Viet-Nam and the Dominican Republic.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Congress:

I appreciate very much your responding so promptly in coming here this morning.

Late yesterday afternoon after a series of meetings I concluded that it was indicated it would be desirable to meet with the six most important committees in the Congress dealing with our relations with other nations and the security of the country.

I am prepared to submit to the Congress very shortly recommendations. Before I do that, however, I want to review with you some of my thoughts and get your judgment and your counsel and, I trust, your cooperation.

Under existing law we have transfer authority where we can use monies already authorized and appropriated to meet any unusual needs of the services that we may have. I think I need not tell you from the developments of the last few days, that we do have unusual and unanticipated needs in both the Viet-Nam theater and the Dominican Republic. We have been called upon to use men and materials at substantial costs that were not reflected in the budget when it was originally presented to the Congress. Therefore, I am giving serious consideration to asking the Congress to appropriate at an early date an additional $700 million to meet the mounting military needs primarily in Viet-Nam and such expenses as we have had in the Dominican Republic and that we may have in the days to come.

This is in no way a routine appropriation. For each Member of Congress who supports this request is voting to continue our effort to try to halt Communist aggression. Each is saying that the Congress and the President stand before the world in joint determination that the independence of South Viet-Nam shall be preserved and that Communist conquest shall not succeed.

In fiscal 1965 we spent about $1,500 million to fulfill our then commitments in southeast Asia. The pace of activity, however, has been steadily rising because the aggression has been rising and they have stepped up their tempo. The additional funds are needed to make sure that our American boys have not only the best but the most modern supplies and equipment in adequate quantities. They are needed to keep an abundant inventory of ammunition and other expendables. They are needed to build facilities to house and to protect our men and our supplies.

I would contemplate that the entire $700 million would be used in the present fiscal year between now and June 30. Nor can I guarantee to you that this will be the last request as things are now developing. If the need expands, I will of course immediately again turn to the Congress for help. We must do whatever must be done to insure our success. This is the firm and the irrevocable commitment of our people and our Nation, whatever the risk and whatever the cost.

I have reviewed the situation in Viet-Nam many times with the Congress. I have reviewed it many times with the American people, with the diplomats of the world, and in broadcasts which were reproduced throughout the world. South Viet-Nam has been attacked by North Viet-Nam. It has asked our help. We are giving that help, we are giving it because of our commitments, because of our principles, and because we believe that our national interest demands it.

This is not the same kind of aggression which the world has long been used to. Instead of the sweep of invading armies there is the steady and the deadly attack in the night by guerrilla bands that come without warning, that kill people while they sleep.

In Viet-Nam we pursue that same principle which has infused American action in the Far East for a quarter of a century. There are those who ask why this responsibility should be ours. The answer, I think, is simple. There is no one else who can do the job. Our power alone in the final test can stand between expanding communism and independent Asian nations.

Thus when India was attacked it looked to us for help and we gave it immediately. We believe that Asia should be directed by Asians, but that means that each Asian people must have the right to find its own way, not that one group or one nation should overrun all the others.

Now make no mistake about it, the aim in Viet-Nam is not simply the conquest of the south, tragic as that would be. It is to show that American commitment is worthless and they would like very much to do that, and once they succeed in doing that, the gates are down and the road is open to expansion and to endless conquest. Moreover, we are directly committed to the defense of South Viet-Nam beyond any question.

In 1954 we signed the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty and that treaty committed us to act to meet aggression against South Viet-Nam. The United States Senate was called upon to act upon that treaty. It ratified that treaty and that obligation by roll call vote of 82 to 1. Less than a year ago the Congress, by an almost unanimous vote, a vote of 502 to 2, said that the United States was ready to take all necessary steps to meet its obligations under that treaty. That resolution in the Congress expressed support for the policy of three successive American Presidents to help the people of South Viet-Nam against attack. Thus, we cannot and we will not and we must not withdraw or be defeated. The stakes are too high, the commitment too deep, the lessons of history too plain.

We will not use our great power in any reckless or casual manner. We have no desire whatever to expand that conflict. We will do, though, what must be done and we will do only what must be done. For in the long run there can be no military solution to the problems of Viet-Nam and we all realize that. We know that we must find some way, somehow, a path to peaceful settlement, and all the resources and brains of our Government are relentlessly pursuing every possible alternative.

Time and time and time again we have worked to open that path. As I talk to you this morning our allies are cooperating with us in attempting to open that path and find that solution. As I have said to you so many times and to the American people likewise, we are ready to talk any time, anywhere, with any government without conditions. We will go anywhere. We will discuss any subject. We will listen courteously and patiently to any point of view that may offer possibilities of a peaceful solution.

You don't know how much I regret the necessity for ever issuing an order to bomb anything, particularly North Viet-Nam. But we began those bombings after I had been in the Presidency some 14 months and only when patience had been transformed from a virtue into a blunder. Time and time and time again, men, women, and children--Americans and Vietnamese alike--were bombed in their villages and their homes while our forces made no reply. There was, last November, an attack on the Dong Hoi airfield. There was the Christmas Eve bombing of the Brinks Hotel in Saigon. There was the February attack at 2 o'clock in the morning, while our American soldiers slept, at Pleiku, where 14 Americans were killed and 269 seriously wounded.

These are just a few examples of their campaign of terror and attack. We then decided that it was no longer advisable to stand by with our arms folded and see men and women and children murdered and crippled while the bases of these aggressors were immune from reply. But we have no desire to destroy human life. Our attacks have all been aimed primarily at strictly military targets, not hotels, not movie theaters, not American compounds, not embassy buildings.

We destroy bridges that are made up of steel and concrete and bleed little blood, so it is harder for our adversaries to convey their instruments of war from the north to the south. When they get to a bridge that is blown up they must unload everything they have and if possible in crossing a swift stream, take their ferries, and load it on a ferry, and try to get across and then unload it and load it back again, taking increased time and increased effort and slowing down their aggression.

We destroy radar stations--some 10 of them--in order to keep them from spotting our planes and shooting down our American pilots. We destroy central depots for the infiltration of men and arms to the south, depots that furnished the manpower that attacked Pleiku.

We patrol trails in an attempt to halt the invaders. We destroy the ammunition dumps to prevent the use of explosives against our men and our allies.

Who among us can feel confident that we should allow our soldiers to be killed while the aggressor sits secure in his sanctuary protected by a border which he himself has violated a thousand times or more? Well, I do not believe that is the view of the American people and I hope that is not the view of the American Congress.

The bombing is not an end in itself, as we all know. Its purpose is to bring us closer to the final day of peace, and whenever it will serve the interests of peace to do so, we will immediately end it. But let us remember, when we began the bombings there was no talk of negotiations. There were few worldwide cries for peace. Some who now speak loudly were content to permit the Americans and the Vietnamese to continue to die and to suffer at the hands of terror without protest.

Our firmness and the action that we have taken in the last few weeks may well have already brought us much closer to peace.

The conclusion is plain. We will not surrender. We do not wish to engage in a larger conflict. We desire peaceful settlement and reasonable talks. Yet the aggression continues, although we have sent the adversaries messages of our views day after day. Therefore, I see no choice but to continue the course that we are on, filled as it is with peril and uncertainty and cost in both money and men. I believe the American people support that course. I believe they have learned a great lesson of this generation. Wherever we have stood firm, aggression has ultimately been halted. Peace has ultimately been restored and liberty has been maintained. That was true in Iran; that was true in Greece; that was true in Turkey; it was true in the Formosa Straits; that was true in Lebanon and it was true in Korea. It was true in the Cuban missile crisis and it will be true again in southeast Asia.

Our people do not flinch from sacrifice or risk when the cause of freedom demands it, and they have the deep and abiding and true instinct of the American people. When our Nation is challenged it must respond. When freedom is in danger we must face up and stand up to that danger. When we are attacked we must not turn tail and run, we must stand and fight.

I know that the Congress shares these beliefs and I believe the people they represent do likewise.

I do not ask complete approval of every phase and every action of your Government. I do ask for the support of our basic course. What is that? That is resistance to aggression. That is moderation in the use of power. That is a constant search for peace. Nothing will do more to strengthen your country in the eyes of the world than the proof of such national unity which an overwhelming vote for this appropriation would clearly show.

I asked the Armed Services Committee of both Houses, the Foreign Relations and Foreign Affairs Committee and the Appropriations Committees to come here. As I said earlier, we can use transfer authority and supply us temporarily for these funds. We need them now, we need them tomorrow, we need them in the days ahead. If there is a general unanimity and willingness to provide them I should like to submit forthwith a message to Congress asking that those learned in our relations with other nations give careful consideration to our recommendation and that the Appropriations Committees meet and act promptly, if that can be done. If it cannot, then we will try to proceed under the authority we have.

I dislike very much to disrupt your schedule and the target dates that you have for various bills but I know of nothing that is needed more just now. Although the volume of money is not excessive in terms of total military appropriations, the volume of information that it will convey is quite important and therefore, unless there is serious objection, with the approval of the leadership, I shall seriously consider transmitting to the Congress before the day is over, the specifics of an appropriation for $700 million and ask the House to go into immediate session, if it can, and its committees, and try to report that situation as early as possible.

I have been President now for about 17 months. We have suffered losses that can never be replaced. But our allies have suffered losses too. In South Viet-Nam, that little country of 14 million people has lost more than 10,000. During that same time they have killed 25,900 Viet Cong. In the last few days it is apparent something is taking place there that we cannot speak of with certainty, but the incidents that the Viet Cong initiated have diminished. The losses they have suffered have substantially increased. The arrogance and adventure they once displayed has to some degree been curbed.

I have considered every alternative that I know to consider. I have listened to every voice that sought to give me information. There are those who feel that we should take our strategic forces and try to obliterate the enemy and destroy his cities and wipe out his population. We have hoped to avoid that. There are some who sincerely and genuinely feel that we ought to be out of southeast Asia altogether and retire to our own shores, that we really have no great interest there, and that we ought to pull out.

That argument would have had much more force if we had not concluded otherwise as a policy of the Congress and had not entered into treaties that bound us there. But if our word and our treaty in southeast Asia is no good, it is no good in Berlin, and it is no good with all the other dozens of nations that we have made commitments to and that we are bound to with treaty.

There are those who frequently talk of negotiation and political settlement and that they believe this is the course we should pursue, and so do I. When they talk that way I say, welcome to the club. I want to negotiate. I would much rather talk than fight and I think everyone would. Bring in who you want us to negotiate with. I have searched high and wide and I am a reasonably good cowboy and I can't even rope anybody and bring him in that is willing to talk and reason and settle this thing by negotiation. We send them messages through our allies--one country, two countries, three countries, four or five countries--all have tried to be helpful. The distinguished British citizen, Mr. Walker, has just been out there and they said, "We won't even talk to you." All our intelligence is unanimous in this one point, that they see no need for negotiation. They think that they are winning and that they have won and why should they sit down and give us something and settle with us.

So we can't go north and we shouldn't go south and we can't negotiate. So what do we do? Well, this is the situation that I inherited. It is the policy that we decreed in 1954. So with the problem confronting me, they are the facts as I see them. I have tried to provide the maximum amount of deterrence to aggression with the minimum loss of life to ourselves and to our allies. That we will continue to do until someway, somehow, we find a civilized solution and a readiness to exchange views across the conference table.

Now the expenditure is not great in the Dominican Republic, but we do have many thousand men there. We do have 5,000 people yet to evacuate.

We were sitting quietly in my little office last Thursday afternoon, I believe--Wednesday afternoon maybe--discussing the logistics involved in the Viet-Nam situation with Secretary Rusk and Secretary McNamara and a cable came from our Ambassador, who is an experienced man in the Foreign Service for 20 years, an expert on the Dominican Republic and because he had been there before and had tours of duty there we sent him back. He said that he had been notified by the governmental authorities and by the police authorities, including the chief of police, that American lives were in danger, that they could not give them any more protection, that we were on our own and that we should immediately take measures to protect them.

The Ambassador said, "This concerns me but I am not prepared at this moment to recommend that you take this action, but I do want to alert you and see that you have a contingency plan ready."

We had anticipated difficulty there. The intelligence reports each morning indicate difficulties in dozens of spots throughout the world. We were due at least one revolution in another country yesterday. It didn't come through but the intelligence reports had indicated it might. Because we had had that information and because we knew the difficulty and we knew the unsettled political condition, we had asked Ambassador Bennett to come back to the United States and he was here when the government was overthrown. We immediately rushed him back. This was his cable informing us that he had had official notification that they could no longer guarantee the safety of our people.

We immediately alerted the forces who had had previous plans, and some of them had been working on building them up and carrying them out, and continued our discussions when another wire came in at 5:16, almost 2 hours later, and said, "There is firing in the streets, there is great danger to all personnel in this area; land the troops immediately to protect our people." It was a rather strong and compelling and almost distress message. Thanks to the expert management of Secretary McNamara and the forces under his command we passed out an order immediately to land our troops.

I had to attend a balance of payments meeting with some bankers who were in town but I asked while I was attending it they call the leadership of the Congress and they did, and they came to the White House around 7 o'clock. While we were talking to them I had a report that our troops had already landed, showing the speed and the efficiency of that group.

Since that time we have evacuated approximately 3,000 persons. It has been necessary for a few Marines to go out and take an old lady and her little belongings and with a crippled hip, carry her down through the streets where the firing is taking place and finally get her to a boat. But we have carried 3,000 that way without the loss of a single civilian up to now.

There remain 5,000 others--1,500 Americans and some 3,500 other nationals. Six or eight of the embassies have been torn up. There has been almost constant firing on our American embassy. As we talked to Ambassador Bennett, he said to apparently one of the girls who had brought him a cable, "Please get away from the window, that glass is going to cut your head," because the glass was being shattered. And he said "Do you hear the bullets coming through the office?"--where he was sitting while talking to us.

We have sufficient manpower there to continue that evacuation and some 200 are coming out today that we have gathered. We will continue until all who will come are evacuated.

In our first meeting that night from 3 o'clock when we got our cable, until 7 o'clock when we met with the congressional leaders, our intelligence indicated that two of the prime leaders in the rebel forces were men with a long history of communistic association and insurrections. One had fought in the Spanish Civil War and both had been given detailed lengthy training in operations of this type.

As reports came in, as they do every few minutes, it developed that there were 8 of those who were in the movement that had been trained by Communist forces. Alerts were set up and our men continued to ferret out and study the organization. Up to yesterday they had the names and addresses and experience and numbers and backgrounds of some 58. As those 58 came forward and the cream began to rise on that crock of milk, they came to the surface and took increased leadership in the movement, and the leaders and friends of ex-President Bosch were more or less shoved in the background and stepped aside.

Our military people outlined a plan and that plan has been consummated.

It is our hope that the OAS will, after a visit on the grounds, come up with recommendations as to an interim government that will not involve either communism or dictatorship until we can have free elections and self determination.

On Saturday when the revolution took place, we asked for a cease-fire. On the following Tuesday our Assistant Secretary of State in charge of Latin American Affairs, Mr. Vaughn, met with the Peace Committee of the OAS and explained the gravity of that situation. On Wednesday morning, before our intervention Wednesday afternoon, the OAS met and discussed the matter thoroughly and in some detail but then adjourned without taking any action. Wednesday afternoon after getting the 3 o'clock wire and the 5 o'clock wire I had no choice but to take action or to sacrifice American lives.

I took the action and simultaneously notified the OAS again and asked them to act. They met. They discussed the matter and then they adjourned over an extra day. When I found that out the next morning I asked Secretary Rusk and our very able diplomat, Mr. Bunker, to give them an urgent appeal not to stay out of session a day but to come back and immediately send some delegation there to view the situation. They had agreed to send Secretary General Morn and he went that night and they met the next day and debated it that day and sent the delegation down there and it is there now.

We want very much to work and cooperate with them and as soon as they have outlined a program for a stable and peaceful interim government we would hope that we could embrace their suggestions and contribute what we need to contribute along with other nations.

We have sent able emissaries to explain all that I have said to you to other countries because a man's judgment is no better than his information and there hasn't been full information on this subject. We have indications that some of the Latin American countries might perhaps be willing to supply some of their forces to engage in the protection during this period. We would certainly hope that is true.

Now that is where we stand. The primary reason for asking you to come here this morning is to let you know that the situations that confront us had not been planned when we submitted our budget to you, that your Armed Forces now are in need of $700 million. We are prepared to testify on it this afternoon or any time that may meet your pleasure. We would hope that you could thoroughly and carefully consider it and with a minimum of division and discord say to the rest of the world that we are going to spend every dollar, we are going to take every action, we are going to walk the last mile in order to see that peace is restored, that the people of not only the Dominican Republic but South Viet-Nam have the right of self-determination and that they cannot be gobbled up in the 20th century and swallowed just because they happen to be smaller than some of those whose boundaries adjoin them.

I think it is well to remember that there are a hundred other little nations sitting here this moment watching what happens and what the outcome is in South Viet-Nam and if South Viet-Nam can be gobbled up the same thing may happen to them.

Secretary Rusk is here to give you any details on the political developments. Secretary McNamara is here to give you any of the details on the posture of our troops, the missions they are performing.

I think there is one point I would like to make before I close. We are not the aggressor in the Dominican Republic. Forces came in there and overthrew that government and became aligned with evil persons who had been trained in overthrowing governments and in seizing governments and establishing Communist control and we have resisted that control and we have sought to protect our citizens against what would have taken place.

Our Ambassador reported that they were marching a former policeman down the streets and had threatened to line a hundred up to the wall and turn a machine-gun loose on them. With reports of that kind, no President can stand by. So we resisted their aggression to the extent that (a) we protected our own people, and (b) we hoped that we have exposed what leadership attempted to seize that little island. We have a good many people there. We are trying to feed all the people. I notice this morning they demanded that none of the labels have "American food" on them but some people haven't eaten in 4 days.

We have from 1,000 to 1,500 bodies that are dead in the street and the possibilities of a serious epidemic breaking out. We are trying to avoid that. We have our mobile hospital units that are trying to give treatment to the wounded and the casualties who have not yet died.

We are doing what we can do to preserve order, yet the sniping is still taking place. There are men still standing on rooftops that are shooting at not only our own embassy but other people and just fortunately none of our civilians have yet been killed. But we do have 5,000 yet there that must be moved individually, one by one, to our ships.

While we are doing that we optimistically hope and pray that the OAS and this inter-American group can make some satisfactory suggestions.

If it is agreeable, the press will excuse themselves now, I would like for Secretary Rusk and Secretary McNamara to go into details with some of you.