[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 6]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 7482-7491]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


                   TESTIMONY OF JOHN KERRY FROM 1971

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. SAM JOHNSON

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 22, 2004

  Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas.  Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert the 
following testimony into the Record.
  On this date in 1971, John Kerry stated that America violated the 
Geneva Conventions in Vietnam. Mr. Speaker, when Mr. Kerry made these 
remarks, I just emerged from nearly four years of solitary confinement 
in Vietnam. Trust me when I say the Vietnamese regularly violated the 
Geneva Conventions, not the other way around.
  John Kerry also alleges American soldiers tortured innocent 
Vietnamese. These statements were later proved incorrect (during the 
question and answer session).
  Last, John Kerry said communism was not a threat in 1971. This could 
not have been further from the truth.
  These are just a few reasons I believe America needs to see this 
testimony. It says a lot about John Kerry.

      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

[[Page 7483]]

     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

[[Page 7484]]

     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 cease-

[[Page 7485]]

     fire 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

[[Page 7486]]

     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.


                 strategic implications of Vietnam war

       Mr. Kerry, thank you too for coming You have made more than 
     clear something that I think always has been true: that the 
     war never had any justification in terms of Indochina itself. 
     I wish you would take this question a little further and 
     touch on the larger strategic implications. It is in these 
     larger strategic implications, if anywhere, that may be found 
     justification for our involvement. As you know, the President 
     said the other day that it is easy to get out and to end the 
     war immediately.
       The question is to get out and leave a reasonable chance 
     for lasting peace. We have to look at this because the 
     American people are going to see the issue in the terms he 
     has defined it. I would be glad to have your comment on this 
     matter, although I won't press you to discuss it because in a 
     sense you have already said this is not your area.
       Mr. Kerry. I do want to. I want to very much.
       Senator Case. And I would be very glad to have you do it.
       Mr. Kerry. Thank you, sir. I would like to very much.
       In my opinion what we are trying to do, as the President 
     talks about getting out with a semblance of honor is simply 
     whitewashing ourselves. On the question of getting out with 
     some semblance for peace, as a man who has fought here, I am 
     dying to say that this policy has no chance for peace. You 
     don't have a chance for peace when you arm the people of 
     another country and tell them they can fight a war. That is 
     not peace; that is fighting a war; that is continuing a war. 
     That is even criminal in the sense that this country, if we 
     are really worried about recrimination, is going to have to 
     some day face up to the fact that we convinced a certain 
     number of people, perhaps hundreds of thousands, perhaps 
     there will be several million, that they could stand up to 
     something which they couldn't and ultimately will face the 
     recrimination of the fact that their lives in addition to all 
     the lives at this point, will be on our conscience. I don't 
     think it is a question of peace at all. What we are doing is 
     very, very hypocritical in our withdrawal, and we really 
     should face up to that.
       Senator Case. May I press you just a little further or at 
     least raise the question on which I would ask you to comment.
       Mr. Kerry. I wish you would, please.


                 indochina and question of world peace

       Senator Case. I think your answer was related still to the 
     question of Indochina, but

[[Page 7487]]

     I think the President has tried to tie in Indochina with the 
     question of world peace.
       Mr. Kerry. I would like to discuss that.
       It is my opinion that the United States is still reacting 
     in very much the 1945 mood and postwar cold-war period when 
     we reacted to the forces which were at work in World-War II 
     and came out of it with this paranoia, about the Russians and 
     how the world was going to be divided up between the super 
     powers, and the foreign policy of John Foster Dulles which 
     was responsible for the creation of the SEATO treaty, which 
     was, in fact, a direct reaction to this so called Communist 
     monolith: And I think we are reacting under cold-war precepts 
     which are no longer applicable.
       I say that because so long as we have the kind of strike 
     force we have, and I am not party to the secret statistics 
     which you gentlemen have here, but as long as we have the 
     ones which we of the public know we have, I think we have a 
     strike force of such capability and I think we have a strike 
     force simply in our Polaris submarines, in the 62 or some 
     Polaris submarines, which are constantly roaming around under 
     the sea. And I know as a Navy man the underwater detection is 
     the hardest kind in the world, and they have not perfected 
     it, that we have the ability to destroy the human race. Why 
     do we have to, therefore, consider and keep considering 
     threats?
       At any time that an actual threat is posed to this country 
     or to the security and freedom I will be one of the first 
     people to pick up a gun and defend it, but right now we are 
     reacting with paranoia to this question of peace and the 
     people taking over the world. I think if we are ever going to 
     get down to the question of dropping those bombs most of us 
     in my generation simply don't want to be alive afterwards 
     because of the kind of world that it would be with mutations 
     and the genetic probabilities of freaks and everything else.
       Therefore, I think it is ridiculous to assume we have to 
     play this power game based on total warfare. I think there 
     will be guerrilla wars and I think we must have a capability 
     to fight those. And we may have to fight them somewhere based 
     on legitimate threats, but we must learn; in this country, 
     how to define those threats and that is what I would say to 
     this question of world peace. I think it is bogus, totally 
     artificial. There is no threat. The Communists are not about 
     to take over our McDonald hamburger stands. [Laughter.]
       Senator, I will say this. I think that politically, 
     historically, the one thing that people try to do, that 
     society is structured on as a whole, is an attempt to satisfy 
     their felt needs, and you can satisfy those needs with almost 
     any kind of political structure, giving it one name or the 
     other. In this name it is democratic; in others it is 
     communism, in, others it is benevolent dictatorship. As long 
     as those needs are satisfied, that structure will exist.
       But when you start to neglect those needs, people will 
     start to demand a new structure, and that, to me, is the only 
     threat that this country faces now, because we are not 
     responding to the needs and we are not responding to them 
     because we work on these old cold-war precepts and because we 
     have not woken up to realizing what is happening in the 
     United States of America.
       Senator Case. I thank you very much. I wanted you to have a 
     chance to respond to the question of Indochina in a large 
     context.
       Mr. Chairman, I have just one further thing to do. Senator 
     Javits had to go to the floor on important business, and he 
     asked me to express his regret that he couldn't stay and also 
     that if he had stayed he would have limited his participation 
     to agreement with everything Senator Symington said. 
     [Applause.]


                       background of vietnam war

       The Chairman. Mr. Kerry, I have one other aspect of this I 
     would like to explore for a moment. I recognize you and your 
     associates, putting it on a personal point of view, feeling 
     the seriousness and the tragedy of the experience in Vietnam. 
     But I am disturbed very much by the possibility that your 
     generation may become or is perhaps already in the process of 
     becoming disillusioned with our whole country, with our 
     system of government. There was much said about it. You 
     didn't say it, but others have said this. I wonder if we 
     could explore for a moment the background of this war.
       It has seemed to me that its origin was essentially a 
     mistake in judgment, beginning with our support of the French 
     as a colonial power, which, I believe, is the only time our 
     country has ever done that. Always our sympathies has been 
     with the colony. If you will recall, we urged the British to 
     get out of Egypt and India, and we urged, many thought too 
     vigorously, the Dutch prematurely to get out of Indonesia. I 
     think there was much criticism that we acted prematurely in 
     urging the Belgians to get out of the Congo. In any case, the 
     support of the French to maintain their power was a departure 
     from our traditional attitude toward colonial powers because 
     of our own history.
       It started in a relatively small way by our support of the 
     French. Then one thing led to another. But these were not 
     decisions, I believe, that involved evil motives. They were 
     political judgments which at that time were justified by the 
     conditions in the world. You have already referred to the 
     fact that after World War II there was great apprehension, 
     and I think properly. The apprehension was justified by the 
     events, especially from Stalin's regime. There was 
     apprehension that he would be able, and if he could he would 
     impose his regime by force on all of Western Europe which 
     could have created an extremely difficult situation which 
     would amount to what you said a moment ago. You said if our 
     country was really threatened, you would have no hesitancy in 
     taking up a gun. So I think, in trying to evaluate the course 
     of our involvement in this war, we have to take all of this 
     into consideration. It was not a sign of any moral 
     degradation or of bad motives. They were simply political 
     judgments as to where our interest really was.
       In retrospect I think we can say that our interest was not 
     in supporting the French, that it was not in intervening, and 
     it was not in undoing the Geneva Accords by the creation of 
     SEATO, but that is all history. I am not saying this in order 
     to try to lay the blame on anyone, but to get a perspective 
     of our present situation, and hopefully to help, if I can, 
     you and others not to be too disillusioned and not to lose 
     faith in the capacity of our institutions to respond to the 
     public welfare. I believe what you and your associates are 
     doing today certainly contributes to that, by the fact that 
     you have taken the trouble to think these things through, and 
     to come here. I know it is not very pleasant to do the things 
     you have done.
       While I wouldn't presume to compare my own experience, I 
     have taken a great deal of criticism since I myself in 1965 
     took issue with the then President Johnson over his policies. 
     I did what I could within my particular role in the 
     Government to persuade both President Johnson and subsequent 
     political leaders that this was not in the interests of our 
     country. I did this, not because I thought they were evil men 
     inherently or they were morally misguided, but their 
     political judgment was wrong. All of us, of course, know that 
     as fallible human beings we all make errors of judgment.


        possibility of making u.s. institutions work effectively

       I think it is helpful to try to put it in perspective and 
     not lose confidence in the basically good motives and 
     purposes of this country. I believe in the possibility of 
     making our institutions work effectively. I think they can be 
     made responsive to the welfare of the people and to proper 
     judgments. I only throw this out because I have a feeling 
     that because of the unusual horror that has developed from 
     this war too many people may lose confidence in our system as 
     a whole. I know of no better system for a country as large as 
     this, with 200-plus millions of people. No other country 
     comparable to it in history has ever made a democratic system 
     work.
       They have all become dictatorships when they have achieved 
     the size and complexity of this country. Only smaller 
     countries really have made a democratic system work at all.
       So I only wish to throw it out hopefully that, in spite of 
     the tragic experiences of you and so many other people and 
     the deaths of so many people, this system is not beyond 
     recall and with the assistance of people like yourself and 
     the younger generation we can get back on the track, and can 
     make this system operate effectively.
       I know that the idea of working within the system has been 
     used so much, and many people have lost confidence that it 
     can be done. They wish to destroy the system, to start all 
     over, but I don't think in the history of human experience 
     that those destructions of systems work. They usually destroy 
     everything good as well as bad, and you have an awful lot of 
     doing to recreate the good part and to get started again.
       So I am very hopeful that the younger generation--and I am 
     certainly getting at the end of my generation because I have 
     been here an awfully long time--but that you younger people 
     can find it possible to accept the system and try to make it 
     work because I can't at the moment think of a better one 
     given the conditions that we have in this country and the 
     great complexity and diversity.
       I really believe if we can stop this war--I certainly 
     expect to do everything I can. I have done all I can with all 
     my limitations. I am sure many people have thought I could do 
     bettor, but I did all that I was capable of doing and what 
     wisdom I may have has been applied to it. I hope that you and 
     your colleagues will feel the same way or at least you will 
     accept the structure of the system and try to make it work. I 
     can see no better alternative to offer in its place.
       If I thought there was one, I would certainly propose it or 
     try.


                   can basic system be made to work?

       Have you yourself arrived at the point where you believe 
     that basic structural changes must be brought about in our 
     system or do you believe it can be made to work?
       Mr. Kerry. I don't think I would be here if I didn't 
     believe that it can be made to work, but I would have to say, 
     and one of the traits of my generation now is that people 
     don't pretend to speak for other people in it, and

[[Page 7488]]

     I can only speak as an individual about it, but I would say 
     that I have certainly been frustrated in the past months, 
     very, very seriously frustrated. I have gone to businessmen 
     all over this country asking for money for fees, and met with 
     a varying range of comments, ranging from ``You can't sell 
     war crimes'' to, ``War crimes are a glut on the market'' or 
     to ``well, you know we are tired now, we have tried, we can't 
     do anything.'' So I have seen unresponsiveness on the racial 
     question in this country. I see an unwillingness on the part 
     of too many of the members of this body to respond, to take 
     gutsy stands, to face questions other than their own 
     reelection, to make a profile of courage, and I am--although 
     still with faith--very, very, very full of doubt, and I am 
     not going to quit. But I think that unless we can respond on 
     as a great a question as the war, I seriously question how we 
     are going to find the kind of response needed to meet 
     questions such as poverty and hunger and questions such as 
     birth control and so many of the things that face our society 
     today from low income housing to schooling, to recent 
     reaction to the Supreme Court's decision on busing.
       But I will say that I think we are going to keep trying. I 
     also agree with you, Senator. I don't see another system 
     other than democracy, but democracy has to remain responsive. 
     When it does not, you create the possibilities for all kinds 
     of other systems to supplant it, and that very possibility, I 
     think, is beginning to exist in this country.
       The Chairman. That is why I ask you that. The feeling that 
     it cannot be made responsive comes not so much from what you 
     have said but from many different sources. I can assure you I 
     have been frustrated too. We have lost most of our major 
     efforts. That is we have not succeeded in getting enough 
     votes, but there has been a very marked increase, I think, in 
     the realization of the seriousness of the war. I think you 
     have to keep in perspective, as I say, the size and 
     complexity of the country itself and the difficulties of 
     communication. This war is so far removed. The very fact, as 
     you have said, you do not believe what happens there to be in 
     the vital interests of this country, has from the beginning 
     caused many people to think it wasn't so important.


            gradual development of concern about vietnam war

       In the beginning, back in the times that I mentioned when 
     we first supported the French and throughout the 1950's up 
     until the 1960's, this whole matter was not very much on the 
     minds of anybody in the Congress. We were more preoccupied 
     with what was going on in Western Europe, the fear, 
     particularly during Stalin's time, that lie might be able to 
     subjugate all of Western Europe, which would have been a very 
     serious challenge to us. This grew up almost as a peripheral 
     matter without anyone taking too much notice until the 
     1960's. The major time when the Congress, I think, really 
     became concerned about the significance of the war was really 
     not before 1965, the big escalation. It was a very minor 
     sideshow in all the things in which this country was involved 
     until February of 1965. That was when it became a matter 
     that, you might say, warranted and compelled the attention of 
     the country. It has been a gradual development of our 
     realization of just what we were into.
       As I said before, I think this came about not because of 
     bad motives but by very serious errors in political judgment 
     as to where our interest lies and what should be done about 
     it.
       I am only saying this Hopefully to at least try to enlist 
     your consideration, of the view that in a country of this 
     kind I don't believe there is a better alternative from a 
     structural point of view. I think the structure of our 
     Government is sound.
       To go back to my own State certainly, leaving out now the 
     war, its affairs are being well managed. The people are, as 
     you may say, maybe too indifferent to this.
       Mr. Kerry. As it does in Massachusetts, too.
       The Chairman. I have often thought they were too 
     indifferent to it, but they have responded to the arguments 
     as to where our interest lies quite well, at least from my 
     personal experience. Otherwise I would not be here. But I 
     think there is a gradual recognition of this.


          war's interference with dealing with other problems

       I also feel that if we could finish the war completely 
     within the reasonably near future, as some of the proposals 
     before this committee are designed to do if we can pass them, 
     I think the country can right itself and get back on the 
     track, in a reasonably quick time, dealing with the problems 
     you mentioned. We are aware and conscious of all of them.
       The thing that has inhibited us in doing things about what 
     ,you mention has been the war. It has been the principal 
     obstacle to dealing with these other problems with which you 
     are very concerned, as, I think, the Congress is. Always we 
     are faced with the demands of the war itself. Do you realize 
     that this country has put well over $1,000 billion into 
     military affairs since World War II?
       I think it now approaches $1,500 billion. It is a sum so 
     large no one can comprehend it, but I don't think outside of 
     this war issue there is anything fundamentally wrong with the 
     system that cannot be righted.
       If we can give our resources to those developments, I don't 
     have any doubt myself that it can be done. Whether it will be 
     done or not is a matter of will. It is a matter of conviction 
     of the various people who are involved, including the younger 
     generation.
       In that connection, I may say, the recent enactment of the 
     right of all people from 18 years up to vote is at least a 
     step in the direction where you and your generation can have 
     an effect.
       I hope that you won't lose faith in it. I hope you will use 
     your talents after the war is over, and it surely will be 
     over, to then attack these other problems and to make the 
     system work.
       I believe it can be made to work.
       Do you have anything else you would like to say?
       Mr. Kerry. Would you like me to respond at all, sir?
       The Chairman. If you care to.
       Mr. Kerry. Well, my feeling is that if you are talking 
     about the ideal structure of this country as it is written 
     down in the Constitution, then you or I would not differ at 
     all. Yes, that is an ideal structure.


      developments in united states requiring fundamental changes

       What has developed in this country, however, at this point 
     is something quite different and that does require some 
     fundamental changes. I do agree with you that what happened 
     in Vietnam was not the product of evil men seeking evil 
     goals. It was misguided principles and judgments and other 
     things.
       However, at some point you have to stop playing the game. 
     At some point you have to say, ``All right we did make a 
     mistake.'' At some point the basic human values have to come 
     back into this system and at this moment we are so built up 
     within it by these outside structures, other interests, for 
     instance, government by vested power which, in fact, you and 
     I really know it is. When a minority body comes down here to 
     Washington with a bill, those bodies which have the funds and 
     the ability to lobby are those which generally get it passed. 
     If you wanted to pass a health care medical bill, which we 
     have finally perhaps gotten to this year, we may, but in past 
     years the AMA has been able to come down here and squash 
     them. The American Legion has successfully prevented people 
     like Vietnam Veterans against the War from getting their 
     programs through the Veterans' Administration. Those bodies 
     in existence have tremendous power.
       There is one other body that has tremendous power in this 
     country, which is a favorite topic of Vice President Agnew 
     and I would take some agreement with him. That would be the 
     fourth estate. The press. I think the very reason that we 
     veterans are here today is the result partially of our 
     inability to get our story out through the legitimate 
     channels.
       That is to say, for instance, I held a press conference 
     here in Washington, D.C., some weeks ago with General Shoup, 
     with General Hester, with the mother of a prisoner of war, 
     the wife of a man who was killed, the mother of a soldier who 
     was killed, and with a bilateral amputee, all representing 
     the so-called silent majority, the silent so-called majority 
     which the President used to perpetuate the war, and because 
     it was a press conference and an antiwar conference and 
     people simply exposing ideas we had no electronic media 
     there.
       I called the media afterward and asked them why and the 
     answer was, from one of the networks, it doesn't have to be 
     identified, ``because, sir, news business is really partly 
     entertainment business visually, you see, and a press 
     conference like that is not visual.''
       Of course, we don't have the position of power to get our 
     ideas out, I said, ``If I take-some crippled veterans down to 
     the White House and we chain ourselves to the gates, will we 
     get coverage?'' ``Oh, yes, we will cover that.''
       So you are reduced to a position where the only way you can 
     get your ideas out is to stage events, because had we not 
     staged the events with all due respect, Senator, and I really 
     appreciate the fact that I am here obviously, and I know you 
     are committed to this, but with all due respect I probably 
     wouldn't be sitting at this table. You see this is the 
     problem.
       It goes beyond that. We really have a constitutional crisis 
     in this country right now. The Constitution under test, and 
     we are failing. We are failing clearly because the power of 
     the Executive has became exorbitant, because Congress has not 
     wanted to exercise its own power, and so that is going to 
     require some very fundamental changes.
       So the system itself on paper, no, it is a question of 
     making it work, and in that I would agree with you, and I 
     think that things are changing in a sense. I think the 
     victory of the ABM was a tremendous boost.
       The Chairman. SST.
       Mr. Kerry. SST, excuse me.
       The Chairman. I hope the ABM.
       [Applause.]
       Mr. Kerry. Wrong system.
       I think the fact that certain individuals are in Congress 
     today, particularly in the

[[Page 7489]]

     House, who several years ago could never have been. I would 
     cite Representative Dellums and Congresswoman Abzug and 
     Congressman Drinan and people like this. I think this is a 
     terribly encouraging sign, and I think if nothing more, and 
     this is really sad poetic justice, if nothing more, this war 
     when it is over, will ultimately probably have done more to 
     awaken the conscience of this country than any other similar 
     thing. It may in fact be the thing that will set us on the 
     right road.
       I earnestly hope so and I join you in that.
       But meanwhile, I think we still need that extraordinary 
     response to the problem that exists and I hope that we will 
     get it.


       IMPACT OF VIETNAM WAR AND OTHERS ON CONSTITUTIONAL BALANCE

       The Chairman. I am glad to hear you say that. I have the 
     same feeling. But you must remember we have been through 
     nearly 30 years of warfare or cold war or crises which I 
     think have upset the balance, as you say, in our 
     constitutional system. Senator Javits has introduced a bill 
     with regard to the war powers in an effort to reestablish 
     what we believe to be the constitutional system in which you 
     say you have confidence. I introduced and we passed a 
     commitments resolution. There are a number of others. I won't 
     relate them all, but they are all designed to try to bring 
     back into proper relationship the various elements in our 
     Government. This effort is being made.
       I think the culprit is the war itself. The fact we had been 
     at war, not just the Vietnam war but others too, diverted the 
     attention of our people from our domestic concerns and 
     certainly eroded the role of the Congress. Under the impact 
     of this and other wars we have allowed this distortion to 
     develop. If we can end the war, there is no good reason why 
     it cannot be corrected.


                    REPRESENTATION OF CONSTITUENCIES

       You mentioned some new faces in the Congress. After all, 
     all these people get here because of the support back home, 
     as you know. They are simply representative of their 
     constituents. You do accept that, I believe.
       Mr. Kerry. Partially, not totally.
       The Chairman. Why not?
       Mr. Kerry. As someone who ran for office for 3\1/2\ weeks, 
     I am aware of many of the problems involved, and in many 
     places, you can take certain districts in New York City, the 
     structure is such that people can't really run and represent 
     necessarily the people. People often don't care. The apathy 
     is so great that they believe they are being represented when 
     in fact they are not. I think that you and I could run 
     through a list of people in this body itself and find many 
     who are there through the powers of the office itself as 
     opposed to the fact they are truly representing the people. 
     It is very easy to give the illusion of representing the 
     people through the frank privileges which allow you to send 
     back what you are doing here in Congress. Congressman insert 
     so often.
       You know, they gave a speech for the Polish and they gave a 
     speech for the Irish and they gave a speech for this, and 
     actually handed the paper in to the clerk and the clerk 
     submits it for the record and a copy of the record goes home 
     and people say, ``Hey, he really is doing something for me.'' 
     But he isn't.
       The Chairman. Well----
       Mr. Kerry. Senator, we also know prior to this past year 
     the House used to meet in the Committee of the Whole and the 
     Committee of the Whole would make the votes, and votes not of 
     record and people would file through, and important 
     legislation was decided then, and after the vote came out and 
     after people made their hacks and cuts, and the porkbarrel 
     came out, the vote was reported and gave them an easy out and 
     they could say ``Well, I voted against this.'' And actually 
     they voted for it all the time in the committee.
       Some of us know that this is going on. So I would say there 
     are problems with it. Again I come back and say they are not 
     insoluble. They can be solved, but they can only be solved by 
     demanding leadership, the same kind of leadership that we 
     have seen in some countries during war time. That seems to be 
     the few times we get it. If we could get that kind because I 
     think we are in a constant war against ourselves and I would 
     like to see that come--they should demand it of each other if 
     we can demand it of people.
       The Chairman. Take the two cases of what goes on in the 
     House about the secret votes. That is not a structural aspect 
     of our Government. That is a regulation or whatever you call 
     it of the procedures in the House itself.


                    NECESSITY OF INFORMED ELECTORATE

       Fundamentally you said that the people can bamboozle their 
     constituents; they can fool them. Of course, that is quite 
     true of any system of a representative nature. The solution 
     to that is to inform the electorate itself to the extent that 
     they recognize a fraud or a phony when they have one. This is 
     not easy to do, but it is fundamental in a democracy. If you 
     believe in a democratic system, the electorate who elect the 
     representatives have to have sufficient capacity for 
     discrimination. They have to be able to tell the difference 
     between a phony, someone who simply puts pieces in the 
     record, and someone who actually does something, so that they 
     can recognize it in an election, if they are interested.
       Now if they are apathetic, as you say they are apathetic, 
     and don't care, then democracy cannot work if they continue 
     to be apathetic and don't care who represents them. This 
     comes back to a fundamental question of education through all 
     different resources, not only the formal education but the 
     use of the media and other means to educate them. Our 
     Founding Fathers recognized that you couldn't have a 
     democracy without an informed electorate. It comes back to 
     the informing of the electorate; doesn't it? That is not a 
     structural deficiency in our system. You are dealing now with 
     the deficiencies of human nature, the failure of their 
     education and their capacity for discrimination in the 
     selection of their representatives.
       I recognize this is difficult. All countries have had this 
     same problem and so long as they have a representative system 
     this has to be met. But there is no reason why it cannot be 
     met.
       A structural change does not affect the capacity of the 
     electorate to choose good representatives; does it?


                       COST OF ELECTION CAMPAIGNS

       Mr. Kerry. Well, no, sir; except for the fact that to run 
     for representative in any populated area costs about $50,000. 
     Many people simply don't have that available, and. in order 
     to. get it inevitably wind up with their hands tied.
       The Chairman. That is a common statement, but we had an 
     example during this last year of a man being elected because 
     he walked through Florida with a minimum of money. As he 
     became attractive to the people he may have received more, 
     but he started without money. You are familiar with Mr. 
     Chiles.
       Mr. Kerry. Yes, I am familiar. I understand it.
       The Chairman. I know in my own state, our Governor started 
     without any money or with just himself and came from nowhere 
     and defeated a Rockefeller. So it is not true that you have 
     to have a lot of money to get elected. If you have the other 
     things that it takes, personality, the determination and the 
     intelligence, it is still possible. ``There were other 
     examples, but those are well known. I don't think it is 
     correct to say you have to have a lot of money. It helps, of 
     course. It makes it easier and all that, but it isn't 
     essential. I think you can cite many examples where that is 
     true.


          Essential Question will be response to Vietnam issue

       Mr. Kerry. Senator, I would basically agree with what you 
     are saying and obviously we could find exceptions to parts of 
     everything everywhere and I understand really the essential 
     question is going to be the response to the issue of Vietnam.
       The Chairman. I agree with that. I can assure you that this 
     committee and, certainly, I are going to do everything we 
     can. That is what these hearings are about. It is lust by 
     coincidence you came to Washington in the very midst of them. 
     We only opened these hearings on Tuesday of this week. I 
     personally believe that the great majority of all the people 
     of this country are in accord with your desire, and certainly 
     mine, to get the war over at the earliest possible moment. 
     All we are concerned with at the moment is the best procedure 
     to bring that about, the procedure to persuade the President 
     to take the steps that will bring that about. I for one have 
     more hope now than I had at any time in the last 6 years 
     because of several things you have mentioned. I think there 
     is a very good chance that it will be brought about in the. 
     reasonably near future.


            commendation of vietnam veterans against the war

       I think you and your associates have contributed a great 
     deal in the actions you have taken. As I said in the 
     beginning, the fact that you have shown both great conviction 
     and patience about this matter and at the same time conducted 
     yourself in the most commendable manner has been the most 
     effective demonstration, if I may use that word. Although you 
     have demonstrated in the sense that has become disapproved of 
     in some circles, I think you have demonstrated in the most 
     proper way and the most effective way to bring about the 
     results that you wish and I believe you have made a great 
     contribution.
       I apologize. I am not trying to lecture you about our 
     Government. I have just been disturbed, not so much by you as 
     by other things that have happened, that the younger 
     generation has lost faith in our system. I don't think it is 
     correct. I think the paranoia to which you referred has been 
     true. It arose at a time when there was reason for it 
     perhaps, but we have long since gone out of that time, and I 
     think your idea of timing is correct. But I congratulate you 
     and thank you very much for coming. [Applause.]
       Senator Symington would like to ask a question.
       Senator Symington. Yes. Mr. Kerry I had to leave because we 
     are marking up the selective service bill in the Armed 
     Services Committee. But I will read the record.


     Attitude of Servicemen Toward Congressional Opposition to War

       The staff has a group of questions here, four of which I 
     would ask. Over the years

[[Page 7490]]

     members of this committee who spoke out in opposition to the 
     war were often accused of stabbing our boys in the back. 
     What, in your opinion, is the attitude of servicemen in 
     Vietnam about congressional opposition to the war?
       Mr. Kerry. If I could answer that, it is very difficult, 
     Senator, because I just know, I don't want to get into the 
     game of saying I represent everybody over there, but let me 
     try to say, as straightforwardly as I can, we had an 
     advertisement, ran full page, to show you what the troops 
     read. It ran in Playboy and the response to it within two and 
     a half weeks from Vietnam was 1,200 members. We received 
     initially about 50 to 80 letters a day from troops there. We 
     now receive about 20 letters a day from troops arriving at 
     our New York office. Some of these letters--and I wanted to 
     bring some down, I didn't know we were going to be testifying 
     here and I can make them available to you--are very, very 
     moving, some of them written by hospital corpsmen on things, 
     on casualty report sheets which say, you know, ``Get us out 
     of here.'' ``You are the only hope we have got.'' ``You have 
     got to get us back; it is crazy.'' We received recently 80 
     members of the 101st Airborne signed up in one letter. Forty 
     members from a helicopter assault squadron, crash and rescue 
     mission signed up in another one.
       I think they are expressing, some of these troops, 
     solidarity with us, right now by wearing black arm bands and 
     Vietnam Veterans Against the War buttons. They want to come 
     out and I think they are looking at the people who want to 
     try to get them out as a help.
       However, I do recognize there are some men who are in the 
     military for life. The job in the military is to fight wars. 
     When they have a war to fight, they are just as happy in a 
     sense, and I am sure that these men feel they are being 
     stabbed in the back. But, at the same time, I think to most 
     of them the realization of the emptiness, the hollowness, the 
     absurdity of Vietnam has finally hit home, and I feel if they 
     did come home the recrimination would certainly not come from 
     the right, from the military. I don't think there would be 
     that problem.
       Senator Symington. Thank you.
       Has the fact Congress has never passed a declaration of war 
     undermined the morale of U.S. servicemen in Vietnam, to the 
     best of your knowledge?
       Mr. Kerry. Yes; it has clearly and to a great, great 
     extent.


               USE OF DRUGS BY U.S. SERVICEMEN IN VIETNAM

       Senator Symington. There have been many reports of 
     widespread use of drugs by U.S. servicemen in Vietnam. I 
     might add I was in Europe last week and the growth of that 
     problem was confirmed on direct questioning of people in the 
     military. How serious is the problem and to what do you 
     attribute it?
       Mr. Kerry. The problem is extremely serious. It is serious 
     in very many different ways. I believe two Congressmen today 
     broke a story. I can't remember their names. There were 
     35,000 or some men, heroin addicts that were back.
       The problem exists for a number of reasons, not the least 
     of which is the emptiness. It is the only way to get through 
     it. A lot of guys, 60, 80 percent stay stoned 24 hours a day 
     just to get through the Vietnam----
       Senator Symington. You say 60 to 80 percent.
       Mr. Kerry. Sixty to 80 percent is the figure used that try 
     something, let's say, at one point. Of that I couldn't give 
     you a figure of habitual smokers, let's say, of pot, and I 
     certainly couldn't begin to say how many are hard drug 
     addicts, but I do know that the problem for the returning 
     veteran is acute because we have, let's say, a veteran picks 
     up a $12 habit in Saigon. He comes back to this country and 
     the moment he steps off an airplane that same habit costs him 
     some $90 to support. With the state of the economy, he can't 
     get a job. He doesn't earn money. He turns criminal or just 
     finds his normal sources and in a sense drops out.
       The alienation of the war, the emptiness of back and forth, 
     all combined adds to this. There is no real drug 
     rehabilitation program. I know the VA hospital in New York 
     City has 20 beds allocated for drug addicts; 168 men are on 
     the waiting list, and I really don't know what a drug addict 
     does on the waiting list.
       And just recently the same hospital gave three wards to New 
     York University for research purposes.
       It is very, very widespread. It is a very serious problem. 
     I think that this Congress should undertake to investigate 
     the sources because I heard many implications of Madam Ky and 
     others being involved in the traffic and I think there are 
     some very serious things here at stake.
       Senator Symington. In the press there was a woman reporter. 
     I think her name was Emerson. In any case she stated she 
     bought drugs six or nine times openly, heroin, in a 15-mile 
     walk from Saigon. The article had a picture of a child with a 
     parasol and a parrot. She said this child was one of the 
     people from whom she had bought, herself, these drugs and 
     that the cost of the heroin was from $3 to $6.
       If we are over there, in effect, protecting the Thieu-Ky 
     government, why is it that this type and character of sale of 
     drugs to anybody, including our own servicemen, can't be 
     controlled?
       Mr. Kerry. It is not controllable in this country. Why 
     should it be controllable in that country?
       Senator Symington. It isn't quite that open in this 
     country, do you think?
       Mr. Kerry. It depends on where you are. [Applause.]
       Senator Symington. We are talking about heroin, not pot, or 
     LSD.
       Mr. Kerry. I understand that, but if you walk up 116th 
     Street in Harlem I am sure somebody can help you out pretty 
     fast. [Laughter.]


       accuracy of information through official military channels

       Senator Symington. Mr. Kerry, from your experience in 
     Vietnam do you think it is possible for the President or 
     Congress to get accurate and undistorted information through 
     official military channels.
       (Shouts of ``No.'' from the audience.)
       Mr. Kerry. I don't know----
       Senator Symington. I am beginning to think you have some 
     supporters here.
       Mr. Kerry. I don't know where they came from, sir, maybe 
     Vietnam.
       I had direct experience with that. Senator, I had direct 
     experience with that and I can recall often sending in the 
     spot reports which we made after each mission and including 
     the GDA, gunfire damage assessments, in which we would say, 
     maybe 15 sampans sunk or whatever it was. And I often read 
     about my own missions in the Stars and Stripes and the very 
     mission we had been on had been doubled in figures and 
     tripled in figures.
       The intelligence missions themselves are based on very, 
     very flimsy information. Several friends of mine were 
     intelligence officers and I think you should have them in 
     sometime to testify. Once in Saigon I was visiting this 
     friend of mine and he gave me a complete rundown on how the 
     entire intelligence system should be re-set up on all of its 
     problems, namely, that you give a young guy a certain amount 
     of money, he goes out, sets up his own contacts under the 
     table, gets intelligence, comes in. It is not reliable; 
     everybody is feeding each other double intelligence, and I 
     think that is what comes back to this country.
       I also think men in the military, sir, as do men in many 
     other things, have a tendency to report what they want to 
     report and see what they want to see. And this is a very 
     serious thing because I know on several visits--Secretary 
     Laird came to Vietnam once and they staged an entire invasion 
     for him. When the initial force at Dang Tam, it was the 9th 
     Infantry when it was still there--when the initial recon 
     platoon went out and met with resistance, they changed the 
     entire operation the night before and sent them down into the 
     South China Seas so they would not run into resistance and 
     the Secretary would have a chance to see how smoothly the war 
     was going.
       I know General Wheeler came over at one point and a major 
     in Saigon escorted him around. General Wheeler went out to 
     the field and saw 12 pacification leaders and asked about 10 
     of them how things were going and they all said, ``It is 
     really going pretty badly.'' The 11th one said, ``It couldn't 
     be better, General. We are really doing the thing here to win 
     the war.'' And the General said, ``I am finally glad to find 
     somebody who knows what he is talking about.'' (Laughter.)
       This is the kind of problem that you have. I think that the 
     intelligence which finally reaches the White House does have 
     serious problems with it in that I think you know full well, 
     I know certainly from my experience, I served as aide to an 
     admiral in my last days in the Navy before I was discharged, 
     and I have seen exactly what the response is up the echelon, 
     the chain of command, and how things get distorted and people 
     say to the man above him what is needed to be said, to keep 
     everybody happy, and so I don't--I think the entire thing is 
     distorted.
       It is just a rambling answer.
       Senator Symington. How do you think this could be changed?
       Mr. Kerry. I have never really given that aspect of it all 
     that much thought. I wish I had this intelligence officer 
     with me. He is a very intelligent young man.


                 reporting of vietnam war in the press

       Senator Symington. There has been considerable criticism of 
     the war's reporting by the press and news media. What are 
     your thoughts on that?
       Mr. Kerry. On that I could definitely comment. I think the 
     press has been extremely negligent in reporting. At one point 
     and at the same time they have not been able to report 
     because the Government of this country has not allowed them 
     to. I went to Saigon to try to report. We were running 
     missions in the Mekong Delta. We were running raids through 
     these rivers on an operation called Sealord and we thought it 
     was absurd.
       We didn't have helicopter cover often. We seldom had jet 
     aircraft cover. We were out of artillery range. We would go 
     in with two quarter-inch aluminum hull boats and get shot at 
     and never secure territory or anything except to quote 
     Admiral Zumwalt to show the American flag and prove to the 
     Vietcong they don't own the rivers. We found they did own 
     them with 60 percent casualties and we thought this was 
     absurd.

[[Page 7491]]

       I went to Saigon and told this to a member of the news 
     bureau there and I said, ``Look, you have got to tell the 
     American people this story.'' The response was, ``Well, I 
     can't write that kind of thing. I can't criticize that much 
     because if I do I would lose my accreditation, and we have to 
     be very careful about just how much we say and when.''
       We are holding a press conference today, as a matter of 
     fact, at the National Press Building--it might be going on at 
     this minute--in which public information officers who are 
     members of our group, and former Army reporters, are going to 
     testify to direct orders of censorship in which they had to 
     take out certain pictures, phrases they couldn't use and so 
     on down the line and, in fact, the information they gave 
     newsmen and directions they gave newsmen when an operation 
     was going on when the military didn't want the press informed 
     on what was going on they would offer them transportation to 
     go someplace else, there is something else happened and they 
     would fly a guy 55 miles from where the operation was. So the 
     war has not been reported correctly.
       I know from a reporter of Time--showed the massacre of 150 
     Cambodians, these were South Vietnamese troops that did it, 
     but there were American advisers present and he couldn't even 
     get other newsmen to get it out let alone his own magazine, 
     which doesn't need to be named here. So it is a terrible 
     problem, and I think that really it is a question of the 
     Government allowing free ideas to be exchanged and if it is 
     going to fight a war then fight it correctly. The only people 
     who can prevent My Lais are the press and if there is 
     something to hide perhaps we shouldn't be there in the first 
     place.
       Senator Symington. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
       [Applause.]


        request for letters sent to vietnam veterans against war

       The Chairman. With regard to the letters you have 
     mentioned, I wondered about them. I have received a great 
     many letters, but usually particularly in those from Vietnam, 
     the men would say that they would not like me to use them or 
     use their names for fear of retaliation. Of course, I 
     respected their request. If you have those letters, it might 
     be interesting, if you would like to, and if the writer has 
     no objection, to submit them for the record which would be 
     for the information of the committee.


                   changing mood of troops in vietnam

       Mr. Kerry. Senator, I would like to add a comment on that. 
     You see the mood is changing over there and a search and 
     destroy mission is a search and avoid mission, and troops 
     don't--you know, like that revolt that took place that was 
     mentioned in the New York Times when they refused to go in 
     after a piece of dead machinery, because it didn't have any 
     value. They are making their own judgments.
       There is a GI movement in this country now as well as over 
     there, and soon these people, these men, who are prescribing 
     wars for these young men to fight are going to find out they 
     are going to have to find some other men to fight them 
     because we are going to change prescriptions. They are going 
     to have to change doctors, because we are not going to fight 
     for them. That is what they are going to realize. There is 
     now a more militant attitude even within the military itself, 
     among these soldiers evidenced by the advertisements recently 
     in the New York Times in which members of the First Air 
     Cavalry publicly signed up and said, ``We would march on the 
     24th if we could be there, but we can't because we are in 
     Vietnam.'' Those men are subject obviously to some kind of 
     discipline, but people are beginning to be willing to submit 
     to that. And I would just say, yes, I would like to enter the 
     letters in testimony when I can get hold of them and I think 
     you are going to see this will be a continuing thing.
       (As of the date of publication the information referred to 
     had not been received.)
       The Chairman. If you would like to we can incorporate some 
     of them in the record.


          DOCUMENTARY ENTITLED ``THE SELLING OF THE PENTAGON''

       This is inspired by your reply to the Senator from 
     Missouri's question. Did you happen to see a documentary 
     called, ``The Selling of the Pentagon''?
       Mr. Kerry. Yes, I did. I thought it was the most powerful 
     and persuasive and helpful documentary in recent years.
       The Chairman. But you know what happened to CBS? They have 
     been pilloried by the----
       Mr. Kerry. They are doing all right.
       The Chairman. You think they can defend themselves?
       Mr. Kerry. I think they have; yes sir. I think the public 
     opinion in this country, believes that, ``The Selling of the 
     Pentagon.'' I was a public information officer before I went 
     to Vietnam, and I know that those things were just the way 
     they said because I conducted several of those tours on a 
     ship, and I have seen my own men wait hours until people got 
     away, and I have seen cooks put on special uniforms for them.
       I have seen good food come out for the visitors and 
     everything else. It really happens.
       The Chairman. The Senator from New York has returned. Would 
     he care to ask a question?


           RESOLUTION CONCERNING VIETNAM VETERANS' ENCAMPMENT

       Senator Javits. I don't want to delay either the witness or 
     the committee. Senator Case was tied up on the floor on your 
     resolution on the encampment and the expected occurred, of 
     course. It has gone to the calendar.
       Senator Symington. If you will yield, Senator. I have to 
     preside at 1 o'clock. I thank you for your testimony.
       Mr. Kerry. Thank you, Senator. [Applause.]
       Senator Javits. It has gone to the calendar but I think the 
     point has been very well made by, I think, the total number 
     of sponsors. There were some 27 Senators.


                          WITNESS' CREDENTIALS

       Senator Case was kind enough to express my view. I wish to 
     associate myself with the statement Senator Symington made 
     when I was here as to your credentials. That is what we 
     always think about with a witness and your credentials 
     couldn't be higher.
       The moral and morale issues you have raised will have to be 
     finally acted upon by the committee. I think it always fires 
     us to a deeper sense of emergency and dedication when we hear 
     from a young man like yourself in what we know to be the 
     reflection of the attitude of so many others who have served 
     in a way which the American people so clearly understand. It 
     is not as effective unless you have those credentials. The 
     kind you have.
       The only other thing I would like to add is this:


                        EVALUATION OF TESTIMONY

       I hope you will understand me and I think you will agree 
     with me. Your testimony about what you know and what you see, 
     how you feel and how your colleagues feel, is entitled to the 
     highest standing and priority. When it comes to the bits and 
     pieces of information, you know, like you heard that Madam Ky 
     is associated with the sale of narcotics or some other guy 
     got a good meal, I hope you will understand as Senators and 
     evaluators of testimony we have to take that in the context 
     of many other things, but I couldn't think of anybody whose 
     testimony I would rather have and act on from the point of 
     view of what this is doing to our young men we are sending 
     over there, how they feel about it, what the impact is on the 
     conscience of a country, what the impact is on even the 
     future of the military services from the point of view of the 
     men who served, than your own.
       Thank you very much.
       Mr. Kerry. Thank you, Senator. [Applause.]
       The Chairman. Mr. Kerry, I am sure you can sense the 
     committee members appreciate very much your coming. Do you 
     have anything further to say before we recess?


                       EXPRESSION OF APPRECIATION

       Mr. Kerry. No, sir; I would just like to say on behalf of 
     the Vietnam Veterans Against the War that we do appreciate 
     the efforts made by the Senators to put that resolution on 
     the floor, to help us, help us in their offices in the event 
     we were arrested and particularly for the chance to express 
     the thoughts that I have put forward today. I appreciate it.
       The Chairman. You have certainly done a remarkable job of 
     it. I can't imagine their having selected a better 
     representative or spokesman.
       Thank you very much. [Applause.]
       (Whereupon, at 1 p.m. the committee was adjourned subject 
     to the call of the Chair.)

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