Revolution: 20th century phenomenon; #10 (Reel 2)

He was constitutionally elected. He had the support of the United States. He ran a an effective government a good government. He had as far as his survival was concerned however one failing he insisted that the Communists were not going to take over South Vietnam and he mobilized the country in a defense against the communists in 1963 he was winning this war. But at that time the State Department again insisted that that be the equivalent of this coalition government they called it the neutralization of North Vietnam and South Vietnam North Vietnam and South Vietnam together and again to put pressure on DMN to go along on this. At that time we were trying to work out a great accommodation with the Soviets on the world basis and that the only friction point. One of the few friction points where there was fighting between the two great forces was in Viet Nam and the pressures on DMN to give way to this coalition type government to the neutralization

of North and South were enormous. And when he refused to go along then as you know the United States to which shame intervened starting in the August 1963 and topple the DMN regime it worked with a group of generals a clique of generals led by a man named Big men they worked with him encouraged him United States ambassador on the scene worked hard to bring down the the DMN government and the DMN government was brought down and something which I don't think people expected at all big men went on to assassinate President DMN and his brother in law knew that terrible void was created. So we eliminated DMN because DMN stood in the way of this coalition government between North and South Viet Nam. Down he went. But when he went down I noticed how the parallel continues when he went down

a void was created. Up until that point the war in Viet Nam was a Vietnamese War and the South Vietnamese were winning. When we eliminated Dmn it was not only DMN in Saigon but his administrators all over the country void was created on two of those great advisors. Brother Diego has come to our campus and told us these things. Journal of Paul Hawkins has come to the campus of the University of Plano he was Westmoreland's predecessor. I see that Ambassador noting made his speech your first speech after having left being ambassador to South Vietnam or during this period he spoke out and said the same things they were warned the Americans. By doing this you are creating a void this is going to be filled by American boys two and three years from now because the whole war was then transformed from a Vietnamese war to an American war.

That's the cause of it. General Ambassador non-voting said the other day and to his credit President Johnson was one of the few people Embassador knotting said who counseled the late president against are intervening against GM. But you see what happened there when we tried to get a coalition government again and now we're in the mess that we're in today. You see what we've done. We've allowed that we've allowed the communists to build up their forces and now it's said that the United States can't defeat a fourth rate power. That's not the fact of the matter at all. The military power in Vietnam is Russian. It's Russian and Russian artillery it's Russian missiles it's Russian hardware military hardware it's Russian tanks and it's the terrain that these people have built up the

anti-aircraft environment over Hanoi and Haiphong is the most deadly that the world I've ever seen. The joint Senate committee again unanimously came up with a report saying that we have allowed we have allowed the Soviets the USSR to build up a mighty force. Now if it's going to be dislodged will have to be at the price of growing many American lives and our whole disposition is not to bring victory over there but to achieve some kind of a settlement settlement that at this point seems almost impossible to attain. The plight today in nature is a difficult one. It's a seemingly hopeless one and it's it's one that has been brought about by our not keeping our eye on the basic underlying causes of the war in Asia such as the threat to the peace in Asia. I say let's get back to the original

situation. We went to war in 1941 to preserve the open door policy in China. We went to war in order to stand by our ally free China Free China won the war. The United Nations came into being with all these exciting concepts and the whole thing is built around these regional pacts with the idea that the Republic of China is to be the force that has to have the reply responsibility for solving the peace in Asia for keeping the peace in Asia. I go to the far east as often as I can. I was recent trip was was in January. It is my judgment and here I am not speaking authoritatively but I am recounting these events in the post-war period as they say for the most part reported on the unanimous conclusions of the United States Senate in its damage surveys are now going to express some personal judgments. The free Chinese have a very

very powerful military force today. Their army is in excess of six hundred thousand troops its very well trained. The American observers who have worked with the free Chinese have told me that the esprit de corps is a tremendous 100000 of these troops already on mainland China and they say already on mainland China rights big principly of the little island of the little islands of calm or wild free China occupies these forces they are completely inoperable as far as Red China is concerned. The ports are controlled by the free Chinese. There can be no invasion against Camorra against Formosa mounted against either one of these two our two great ports. As long as the free Chinese forces occupy these isles. If there is going to be an invasion would have to be from Shanghai and of course the the the Spanish so great that the United States Seventh Fleet could well intervene

and cut down any attacking force which is not the case. If an invasion were mounted from the port of amyloid which is directly opposite for most or and for most and Straits measure I believe about 90 miles. So you see it's very important one defensively that the free Chinese should occupy these islands but also these are now stepping stones to the return of China to China where he can implement his rightful sovereignty over the mainland of China. There are today something like six or seven hundred million Chinese. The last time there was no election President won overwhelmingly. He has legal authority he has the seat in the United Nations so the question is how are we going to give him the responsibility. But we talk from President PM back in 1963. I'm saying the solution lies along the lines of the

DA Americanization. But many of the so-called experts are calling for today m for d Americanizing the Vietnamese War M for D and Americanizing it. But according to these fundamental guidelines of which I speak namely get back to the United Nations Charter get back to the first purposes for which World War 2 was fought and get back I might say to the realities of the situation today as it exists in Asia. When I first looked at the situation there in 1963 and I said to some of the free Chinese journalist but how can you possibly succeed because you have only six hundred thousand troops in the Chinese Communists on paper have two million four hundred thousand and they said well the first place they have five or six fronts is the big sink yank front. That's the province that abuts and the Soviet Union and

incidentally the situation there is chaotic today. There's the leader. I can't think of his name it'll come to me in a minute. The Red Chinese leader they're the warlord you might say is and was appointed by the discredited president of China and he's not going to stay firmly fixed with him he hates Mousa term with a passion and Mao Tse-Tung cannot even get into the province of saying all the things reverting to warlordism particularly in sync Yang problems. Wang and Mao is named as Wang and Mao and he is supreme. He has as an unsavory background and he has the worst characteristics of a warlord. But he is supreme in this province and incidentally that is the province where most of the nuclear Chinese Communists

nuclear installations are situated. So this is a situation that's almost up for grabs. But to get back to 1963. Even at that time when Red China was still strong when they had 2.4 million troops they were strung out on five different fronts that was the Korean front. There's a sink yank front there was the Indian front they at that time had three hundred fifty thousand troops on the Indian border and then of course there was a North Vietnam Laotian front which of course is much more formidable now than it is then. And incidentally they have 90000 The Red Chinese have at least 90000 troops in Viet Nam today which is a fact that is being suppressed by our State Department which knows very well these particular details. But you see and then they said but the biggest front of all as far as the Chinese Communist army is concerned is the Chinese people themselves more than

50 percent of the army is diverted from any military activity. And and it is for us to police the people and to keep the people down. So if you're 2 million 400000 more than one million two hundred thousand immediately is incapacitated as far as a military force because they have to police the uprisings of the unrest of the people and then they're strung out over five fronts in 1963 as they say when Red China was still strong. There were roughly 400000 troops Chinese Communist troops in the four main provinces opposite Formosa. And of course the free Chinese that six hundred thousand troops and I made the observation well can't these people come from the outlying area. Well this of course is what we're working on with the railroad alliance and sabotage and everything else these three Chinese have a very very forceful organization. When I was there in January they destroyed one

of the MiG bases in China and they told me they were able to do it without sending a force on to the mainland in other words it was carried out by forces who were actually on the mainland now the Chinese Communist today. The Sunda say Communism doesn't work doesn't work on human nature. The the the downfall of communism in China had its origin in the simple concept you know the Chinese character is something that is enduring something that has gone on for generations these people are very first a very family minded religious people and they and they are basically capitalists capitalists in the in the simple sense of the word. When the little Chinese farmer was told by Massa Tom that he had to give up his farm that his farm was going to be collectivized.

That was that concept was so alien to the Chinese tradition that that was the downfall of communism right then and there. That's the heart of their downfall. See the Chinese farmer was able to give his little acre of two acres or a half acre of the tender loving care that was necessary to make that land produce far beyond it should have produced what it should have produced the tender loving care that came from a sense of ownership a sense of devotion. When that was taken away from the Chinese farmer then production went down and as production went down the Chinese Communist began to put all kinds of strictures and pressures in order to make it worse. Troops were brought out of the field in order to work the farms. But the formula wasn't there the equation was in there and that was the beginning of the down for the same thing began to happen to the Chinese industry and the same thing began to happen to Chinese education. Communism doesn't fit particularly doesn't fit the Chinese character. So

the whole thing the whole rotten structure is now coming down around their ears. Production is down to about one tenth capacity. And if you measure this the comparable production between free China and Red China I knew the statistics very well but it's no use trying to translate them the difference is astronomical. They can't even compare. And the overall gross national product of free little Taiwan with a life of 12 million people is comparable to the Red China with 700 billion people supporting it. Doesn't measure up to it. Because of the numbers involved. But you should see the great discrepancy in the proportions. It isn't just doesn't work now everywhere in Asia. People understand that Communism doesn't work in 1863. Communism was considered to be the way for the future. Everywhere in Japan the tendency was what we have to work with and we don't like them but this is the way of the future. Today the mood all over Asia or is Communism doesn't work. It's just a

question of when is it going to come come apart completely. And this deterioration now is continuing at an alarming rate. An encouraging rate and it's just a question of time and only time before the whole rotten structure collapses over there. Now in the southern provinces not only is this deterioration into nice and strife one Chinese Communist killing the other laughed. Lucia Moussa Tong these forces are killing each other by the thousands. The some reason our press is reporting is playing down these reports these clashes. If you get to the far east you see lots of news on it. But the situation is such that the free Chinese could resume could implement their sovereignty and occupy without any great difficulty the southern provinces of China one term Kuang Si fukin. This would be in their military opinion and I've tried to

assess it to the extent that I am a military person. I try to assess the saying and they believe that they could without any great difficulty re-occupy particularly those forces those provinces. So these are the forces these are the provinces that are directly north of North Viet Nam and this would open the communist the open north completely to attack from anti-communist forces. Because the whole communist defense is directed against the South and only for the fact that we gave them three years to prepare their defense. Haven't been able to present any formal defense structure but this is not so with respect to the north. And there's a gaping big vulnerability vulnerability there. Now this would be a very very practical solution for us at this time of crisis. Here's a solution. And by the way the Chinese don't want any American

participation in this undertaking. They feel that it is their legal responsibility under the United Nations charter and the whole concept that they should have the responsibility of keeping the peace in Asia. I say let us give them that responsibility. Let them have the responsibility. They say that they don't want any Americans with their white faces over there to complicate this. The simple facts of Communist aggression and suppression of freedom they want to do the job themselves. If Red China formals as it will for them is this falling now. North Vietnam cannot stay alive. North Viet Nam will collapse. Collapse of the pressures of a that are necessarily brought to bear. The threat to the North Korean threat will vanish. The. And above all this terrible prospect of Red China becoming an effective nuclear power will deliverable nuclear missiles. This would be dissipated the threat of Red China getting a seat in the United Nations and with the

Soviet Union being in a dominant position in the Security Council that threat would be avoided. This is a way of bringing peace to Asia. And as a way of bringing peace to wager with a minimum of American sacrifice and the minimum of American lives and with the maximum of legality and a maximum of common sense. I say this thing can be done. Certainly it should be tried and we should begin thinking along these lines. It has all the ingredients of success. It has all the ingredients of expediency. I say a Chinese soldier who wants to get back to his family in the mainland as much as a much more appropriate in a much more effective soldier than one of our sons who has to fight in an unpopular war eight or nine thousand miles from home even at the same time being berated and vile reviled by his fellow students. I think the thing has a lot of merit. I think they're playing us a lot of practicality

and I'd like to throw these considerations open for discussion here tonight and ask that they be discussed yes that they be examined as the be assessed in the fervent hope that maybe thinking like this can find its way into the policymaking halls of Washington. Thank you very much for following the presentation by Dr Robert Morris the moderator Professor minestrone Ramos open the Institute on world affairs to questions from the floor. Reference has to the fact that if the free Chinese invaded Red China and one was to take into consideration the geography of the area the dispersion of the Red Chinese forces with the defense and depth in what was the position of the Nationalist Chinese and Chinese with reference

to this new defense in depth would need not be at a disadvantage. Second question has to do with Chang's forces being able to indulge in this exercise without help and transport from the Americans. Since it is the Chinese themselves do not have the necessary shipping. Third question would this invasion have the result of unifying the Red Chinese at a time when they have considerable amount of dissension amongst themselves and lastly with this kind of invasion provoke the assistance on the part of the Soviet Union along the side of the Red Chinese one. I've never used the word invasion in connection with this solution it's the return to the mainland of Chiang. He doesn't consider an invasion and he contends that his forces would be welcome would be welcome and the basis of that is the intelligence. These people have been gathering one fact number one is there are probably today

and it's to some extent a military secret. That there are and I don't know precisely what the figure is or Vialli and they searched the secret is that there are today probably something like something in excess of 100000 free Chinese troops already on the mainland if you call come to the mainland between Camorra and matter when the forces there are on the on the mainland. They are well in excess of a hundred thousand so they're there. The passage between Camorra and matter when the mainland itself was a very very narrow passage it's some places less than a mile. So the question of the bottoms of the transports is not as great as one would seem to seem to indicate it is a problem. Now I brought this thing up when I was there in 63 and they contended then that they had the bottoms to carry on this thing.

I don't want to be. So maybe an all knowing military pastor here tonight. But this is one of the issues do they have the bottoms or don't they have the bottoms they contend that they do. But the situation is much more wrecked much more sayable than it would appear if you don't have to traverse the whole Formosan straight as they say because many of the Strategic Forces are over there now and they have good supply lines from Formosa to come more into matter. Second place because of the internees and strife because of the root cause of the army fighting one army group fighting another army group because of the killings because of the tremendous police policing has to be done by the military. The defense now is a shell defense. The Communists have troops on the coast but almost nothing behind that. I like to use as an example the way the Israelis routed the superior so of course a period of forces a year ago as a comparable situation.

The morale of the of the defending Chinese communists is miserable and I would choose to believe Chang when he can't contend that these forces actually would welcome the free Chinese. And remember in all the years for raids nor exploration missions what they're doing is they're working on having the Chinese and the Chinese people welcome when they do come in. This is something they've been working on for years and that that area in south China is particularly vulnerable to this developing situation. That's true isn't it. The third was the well deserved two I just bought about Russia but it would do serve to consolidate more years to bring the right Chinese together well consolidate them. While I don't know I can't can absolutely say it would not. The feelings in the animosities obviously

today very very bitter and very deep seated. We are dealing with human beings. That's the one great advantage we have and contending with the communist world that with all their doctrinaire pressures that the subject matter is still human being in man's human nature. And these these people do hate each other with a passion. And every all the evidence coming out indicates that the animosity between the two forces is great indeed in particular the disorganization is great indeed. And I would like to believe that the that this will not come to pass the idea of the two forces getting together when Chang's forces coming in they are working on this this is one of the undertakings these people have in their in their advanced psychological warfare work in the in the and on the mainland with respect to the fourth point. I asked the same question will the Soviet

Union come in here. And I was then shown this vast map of Asia China and then you would see that you're thousands of miles across China. You have to bet you have Manchuria Mongolia. The distances here are almost astronomical. I mean we're talking about thousands and thousands and thousands of twelve thirteen thousand miles. We know that from past experience the Soviet Union is very very careful about sending its troops anywhere. We saw that in the Hungarian uprising that the forces occupying Budapest proved to be so unreliable that the time of the Hungarian uprising that the Russian troops joined the then the freedom fighters. And there's we know ironically that the freedom fighters got most of their assistance from the Soviet forces more than they got from the entire West put

together and the Russians had to withdraw the Soviets their own Russian troops and bring in Mongolian troops to put down the people so they can't send their troops outside and much less having some kind of an expedition across the vastness of Asia. Next question is well wouldn't they then throw a couple of nuclear bombs. The question is where. Where would they throw the. Let me just say this. Hey it is my opinion. I put it as my opinion that if the Russians throw a nuclear bomb or the Red Chinese continue on with their their preparations of a deliverable nuclear missiles and if they are able to project and hit it throw something into Taipei. This would mean the downfall of Red China. In my opinion you see because even though it might eliminate Taipei with its one of 2 million people 12 million

people on the link wanted 2 million in Taipei may destroy the heads of the government. But this is not where the military forces you say the military forces in to and everything else and immediately the military forces will be locked together and of course the conscience of the world will be overwhelmingly on the side of the free Chinese. And this would be the end of Free China then the be no more. No more strictures in the councils of the world against Chang's implementing its sovereignty. So you see the Russians or the Chinese throwing an atom bomb at Taipei. Would actually bring about the Chinese Communist defeat rather than anything else and sending the Russian divisions all the way across the vastness of Asia is a as a military impossibility. Dr. Robert Morse president of the University of plateau in Texas speaking at the twenty sixth annual Institute on world affairs. His topic in keeping with his institute central theme of revolution was our plight in the Far

East. This is James H Mason inviting you to join us next week on the series for another presentation from the Institute on world affairs. This program was produced by the Department of Telecommunications and film at San Diego State College in California. This is the national educational radio network.