Conversation with Dean Rusk

This is NET, the National Educational Television Network. Good evening. This is Paul Niven from the Eighth Floor balcony of the State Department in Washington, DC. In just a moment, I'll be joining Secretary of State Dean Rusk for an hour-long interview. Whether deliberately or not, the last few weeks has brought an escalation of the war in Vietnam. Whether it was deliberate or not remains a matter of semantic argument between the administration and its critics. There is no doubt, however, that criticism of and dissent from the war has escalated, both in depth and in breadth. Vietnam is not the only issue of the hour, even if it's the towering one. Indeed, one of the themes of the critics is that the war is deflecting high officials here in Washington from other and larger issues.

Despite Vietnam, there has been a considerable relaxation of tension between East and West, as symbolized by the consular and space treaties and by continuing talks on anti-missile defense and the spread of nuclear weapons. The spirit of detent was symbolized also by the arrival in this country of the daughter of Joseph Stalin, with no outburst of chauvinistic excultation on our part, no public anguish on the part of the Kremlin and a notify civilized demeanor on the part of the lady involved. Even as the U.S. and the Soviet Union pull closer together, China pulls farther and farther apart from both. In Western Europe, new issues and old issues impend and recently took Vice President Humphrey on an important and not uneventful tour of the capitals of some of our NATO allies. Substantive questions give rise in new, uncapital hill and elsewhere to larger questions concerning the overall American commitment all over the world, about its moral validity and about its practicality in terms of our power in the world.

It seems a very appropriate time all in all to talk with a man who for six years and three months now has been the principal foreign policy adviser to President Kennedy and Johnson. Here we are then, at the State Department, to talk with Secretary Dean Rusk. From the State Department in Washington, NET, the National Educational Television Network, presents a conversation with Dean Rusk, interviewing the Secretary of State will be NET's Washington correspondent, Paul Niven. Mr. Secretary, I don't think we've had polls in the last three or four weeks to see whether opposition to the war in Vietnam is actually increasing among the country as a whole, but certainly there has been an increase in the intensity and depth of the public manifestations

of opposition. How do you and other officials of the administration who have spent so many hours trying to put your application, explain it to so many people, account for this increase in public opposition? Well, we've seen some highly organized demonstrations of minorities here and there in the country, but the people of the United States, the elected president and the Congress to make these great decisions of national policy. And it is my impression that the ordinary men and women around the country understand what is involved in Vietnam, and we understand that many out of them are impatient and want to see the steps taken to finish it in this war, because after all it's happened since 1945, it is tragic that once again we should have to use force to resist an aggression, because we've had a lot of lessons in what happens when aggression occurs.

I will say, you've seen highly organized demonstrations, obviously the communists are not un-invested in doing this in this country and elsewhere, but would you suggest that even among the organizers of these of this opposition that communists are in anything like the majority? No, I'm not trying to establish any sense of numbers in this matter. I think there are different groups. The communist apparatus is busy all over the world, and it's busy in this country. There are others who are genuine pacifists, conscious objectors, people with strong religious convictions on this point, and for them I have the greatest respect. There are others who, for one reason or another, doubt that Vietnam is our problem. There's a variety of reasons why people object, but the particular demonstrations are pretty highly organized. Well, you, in general, as more than others have pointed out that such demonstrations are bound to raise questions on the other side about our world to continue. On the other hand, isn't the great danger that in time to stifle dissent, we create new

problems. Well, Mr. Niven, there's never been any effort to stifle dissent. We have a dilemma in this respect, because two things are true. The one is that, in our kind of free society, there must be complete freedom of expression, the opportunity for dissent, the right, lawfully and peacefully to register one's difference of view. Now, that is fundamental for our system, and there's never been any effort to stifle that. But generally, the other thing that's equally true is that Hanoi undoubtedly is watching this debate and is drawing some conclusions from it. Now, if we were to see 100,000 people marching in Hanoi calling for peace, we'd think the war is over. Now, it requires a good deal of sophistication on the part of Hanoi to understand that this is not the way we make decisions in this country, that there is a President and a Congress

who are elected by the people, and that the President and the Congress are supported by a great majority of the American people in these great decisions. Senator Morton suggested the other day, according General Westmoreland, that when someone speaks of irresponsible acts at home without extinguishing between the genuinely irresponsible burners of graph cards and people who lay down in front of trains and so forth, and generally idealistic citizens who have star reservations about the war, that he only encourages the irresponsible elements among the dissenters. Don't you think there's something to that? Well, I would know how to judge something of that sort. I think all of us, whether we're officials or private citizens, have responsibility for all of the consequences of our acts and what we say. And when people elect to go into these matters and make their opinions known that they should take into account what the total effects will be. But again, in our society, there must be full opportunity for free expression and there

must be a debate in this country. Some differences exist. We couldn't have our kind of free society without it. It would be perhaps too much to expect the Vietnamese, the North Vietnamese to understand that these are demonstrations by a minority, but surely their Soviet allies are sophisticated enough at this stage of the game to understand this and to tell them that what is more important is the poll showing 70 percent of people. Oh, I think there are those in the Communist World who understand this better than Hanoi and Mike. The United Union undoubtedly has more experience with us and they have a closer familiarity with our institutions the way we operate. I think there's more understanding in Moscow on this point than there is in Hanoi. Mr. Secretary, on the war itself, are we now in a such a position that any substantial de-escalation unilaterally would be almost as disastrous as pulling out? Well, let me point out that partial de-escalation on our side seems to be uninteresting to Hanoi. For example, they reject the idea of a pause in the bombing, a suspension of bombing.

We've tried that seriously three times and then there were two holiday truces in addition. Total of five times when there was no bombing. And before that, we went through five years of increasing North Vietnamese attacks upon South Vietnam without any bombing of North Vietnam on our part. They're saying now that we've stopped the bombing permanently and unconditionally. And at the same time, are refusing to indicate the slightest military step which they would take on their side to draw back on their part of the war. Now, let me illustrate what this means. If we were to say that we would negotiate only if they stopped all of their violence in South Vietnam while we continued to bomb North Vietnam, most people would say we're crazy. Now why is what is crazy for us, reasonable to some people when exactly the same proposition is put by the other side?

What we need to have is some tangible step toward peace and they've had many, many opportunities to register a willingness to engage in serious talks or to take some de facto practical steps to move this matter toward a peaceful solution. Well, you just get one interpretation of a very attitude of Max Franco in the Sunday Times magazine did the same thing, but he also said that the president's letter to the Ho Chi Minh said in effect, we will stop the bombing. If you will leave your quarter of a million communist forces in South Vietnam, unreplenished and unsupplied against a million troops on other side, now is that not a fair representation? Well, we said that we will stop the bombing if you will stop the infiltration and if you stop the infiltration, we will stop the further augmentation of our forces. Would they not hold that our forces at this point so augmentative and so well supplied that they could not leave their forces? They may, but their forces are where they have no right to be, they have no business being there.

They have no right to try to see South Vietnam by force. We are entitled under the CTO Treaty as well as under the individual and collective security and self-defense arrangements of the UN Charter to come to the assistance of South Vietnam upon their request when they are subject to this kind of aggression. Now we are not referring something as though there is no difference between the two sides here. South Vietnam is trying to see South Vietnam by force. If tomorrow morning they were to say this is not our purpose, we could have peace by tomorrow midnight. Now, it's just as simple as that Mr. Niven, they are trying to impose a political solution upon South Vietnam by force from the North. Now they can be peace if they hold their hands and I don't see how they can be peace along as they continue in that effort. Is the principal objection to a cessation of bombing for the fourth time that we would encircle more moral odium than ever in the world where we renewed if they didn't come

with the conference table? Or is it purely military? No, the principal problem is that as I indicated, a suspension in the bombing would be rejected by hand as an ultimatum. They say that we must guarantee that this suspension would be permanent and unconditional. Now that means stopping half the war. Not knowing what will happen to the other half of the war. The president has said that we'd be glad to hear from them about almost anything that they would do on the military side in order to take a step toward peace in the situation. Now, at the moment, there are three or four divisions up in the so-called Emilitarized Zone, in that general area, North Vietnamese troops. No one is able to whisper to us behind his hand that if we stop the bombing, those divisions will not attack our Marines at a three or four miles away. Now we can't be children about this, we can't be foolish. We need to know what the military effect would be if we stop the bombing of North Vietnam on a permanent and unconditional basis.

And no one is able or willing to give us the slightest information as to what the result would be. It seems to me that the great weakness in the case of your critics, including the highly placed ones in this country, is that they are forever looking for evidence of unwillingness to negotiate in the part of the administration without examining the question, is there any willingness to negotiate on the side of the other side? But isn't it fair to say, Mr. Secretary, that over the years, the willingness of either side to negotiate, and consequently the terms on which it was willing to negotiate, has varied according to its appraisal of the military and political situation and where the advantage lay at the moment? It really depends upon what result would be brought into being. Now, for example, in 1962, on the basis of an agreement between Chairman Krushchev and President Kennedy in Vienna in June 1961, we went to Geneva. We made substantial concessions in order to get an agreement on laws that were signed in July 1962.

Among the concessions we made, for example, is to accept the nominee of the Soviet Union to be prime minister of laws, Prince of Anipuma. Now, we did not yet perform, once by Hanoi, on any one of the four principal elements in that agreement. They did not withdraw their North Vietnamese forces from laws, they did not stop using laws as an infiltration route in the South Vietnam, they did not permit the coalition government to function in the Communist-L-Arys of laws, and they did not permit the International Control Commission to function in the Communist-L-Arys of laws. Now, that agreement was based upon a major effort on our part to take a giant step toward peace in Southeast Asia. It did not derive from any close-in, narrow view of what the military situation would be. Now, from that time forward, we have been probing in every way that we can think of to try to find a peaceful basis to bring this war to a conclusion in South Vietnam. We can't bring it to a conclusion by giving them South Vietnam, we have major commitments

there. When our conditions for talking a year ago during the bombing of Pais in January 66, a little more unconditional than they are this time, do we then not make it clear that we were willing to sit down and negotiate and continue the bombing party? Well, there was a temporary suspension of the bombing, and we had been told before that the power started, that a somewhat longer pause than the 5-day pause, which we had earlier, might make it possible for something constructive to open up. We had been told that by some of the Communist countries. As a matter of fact, they said some of them that if you stop 15 to 20 days, that might open up some possibilities. Well, we stopped twice as long as they suggested, but on the 34th day of that pause, and I came back and said that you must stop your bombing permanently and unconditionally. And only then can there be any talk, you see, and at that time they said you must take the four points of an eye, and you must accept liberation in front as the sole spokesman

of the South Vietnamese people. In other words, they were demanding, in effect, the surrender of South Vietnam to the North. We have, however, as a result of that experience, perhaps, up the anti, and we know at this time, well, we've said that we all, we demand the cessation of infiltration of minimum time. Oh, we will talk to these people this evening without conditions of any sort. Now, they've raised a major condition, the stoppage of the bombing on a permanent basis. So we've said, all right, we'll talk to you about conditions. We'll talk to you about that condition, we'll talk about other things that you should do on your side, as a preliminary negotiation, if you wish, you say. So we will talk to them in either way, without conditions or about conditions. Now, it shouldn't be all that difficult for contacts to explore the possibilities of peace, even while the fighting is going on. We negotiated on the Berlin blockade, while Berlin was under blockade. We talked about Korea while the shooting was going on.

We talked while the bombing infiltration. Yes. Indeed, in Korea, we took more casualties after the talk started than we did before the talk started. And in the case of the Cuban Missile Crisis, we negotiated that question with the Soviet Union, while they were building their missile science just as fast as they could, you see. Now, there's nothing in the state of nature that means that if there's any real interest in peace, that contacts and explorations can occur, either about the settlement or about the first steps toward peace in de-escalating the violence. We'll be glad to take that by the one of them. Well, their position for two years now, of course, has been the bombing messed up. But if they were to abandon that, and hold you in the table, the President said, I'll meet you in New Delhi two weeks from now without conditions like the war going, the President would go. Well, we'll be in touch with them at the first opportunity that there will be a representative of Hanoi somewhere to talk about peace. We'll be there. Publicly or privately. Well, I think it's very likely that the most profitable contacts initially would be private. But we've asked for a conference.

The Geneva Conference of 54, or the Geneva Conference of 62, or an all-Asian peace conference, or meeting between North Vietnam and South Vietnam in the demilitarized zone, or we've suggested the two co-chairmen might be in touch with the two parties to do something about it, that is Britain and the Soviet Union, or we would be glad to see the three members of the International Control Commission in the Canada Pollan undertake this role. Public or private, director and direct, makes no difference to us. Do you acknowledge, would you expect this end-of-war with negotiations or with a fizzling out of the cessation of infiltration? It's very hard to say that the Greek girl operations fizzled out there when her systematic discussion was preceding that. I think we ought to keep both doors open, and we've said to the other side on more than one occasion. Well, if you don't want to come into a conference, if that's complicated, if you don't get into form and negotiations, then I start doing some things on the ground, which each one of us can take note of, and to which we can respond, let's begin some defacto de-escalation

of this situation. But that hasn't produced any results either. Well, apart from the question of how to get into negotiations, what really is the to negotiate about Mr. Secretary? As long as Hanoi is not willing to represent, is to accept the South Vietnamese government or the emerging South Vietnamese government as the principal political structure of South Vietnam, as long as we're unwilling to accept the National Liberation Front as the principal political structure there, what really is the U.S. and North Vietnam to talk about? Well, I think that they, in the Soviet Union, continue to talk in terms of the Geneva Cards of 1954 and 1962. The Warsaw Pact Countries and their meeting in Bucharest last year put out a statement which they called upon us to comply completely with those accords. We said, fine, let's get going. When we took this matter to the Security Council of the United Nations and the Soviet Representative said, no, the United Nations is not the proper form, the Geneva machinery

is the proper form. So Ambassador Goldberg said, all right, if that's your view, then let's get going with the Geneva machinery. I think if there has to be serious talk, it's likely to be on the basis of the 1954 and 1962 agreements, which we're starting by the other side. We sign the 1962 agreements, although we do not sign the 1954 agreements, but we've accepted both of these agreements as an adequate basis for peace and Southeast Asia. The President said he would be happy to accept the outcome of free elections throughout Vietnam. That's rather official. That's great. It was to large last week, said it was unbelievable that we'd let the Vietcong injure the democratic structure or something. No, I think that what he perhaps meant was that we don't see any indication that the South Vietnamese under genuinely free elections would elect the liberation front of the Vietcong. Now you have many groups in South Vietnam, the Buddhists and the Catholics, the Montagnards,

the million ethnic Cambodians who have been living there for a long time, the million refugees who came down from Hanoi in 1955 in that period, they disagree among themselves on a number of points. But the point that they seem to have in common is that they do not want the liberation front, so that we would not expect that the South Vietnamese would elect the Vietcong if they were free elections. But what kind of a conceivable settlement would filter down to the village and end the situation in which the Vietcong and the President of the Agents of Saigon are struggling for control of that village? What would end the guerrilla war, or I think in the first place a decision by Hanoi to abandon the effort to see South Vietnam by force? This is by all means, by all odds, the most important single decision that could affect that result.

I think that the rapid increase in the rate of defactions from the Vietcong, the growing disillusionment in the countryside is one consensus with the Vietcong, and there are very severe infositions upon the villagers having an effect without that decision by Hanoi. This is a simple problem of an attempt by Hanoi to do something in the South, if they were to abandon that, and quite sure the South Vietnamese, including the Vietcong, would come to terms among themselves. Very recently the South Vietnamese government announced a program of reconciliation in which they said that they would accept back into the body of politics, those genuine southerners who had gone over to the Vietcong, they'd like to return, they would not be mistreated, they could resume their place in society, and indeed some of the defectors from the Vietcong were so-called too-high returning ease, have been candidates in village elections in

the last three Sundays, and some of them been elected. So I have no real doubt that the southerners have left alone who'd resolve these problems among themselves, they can't do it so long as the North is insisting upon keeping this pressure going against the South by military means. With the continuing pressure are you confident that the emerging Democratic apparatus is going to survive, and that the generals won't say no at the last minute? I think the military leadership is very strongly committed to the constitutional process, because when January last year that they themselves took the initiative to start this process going, now when they came to the meeting at Honolulu, they repeated that and we indicated that we were strongly in favor of it, and this process has been going on ever since. But I think the military leadership is strongly committed to this constitutional process, which they initiated, and which has been picked up by the people in an elected constituent assembly, a promulgated constitution.

Some of the elections that are anticipated in September. To return for just a moment to the question of borrowing Mr. Secretary, there's a projected law of a day or two on the Buddha's birthday later this month. Do you send any possibility that that will be attended by a flow of diplomatic activity and be extended? The Governor of South Vietnam, as again said, that they would be glad to meet with the Governor of North Vietnam in the Demilitarized Zone to talk about an extension of that truth. Now, the short period of cessation of the bombing is not the kind of cessation that North Vietnam has described as a prerequisite for serious negotiations. Now, if between now and then there was some indication that they were prepared to talk without that condition or about that condition, then of course that will be of some interest, but we have no indication that that's coming. Wouldn't this perhaps be a face of an alliance of getting something going, if the word is on both sides to get something going?

Well, if they wish to raise the question further to extend that pause that they can do so with Saigon or they can communicate in other respects that they would be interested in in some such arrangement, the problem has been that they don't seem to think very much of any temporary arrangement. Well, would that, suppose they proposed to suggest they'd be extended a week or so? Would that inevitably bring the reply from us, what will you do by way of reciprocation to reduce it for them? Well, these are matters that need to be discussed. That's why Saigon is offered to meet them in the Demilitarized Zone to talk about it because an extended pause without something serious going on simply means that they have an opportunity to resupply and to move their people about and to load all the sandpans in South Vietnam with supply for the girl of troops and get everything all set for a fresh lunge, you see,

when it's over. During the Tet pause, when the hour arrived for the Tet truce to begin, hundreds of ships, boats, barges, trucks suddenly raced for the south. They were there to start as gate, like horses in the racetrack, and they just rushed pale now to the south with thousands of tons of supplies to re-equip their forces and resupply them. But the important thing is that although they knew that suspension was coming, and they knew that we were interested in talking seriously during that suspension that didn't have a diplomatic starting gate, that they were not willing to talk seriously about a settlement with a problem or about prolonging the arrangements or to have some neutral de-escalation of the violence during that Tet truce. It has been argued that the military advantage to us in terms of infiltration of continuing the bombing may be outweighed by the unifying effect of the population of North Vietnam

may actually increase their will to continue the war. What is your appraisal of that? Well, no one likes bombing, and people get mad under bombing, but there's some very important operation of questions there. I mentioned there's three divisions in the demilitarized zone. These North Vietnamese forces are just a few miles away from our Marines. Now we're going to say to our Marines that you must wait until those fellows get two miles away before you shoot at them, but don't shoot at them when they had nine miles away because that would be too rude, that's over on the other side of the border. If we see a truck column of forty trucks coming down just north of the demilitarized zone and we're going to leave them alone and then pick that ammunition out around men the next day, you can't do that, let's have some peace. We can have peace literally within 24 hours, if I know I was willing to take seriously, the 1954 and 1962 agreements abandoned its effort to seize South Vietnam by force and join in mutual steps to turn down this violence and get to the conference table.

Secretary, if we can turn to it to East West relations as a whole, up to a U.S.R. go, it seemed to be the position of the Soviet Union that until Vietnam was settled, nothing could be settled. We never agreed with that. The proliferation of talks and treaty since then suggests that the Russians have now turned away and a quite anxious turn to continue and expand if possible with the detour, despite the Vietnam, is that a fair appraisal? Well, undoubtedly, the Vietnam question injects a serious problem of tension on both sides. For example, there are many people in this country who have serious questions about whether we should ourselves open the door to expanding trade with Eastern Europe, finally Vietnam situation is still going on and I have no doubt they have some problems on their side in the same direction. However, we were glad to see that despite Vietnam, it was possible to proceed with the space treaty and we have been working hard on the non-cliferation treaty despite Vietnam.

As far as we are concerned, we have prepared to continue to work at these individual questions, small and large, if the other signs were to be so, but there are tensions there that complicate the question on both sides and I would not want to deny that. You brought up a political question I would like to ask you, do you want to pursue with you? Some of the people on the hill posed to the administration's policy in Vietnam have said that when you send people around the country military offices or others, as they pointed at talking the language of the Cold War and whipping up passions about the war in Vietnam, you create a body of public opinion in this country which makes it difficult to get through the consular treaty to get through an east-west trade and so forth. Is this true? Well, I can't generalize about that. Our general view is that we have to do what is necessary in Vietnam because of our commitments and because of its relation with the general problem of organizing a durable peace in the

world. But on the other hand, we ought to be ready to try to resolve other questions larger small if we can. Now, that's difficult and it isn't easy for all of our people to understand why it is important, but I think the central question in front of us all is the question of organizing a peace and every policy needs to be weighed in terms of whether it will contribute toward that objective or not. Now, we sent out a thousand cables a day out of this department. My guess is that most people would approve of most of those cables and that those who object to one particular part of the policy would support much of the rest. But the object of the entire effort is to organize a durable peace because we are in a situation and have been for over a decade where the organization of a peace is necessary to the survival of a human race in very simple terms.

In the process of getting closer to the Russians, they are ever at all frank about their problems with their Chinese allies. Well, they haven't talked about China with us very much. We would not expect them to. This is a problem within the communist world. Don't they ever say, don't push this too far on here on this point because you know what problems we're up against with the Chinese? No, I wouldn't. They don't go into questions of that sort. We know that they are concerned about China as we are, perhaps not for the same reasons. We know that there's been a major difference between Moscow and Peking on the tactics to be pursued and advancing the world revolution that has reached its high point in this period since 1961. But China does not discuss the Soviet Union with us and our bilateral talks in Warsaw. The Soviet Union does not discuss China with us on these important questions. The Soviet Union never tries to lead us along towards something they want by the stated

or implicit threat of their commitment. No, there's been the minimum of exchange as far as China is concerned with the Soviet Union. China is accusing Moscow of being in some sort of a conspiracy with us. And sometimes you hear charges out of Moscow that Peking is assisting us by standing in the way of communist unity. They throw these charges back and forth at each other, but as far as we are concerned, we're not ourselves brought directly into the middle of that particular situation. There are many people who were struck by the singularly calm atmosphere in which Mrs. Al-Wayev arrived in this country. Was this accidental or was it the result of considerable effort by the higher echelons of the administration and of the Soviet Union, perhaps? Well, I can't speak for the Soviet Union as far as we're concerned. Nothing special was done on our side.

I have the impression that she is rather calm person, that this was not one of those great Cold War episodes that one might have expected it to be 10 years ago or 15 years ago. She has made her own statement about her own views and their rather simple and civilized views. My guess is that she would like little peace and quiet. She will publish her memoirs or her autobiography while she's here and make her own decision about where she wants to live in the future, but this has not been a major political problem between ourselves and the Soviet Union. Did you, in the president, not seek to delay her arrival, discourage her coming here for a few weeks in order to avoid it becoming a problem between us and the Soviet Union? Well, she had the choice of going to several places when she left India, and she considered going to several places. She went to Switzerland temporarily. There were some problems about it coming here under those circumstances of the emotions

or the first moment. I mean, all you gentlemen in the news media, for example, would not give her any privacy. I fully realize that she was looking for a little peace and quiet and wanted to do a fragment to catch a breath and decide what she wanted to do. These were, why didn't they delay desirable from the administration's point of view? Oh, we were, if we were suggested by the administration, but we did not impose a delay upon her as far as we would consider. We did not have in front of a specific question of whether we should grant her political asylum in the political sense. She had a visa to come to this country, but I think she handled herself very well, and I think the whole situation has been handled rather well up to this point. Are you surprised that the Russians have said nothing, made no complaint? Well, we haven't come to the end of the chapter yet, we're not sure whether they will or not. They have not raised major questions with us about it. Sure, the vice president has recently been on a long trip to our European capitals,

and we now have the news today that we are reducing our troops in Europe. Can you give us anything on the background of this decision? We've had groups of senators wanting to cut forces, we've had others not wanting to cut forces. We've had the reactions of the European themselves to consider, can you eliminate today's announcement? Well, by 1951, we had in mind that we would have a year of about five and two-thirds divisions. In fact, we have about six divisions there now. We added certain strength to it for our own reasons. Now we're rotating two-thirds of a division, which means that we would expect to have present in Europe at all times, the five and a third divisions, rather than the five and two-thirds divisions. In addition, those are the gains that are in this country, will be in full readiness and will be able to return promptly if needed in Europe. They will replace each other in a regular rotation in Europe, and once a year, the

entire division will be together in Europe. This will give us a good test of mobility and the idea of rotation. It also permits us to bring home a considerable number of dependents, which is of some importance to us from an expense and fine exchange point of view. I think it does not, in any significant way, affect the military capabilities of NATO. Now we'll have to see whether there's any response from the other side in this general direction of any sort. But these are matters that are being discussed in NATO, as a part of the general NATO structure, and we think that what has been discussed as far as the reason one of the circumstances. When you talk of looking for a response to the other side, do you mean that you're looking for a similar reduction of wishes of motherly war, but what should I pack? Well, we'll be interested if such reductions should occur. We're not expecting it. We've not been told that one of it would happen. And in London, Mr. Kosegian related the reduction of Warsaw Pact Forces to a confirmation of the status quo in Germany in central Europe, and that's not a very encouraging prospect.

But I'm sure the NATO countries will keep their eyes on what the Warsaw Pact Forces are doing in this situation as they, from year to year, make their own judgments about what NATO should do. Well, do you think there's any substantial likelihood of a substantial de-escalation? I wouldn't be able to predict. We just don't have any information from Eastern Europe on that. In the meantime, our motive is primarily a balance of payments rather than increasing the availability of troops for Vietnam. Well, these troops are not intended to be used in Vietnam. They are a true remain here on a condition of readiness so that they can not only rotate or go back quickly if needed in an emergency, and would remain a part of the same organized division. And they have committed to NATO, a signed NATO, but they'll be, in fact, how it'd be 3,000 miles closer to Vietnam in case of...

Well, there'd be 3,000 miles closer to a lot of other places, but the point is they remain a signed NATO. They'll be available for immediate return to NATO. And every six months, there'll be a change in the brigade which is actually stationed in NATO. And we just would prefer not to get into the question of tying this to other situations because it isn't a part of the plan. Sure, the British have, again, announced their intention to apply for membership of the common market. The French have indicated they're not going to veto this time. But they're going to take a long, hard look at it. Does this mean anything new in terms of our position? Well, we have stayed out of the public discussion of this matter, and this is basically a European question for the Sikhs and for Britain. Everyone knows that we ourselves would be very glad to see this occur, but the issue's there so fundamental to our friends on the other side of the Atlantic that we felt it is not for us to take an active part.

My guess is that there will be some serious discussion and some rather complex negotiations before this can come about, but we just have nowhere predicting the end of the road. If Britain is admitted to membership, will it mean the end or the substantial diminution of what we've talked about over the years of the special relationship between the U.S and the UK? Well, the special relationship has been both real and unreal, depending upon how un-views it. Obviously, this country has had a long traditional tie with Britain because of our historic past and because we've been so closely associated and so many common struggles and common efforts, but I would suppose that if Britain enters Europe, we would be working very closely with that new Europe. Just as closely as we would have with Britain, separately or with any of our European partners, so I don't think the problem with the special relationship is one that would bother us,

it may bother somebody on the other side of the Atlantic. You know, even in the troubled 1950s and 60s, there have been a few shrinking areas of the world where, when there was a crisis, whatever Secretary of State or President of the United States could say, well, that area is primarily a British responsibility. If Britain turns your face now toward Europe, those areas are going to shrink even more and not be going to be playing the policeman in more places. Well, we're not ourselves looking for more business in this regard and we are quite clear that we are not the policeman of the world. We are some very specific commitments under existing treaty, but if you look back over the last 60 or 70 crises at once or another that have occurred in the world, we've taken part in about six or seven of them. We have been involved as a member of the United Nations and the Security Council or diplomatically in trying to reduce tensions and try to help find a peaceful settlement of some of these disputes. But rather than think of a reduction of European influence with, say, the admission of Britain to Europe, I would hope that Europe as a whole, enlarged if it would be by the admission

of Britain, would play its full role in world affairs that is there for it and that is that it is fully capable of playing. So that I don't look upon the development as one in which various people pull away and then we go rushing in, filling in vacuums and different parts of the world. We have our basket pretty full. That brings up the overall question of our commitment to the world because you get it from both sides. Whenever anything goes wrong in the world that we don't interfere in, we're accused of sitting by and letting it happen when, at the same time, people are saying we're overextended and we're into many places. How do you judge when we should be there and what we shouldn't, what we should do, perhaps in terms of Greece and Yemen in the last few weeks? In each case, one to be judged in terms of our central purpose and then how do you make the determination in each case?

Well, it depends upon a number of things. In the first place, where we have specific treaty commitments and a threat occurs against that treaty commitment, I think we have a very specific obligation to do what we can as a signatory of that treaty. We have responsibilities as a permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations to take an active and responsible part in helping the Security Council resolve those questions that are brought to the Security Council. We encourage other groups, such as the Organization of African Community, to try to pick up some of the disputes that exist in the continent of Africa and find local African solutions to those disputes on that continent. I would not want to speculate about individual hypothetical cases, but these are very complex questions our primary responsibility is have to do with our treaty commitments. But I think the United Nations effort is a very important part of our total effort in

resolving disputes that occur in different parts of the world. Do you ever have the feeling when you learn from cables of a new crisis that we are overextended perhaps we shouldn't be in some of the countries that we're in even on an aid basis? I don't expect you to name Asian countries, but you'll ever feel that we could concentrate our effort more if we were. Well, that's somewhat of a nostalgic view in one sense, and we have carried heavy burdens in this post-war period, but so some other countries. We can't really be completely indifferent to developments in other continents, and that doesn't mean that we should go rushing in unilaterally wherever there's a problem trying to solve it unilaterally. For example, the fighting between the Indian Pakistan, the Security Council of the United Nations, I could very effectively there with the permanent members, and that includes the Soviet Union and the United States, acting in a parallel fashion there to assist the Security Council in bringing that matter to a conclusion.

But I think also we're encouraged by the fact that other countries have been taking considerable share of the aid burden, for example, country like France, it spends more of its gross national product on foreign aid than we do, and Canada and Japan have been increasing their contributions in relation to their total gross national product. Japan put in as much capital in the Asia Development Bank as the United States. They maxed hours to a million dollars. The total effort is steadily growing, but nevertheless, we have to be interested in one way or another, in difficult and dangerous problems that arise anywhere in the world. That doesn't mean that we're going police. The charge has been made that this worldwide complicated, multifaceted effort is perpetuated in the name of resistance to a monolithic international communist conspiracy, which no

longer exists. The critics say that the international communist movement is no longer an extension of the Soviet Union. It's fragmented. Therefore, why shouldn't we relax in a particular area of the world? Those communists can't be relaxed on the grounds that it will eventually nationalism will prevail over communism, as to some extent it seems to be doing in Eastern Europe. Well it depends upon what happens in Southeast Asia, we have treaty commitments there, that obligate us to take action to meet the common danger if there's an aggression by means of armed attack, and that aggression is underway. If these questions could be decided by people in free elections, as we get all relaxed, I don't know anyone who's with free elections is in a great nation, you've had a particular state in India, and that has brought communists to power with free elections. They're not monolithic.

They're not monolithic. But all branches of the communist party that I know are committed to what they call the world revolution, and their picture of that world revolution is quite contrary to the kind of world organization sketched out in the charter of the United Nations. Now they have important differences among themselves about how you best get on with that world revolution, and there's a contest within the communist world between those who think that peaceful coexistence and peaceful competition is the better way to do it, and the militants primarily in Peking, who believe that you back this world revolution after by force. But I think the communist commitment to world revolution is pretty general throughout the communist movement. Now if they want to compete peacefully, all right, let's do that. But when they start moving by force to impose this upon other people by force, then you have a very serious question about where it leads and how you organize a world peace on that basis.

But a decade or a decade and a half ago, the threat was that of one communist superpower supported by communist movements all over the world, isn't the challenge reduced every time the communist world becomes depolarized every time the, at least in European government or even the communist party in Western Europe shows that no signs of independence. Well, it may be reduced, but that doesn't mean it's disappeared. But you don't feel it. I mean, the fact that Moscow and Peking have not been very close friends has not reduced the danger created by the attack of Hanoi against South Vietnam. It's there in a very situated form. For a time they quarreled over supplies that's been resolved, apparently. But, well, we're not sure that that so-called quarrel had a great deal of effect upon the actual delivery of supplies. We're not sure that, at least our personal amount, I don't have detailed information. We don't feel in that our posture in the world can be relaxed because of the increasing

variety in the communist world. We still have a worldwide challenge. Well, it depends upon what you mean by being the laxman, isn't it? We're only four or five years away from two very severe crises with the communist countries of Eastern Europe, particularly the Soviet Union, the Berlin crisis of 1962 and the Cuban missile crisis. So we can't suppose that these problems have disappeared forever, and the Warsaw Bank forces are in central Europe and great strength right now, and the German problem is unresolved. But on the other hand, we would hope very much that we are entering a period of prudence and mutual respect and the possibilities of settling outstanding problems. Remind you that President Kennedy and President Johnson and their Secretary of State have not gone down to the Senate with new alliances.

President Kennedy took down the nuclear test band treaty. President Johnson concluded the civil air agreement, the consular agreement, the space treaty. We're working on the non-cliffation nuclear weapons treaty. We'd like to see some ceiling put on this race involving ABMs and additional offensive nuclear missiles. We'd like to take up seriously the question of increasing trade between ourselves and Eastern Europe. So we're prepared to do our part in contributing toward that easing of tensions and this settlement of outstanding questions. That doesn't mean that the dangers are completely disappeared and that we can just stand down our guard and think that everything's all over it just isn't. There's a lot to happen before that we get to that point. President Kennedy said in the fact that for us to start a version that we can't settle everything with a common issue until we can settle anything until we can settle everything. Do you feel that some people now expect that just because we can't settle some things

that everything else is automatically solved? Well, I wouldn't want to speak for the others by feeling about this is that we must continue to know that these questions are wrestled with them and try to get on with them now. One could be discouraged if you let oneself be with the slow pace of this settlement. But we can't afford to abandon the effort to get on with that job since 1947 the NATO countries alone have spent over a trillion dollars on defense budgets and the Soviet Union and its allies have spent comparable amounts in relation to their own economic base. I think of the enormous unfinished business that their people and our people have to which we could commit those vast resources. We can't afford to abandon the disarmament effort even though it seems to move slow. So let's keep working at these questions. Maybe today we can find some smaller questions to settle.

Maybe tomorrow it'll be a somewhat larger question. Maybe if we can get the non-flip race in Twitter that would be rather important. Breakthrough on a particular front. But of course in the background is the overriding need to bring this Vietnam question to a peaceful settlement just as soon as we and the other side can, just as soon as the other side will let us. I was going to ask that, do you ever feel that the Vietnam war, however justified, nearly in terms of the time, attention and energy which you and the rest of the capital have to devote to it, is deflecting all of you from other things? Oh, not at all. I think that the serious business of the government goes on and that the President's time and my time are committed to European questions, disarmament questions, trade questions, Latin American questions, the Alliance for Congress. I know our life goes on. It is not true that Vietnam is diverting our attention from other parts of the world. But some of our former diplomats, some of the critics, for ever contending that the

Vietnam war places strains upon our alliances. It complicates and exacerbates other problems. I don't like that. I think that's nonsense because if you want to put some strain on our other alliances, just let it become apparent that our commitment under an alliance is not worth very much, then you'll see some strain on our alliances. You're suggesting that if we don't uphold this commitment, other people lose faith in our commitments all over the world? And more importantly, adversaries, or prospect of adversaries, may make some grossness calculations about what we would do with respect to those commitments. Mr. Secretary, if you had your way, this thing could be ended. What problems would be solved with it? What new problems, if any, would come along at once in its wake? You see the end of the Vietnam war ending the chapter in history and suddenly opening up all sorts of new possibilities, or do you see it bring ushering in new problems?

I would think that peace in Vietnam would open up some real opportunities for the nations of Asia to get on with their new momentum in the field of economic and social development and in terms of regional cooperation. As you know, President Johnson has invited North Vietnam to take part in that total effort inside of the East Asia, and the President said that we would make a very large contribution to that total effort if there were conditions of peace. So I think there are very, very stimulating new opportunities would open up. Now, I'm not going to suggest that at the end of the Vietnam situation, we're said we're going to have a problem under 54th Secretary of State, and I think that I can guarantee that the 55th Secretary of State is going to have plenty of problems. But because change is built into our present world, and rapid change is going to be with us as long as one can see in the future.

But I think that the end of Vietnam would put us a very long step forward toward this organization of a durable peace. I think there's a general recognition in the world that a nuclear exchange doesn't make sense that sending mass divisions across national frontiers is pretty reckless today. If we get this problem of these wars of national liberation under the Eastern Book Control, then maybe we can begin to look forward to a period of relative peace, although there will continue to be quarrels and neighborhood disputes and plenty of business for the security council of the United Nations. But without nuclear confrontation or anything like that, you'll see more of brushfire wars, as more wars of national liberation. Its peaceful coexistence always going to lapse into a war here and there, a limited war. I just can't be a prophet on that. It would seem to me that the general trend has been toward the use of less violence and settling the political disputes and toward competition by peaceful means. I think there's some evidence pointing in that direction.

I hope that is true. We must work toward ensuring that it is true. But we have to take these things one step at a time and work on them as best we can. The question arises, of course, even if the Soviet Union is from here on going to be a specific influence within the communist world, what is the influence of China going to be? We don't know very much about what the second generation of Peking will look like. Indeed part of that commotion that's going on there now may have to do with some shift and influence between the first generation, the second generation of leadership. Most of the members of the President, the government of Peking, are veterans of the long march, at the first generation, with the rather dogmatic and rather harsh views of the primitive marches, if you like. Now, what will the second generation look like? Will they be managers, bureaucrats, technicians, scientists, people of that sort? All they be dynamic ideologists, still pursuing this rather militant brand of communism.

We don't really really know yet, although we have a very great stake in the answer. So we can hope that, in time, some of the along of that original violence will spin itself. And we can look forward to a little more pragmatism, a little more prudence in their relations with the rest of the world. Secretary, our time is up. Thank you very much. Thank you. This broadcast has been brought to you live from the James Monroe Reception Room of the State Department in Washington. A conversation with Dean Rusk was a production of the National Educational Television Network.