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Mr. NOLTING. I estimate that by far the majority of the South Vietnamese peasants do not want to be ruled by Hanoi. They are anti-Communists in that sense.

This does not mean that they are vociferous proponents and advocates of their own government. Some of them are actively in support of their own government, but the majority of them are apathetic and many of them are complaining because they don't have protection from Saigon against the Viet Cong who raid them, so that is a plague on both your houses in many areas.

Senator LAUSCHE. Does the Viet Cong have the capability to seize a portion of the country, establish a so-called liberation government, and begin receiving airlifted supplies from the Red bloc? Mr. NOLTING. I do not think

Senator LAUSCHE. Do you fear that?

Mr. NOLTING. I do not think they now have the capability of seizing and holding a large area, or an area sufficiently large to proclaim an independent government and get reinforced from the Communist bloc outside.

Senator LAUSCHE. Their efforts would then be directed to this harassment and creating distress in the minds of the peasants and loss of confidence in the government?

Mr. NOLTING. I think they want to continue the undermining process for a while longer. In other words, I don't think they have reached the point where they are going to try to carve out a piece of territory, proclaim an independent government, and get outside reinforcements to that territory. I may be wrong on that, but this is my prediction.

POSSIBILITY OF A COUP

Senator LAUSCHE. I think you have already expressed your view that the present army of the incumbent government is loyal. Is there any danger that it may try and commit a coup?

Mr. NOLTING. There is always a possibility of a coup.
Senator LAUSCHE. Has there been any talk about that?

Mr. NOLTING. There is constant talk about it. There are rumors about coups all the time, but in my opinion they are insubstantial. Senator LAUSCHE. Is it talk that it is a coup in which the Communists are participating?

Mr. NOLTING. Some of it, but mostly it is talk about dissatisfaction with the progress being made, and the thought that a military regime would do it better.

But I would like to say that I do not expect a coup to be mounted. I may be surprised before I get back to Saigon, but I do not expect one to be mounted.

EFFECT OF COMMUNIST CONTROL OF LAOS

Senator LAUSCHE. What would be our situation if in Laos the neutralist Souvanna Phouma would throw his lot to the Communists and the Communists took over?

Mr. NOLTING. What would be the effect on Vietnam?

Senator LAUSCHE. What would be our chances then of saving South Vietnam?

Mr. NOLTING. I think it would add to the difficulties without question.

Senator LAUSCHE. I would like to conduct some hearings and find out what the status is of the attitude of Cambodia, Thailand, Malaya, about Souvanna Phouma.

[Discussion off the record.]

Senator LAUSCHE. Thank you very much for a very fine presentation. I don't envy you, in your job.

Mr. NOLTING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is very encouraging to me to see the depth and interest that your committee takes in this. It is a hard one, and I think we can do something.

[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the committee adjourned.]

BRIEFING ON THE WORLD SITUATION

MONDAY, JANUARY 15, 1962

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,
Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:40 a.m., in room F-53, U.S. Capitol Building, Hon. J. William Fulbright (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Chairman Fulbright, Senators Sparkman, Humphrey, Mansfield, Morse, Long, Gore, Lausche, Church, Symington, Dodd, Hickenlooper, Aiken, Capehart, and Carlson.

Also present: Mr. Marcy, Mr. Denney, Mr. Henderson, and Mr. Tillman of the committee staff.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

Mr. Secretary, we are very pleased to have you this morning. Everyone understands that this is an executive meeting, and I have assured the Secretary that it will be executive in order that he may be as frank and as candid as possible. In all of these cases many things and many names are mentioned, and it would be too bad for it to get into the press, because we are engaged in so many delicate negotiations these days that I think it would be very harmful to the course of these negotiations if we allowed any of these confidential discussions to become public.

Mr. Secretary, you may proceed. We are very pleased to have

you.

STATEMENT OF HON. DEAN RUSK, SECRETARY OF STATE Secretary RUSK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen.

It is always a great privilege to meet with this committee, and in the circumstances of an executive session where we can go into many of our problems in great depth and with as much candor as is possible. It makes quite a difference not to have four different audiences listening in to what one says, our own people, the SinoSoviet bloc, the neutrals, and our allies.

Necessarily, unless my remarks are to be intolerably long, I will have to do certain selection, but that does not mean that I am not at the disposal of the committee on other matters that I do not touch upon in the course of my introductory remarks.

SINO-SOVIET DISPUTE

I think the first point that I would like to mention is that we have since the adjournment of the Congress been putting in a great

deal of effort to run down the range, the depth, the intensity, and the meaning of developments within the Sino-Soviet bloc.

We have been putting together a very extensive report on this subject which we expect to make available to the committee, Mr. Chairman. Much of it is based on classified information and sources. We would appreciate if it could be held in the committee as a classified document. But, on the other side, we would hope that as many members as possible would have a chance to read and study that report, because it seems quite clear that some very important things are happening behind the Iron Curtain.

There is a major dispute going on between Moscow and Peiping over Moscow's claim to have pre-eminent authority within the Communist world. That position of leadership has been severely and fundamentally challenged by Peiping, and this has caused a very considerable split, not only between the two governments, but within the Communist parties throughout the world, including those in non-Communist countries.

In an effort to sustain its position of leadership, Moscow has tried to invoke a majority rule among world Communist parties, which Peiping has rejected flatly and outright.

Their de-Stalinization program, which has been going on, has run into severe resistance in Peiping, as manifested in the Albanian case. It has led to a first class dispute in many local communist parties, for example, in such countries as India and Indonesia, where there is a very lively and bitter debate now going on these matters.

DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES

It is clear that the state-to-state relations between Moscow and Peiping have suffered some very severe tensions. Moscow's efforts to establish various degrees of military cooperation, in the field of stationing radar equipment in Red China, in the field of joint commands, in the field of technical assistance, in the field of aid-these two governments are indeed quarreling with each other in a very agitated way.

This has injected into the world Communist movement a competition not only between these two sources of power, but between those representing different basic doctrines. To oversimplify it, perhaps, the debate is between competitive coexistence on the one side, and the use of force and war as an instrument of policy by the world revolution on the other.

The Peiping attitude is that peace cannot be attainable, and no effort should be made to attain peace so long as imperialists and capitalists continue to exist. The Soviet Union, apparently feeling a stake in its own national state position, its own position of development, has become from a doctrinal point of view somewhat more conservative.

IMPACT ON ISSUES INVOLVING U.S.

We have felt that in some of our own direct contacts with the Soviet Union. For example, on the question of Laos, we have the impression that the Soviets are considerably more interested in a settlement there than is Peiping.

In the Geneva Conference discussions, there were several occasions when Pushkin' seemed to want to agree to a point that was important to us, such as guarantees that Laos would not be used as a channel for the infiltration of supplies, arms, agents into third countries, but where he found it difficult to tie the point up because he felt that the Chinese were standing behind him and making it very difficult for him.

I will come to that a little later when I come to the question of Laos.

But on disarmament, the Soviets, for perhaps both good and bad reasons, are very much interested in general and complete disarmament. Peiping is resisting this as a concept for the world Communist revolution.

CHINESE ARE MORE EXTREME

Russia seems to be much more interested in developing the possibilities of front organizations than is Peiping. The Russian Communist Party is moving out to try to enlist aid and alliance with other left groups, whereas Peiping tends to concentrate on the extremist possible group. Part of this is that the Soviet Union has been extending its relations into a good many different areas through economic assistance, technical assistance, measures of that sort, and they are finding their own foreign policy complicated in many of the same ways in which we find our policy complicated.

For example, in the disputes between Ethiopia and Somalia, the Soviet Union has been putting aid programs in Ethiopia. The Red Chinese in Somalia are backing that wing of the extremist group in Somalia that is demanding annexation of Ethiopian territory.

The Soviet Union does not want to be backing that point of view because, apparently, they do not wish to complicate their relations with Ethiopia.

There are many differences in approach. We are inclined to think these differences are extremely basic and far-reaching; that the question is whether they have passed the point of no return and, of course, the question is what this means for us.

POSSIBLE DISADVANTAGES TO U.S.

I do not believe it is possible to suggest any final conclusions at this time, but I would suppose we ought to be careful about assuming that this split works necessarily all in our favor.

For example, if the basic issue between these two principal capitals is how best to get on with the world revolution, and Moscow believes that techniques of peaceful penetration, competitive coexistence is the better way, and Peiping believes that harsh measures, harsh pressures and military pressures and action is the better way, this competition to extend communism could give us some very serious problems.

It may make, on the one side, the Soviets more difficult as a negotiating opposite number, because they will be under great pressures to produce results by the techniques which they are recommending to the Communist bloc. On the other side, it may take

'Georgi M. Pushkin, Soviet representative to the Geneva Conference on Laos.

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