Mr. DOOLIN. No, sir; because this is not an agreement. This is simply a contingency study.

The CHAIRMAN. But in form, I said. Do you usually formalize contingency plans in the same fashion you did this one?

Mr. DOOLIN. That I do not know. I can get you that information. The CHAIRMAN. Can you get us that information?

Mr. DOOLIN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. If there are other contingency plans with this kind of formality of being signed and sealed by the defense ministers or prime ministers or both would you supply us a list of what they are and with whom? Could you do that?

Mr. DOOLIN. I believe so.

(The following information was later submitted by the DOD :)

BILATERAL AND MULTILATERAL MILITARY CONTINGENCY PLANS

Bilateral and multilateral military contingency plans are developed to provide for the employment of mutually supporting military forces. A military contingency plan within itself is not a commitment to or by anyone. These plans are subject to implementation only when higher authority so directs. Present bilateral and multilateral military contingency plans are signed by senior military officers of the nations involved and not by their Defense Ministers or Prime Ministers. The plans are promulgated by the senior military commanders of the forces concerned. The U.S./Thai contingency plan under discussion is unique only in that the appropriate Thai military commander was coincidentally occupying the positions of Defense Minister and Prime Minister. Field Marshal Thanom, as Supreme Commander of the Thai Armed Forces, was the appropriate Thai military commander in this instance.

The CHAIRMAN. You see, we are conducting a review, as far as we can, of our obligations all over the world. We have a special ad hoc subcommittee for this purpose, and we are trying to find out just where we are and how we are obligated in any place. But now, specifically in Thailand, and, while we have only a general outline of this, again, for our purposes and for the use of the whole committee's information and that of the Senate, I think we ought to have a copy of the agreement. This is a bone of contention, and I just want to make it clear that I do not think this letter from the State Department is satisfactory.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT HANDLING OF CONTINGENCY PLANS

When you say the Department of Defense is extremely reluctant to allow it out of its own hands, it is a very strange attitude to me that the State Department seems to take a subservient position with respect to the Department of Defense.

Mr. BROWN. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. It seems to me you ought to be the primary agency through which our foreign relations are conducted and supervised. Mr. BROWN. May I comment on that, sir?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, indeed. I want you to.

Mr. BROWN. In this particular case, the terms of reference for this study which finally eventuated into this contingency plan were approved by the Department of State and the Department of Defense, both here in Washington, but we have not gone into all the details of exactly how this thing was to be carried out.

In response to Senator Gore's comment

The CHAIRMAN. But, in that connection, why in the world wouldn't you have a copy of that agreement in your custody? If you have been asked to approve it, to participate in it, it seems most unusual that you would not even have a copy of it.

Mr. BROWN. No, sir. That is the usual way in which military contingency plans are handled.

The CHAIRMAN. They do not trust you, either.

Mr. BROWN. They do not burden us with all those plans.

The CHAIRMAN. Do not what?

Senator GORE. Burden. He said they did not burden the State Department.

The CHAIRMAN. We want to be burdened, because we want to try to keep this country out of future Vietnams.

CONTINGENCY PLAN NOT A COMMITMENT

Mr. BROWN. May I comment on that, sir, and Senator Gore's comment?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. BROWN. This agreement is a contingency plan. It so states. It has no validity unless and until it should be affirmatively put into operation by the administration. It has been so interpreted by the Thai. They have both publicly and privately stated they do not consider it a commitment. It does not enlarge the SEATO obligation, and it seems to me that if you have an agreement which is explicitly made contingent on future decisions, and which both parties interpret as not involving a commitment, and have said that privately and publicly, that you do not have a commitment.

Senator CASE. It does not say, does it, Mr. Brown, that both states had to put it into motion by action of their Governments pursuant to due constitutional processes?

Mr. BROWN. No, sir. But that would be the way it would be done in this case.

Senator CASE. It would have to be done.

Mr. BROWN. Yes.

Senator CASE. In other words, we could not move to carry out that action without a declaration of war.

Mr. BROWN. I do not know whether it would require a declaration of war or not, but it would certainly require consultation with the Congress.

Senator CASE. Consultation? You mean telling Senator Dirksen and Senator Mansfield?

The CHAIRMAN. After it is done, they would tell us, "We have moved our troops."

Senator CHURCH. The way Vietnam was done.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me read you what Mr. Thanom said. He is the man who signed it. His last name is Kittikachorn.

"Thanom told newsmen to 'call it what you will, but it is not a secret agreement.' He described it as 'putting in practice cooperation between Thailand and the United States to help prevent Communist aggression." "

To continue:

32-308-69- -20

"It gives us the certainty and confidence,' he said, that the United States will not desert us and let us fight against the Communists on our own.' He said the plan emphasizes the dispatch of American troops for 'joint operations.'

I submit that is a rather different interpretation than the way you put it.

(The article referred to follows:)

[From the Washington Post, July 11, 1969]

U.S. ACKNOWLEDGES THAI PACT, DENIES WIDER COMMITMENT

The State Department yesterday acknowledged that there is a United StatesThailand military contingency plan, but denied senatorial claims that the document has broadened the American commitment.

Sen. J. William Fulbright (D-Ark.), who had first raised the issue of a "secret agreement," said he was not satisfied and had asked Secretary of State William P. Rogers for a copy of the plan.

State Department spokesman Robert J. McCloskey called the 1965 agreement a contingency plan under the SEATO treaty and declared that "for more than a decade we have participated in formulating contingency military plans involving the defense of Thailand."

McCloskey said the document is "still a current paper" but that it has never been invoked. He declined to state what contingency would bring the plan into play or to make the plan public.

"This planning," he said, "involves no further commitment beyond the Southeast Asia treaty."

Furthermore, he added, the plan "explicitly provides that it cannot be put into effect except by the mutual agreement and consent of both governments."

In Bangkok, Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn said that he had negotiated the agreement "three or four years ago" with Lt. Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, then a major general and chief of the Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group in Thailand. Stilwell is now in Vietnam.

Thanom told newsmen to "call it what you will, but it is not a secret agreement." He described it as "putting in practice cooperation between Thailand and the United States to help prevent Communist aggression."

"It gives us the certainty and confidence," he said, that the United States “will not desert us and let us fight against the Communists on our own." He said the plan emphasizes the dispatch of American troops for "joint operations."

Meanwhile, columnist Flora Lewis reported yesterday in the Long Island newspaper Newsday that the agreement "pledges to send U.S. combat and support troops to the defense of Thailand ‘if required' and in the numbers 'necessary'." Miss Lewis said the agreement was signed in Bangkok by Secretary of State Dean Rusk in 1965 when the United States was beginning its buildup in Vietnam. But McCloskey said the signers were Stilwell and Thanom, who then was defense minister. He added that there are presumably many other contingency plans that have been set up with other allies around the world. As an example, he mentioned arrangements for the defense of West Berlin.

Senator GORE. Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to suggest this as in the nature of any threat at all, but what it comes down to is a choice of values and responsibility. If the administration persists in its refusal to supply this committee with this agreement, it seems to me that the committee will have to choose a method within the democratic process. We might be forced to consider, on our own, responsibility for the release of such classified information as the committee already has. I am not suggesting that now, but I am suggesting that it may be necessary.

REPLY FROM STATE DEPARTMENT

The CHAIRMAN. I am not sure whether the Senator from New York or the Senator from New Jersey has seen this reply. I believe I showed you the reply, Senator Church, that I got from the State Department.

You remember at the last meeting we had on this matter the committee authorized me

Senator CHURCH. You told me about it but I did not see the letter. The CHAIRMAN (continuing). To send a letter requesting this. Maybe I ought to read it for the record. It is very short.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN:

This is dated August 4, 1969

I have discussed with Secretary Laird the letter you handed me

I handed it to him personally

on July 29, 1969, regarding military contingency plans for Thailand developed in connection with the SEATO Treaty.

In this case, as in the case of any contingency plan, the Department of Defense is extremely reluctant to allow the full text to get out of its own hands. Secretary Laird would, however, be happy to provide the Committee with an extensive briefing on these plans by officers from the Joint Staff at whatever time is convenient to the Committee. He has stressed to me that this is the same arrangement worked out with Senator Stennis and the Armed Services Commit

tee.

I hope that this arrangement will be satisfactory to you and your colleagues on the Foreign Relations Committee.

With warm regards,
Sincerely,

ELLIOT RICHARDSON,
Acting Secretary.

That is the answer to the letter I sent to him. I got it yesterday. I have talked, for the information of the committee, to Senator Stennis, and I believe Senator Stennis, who said he wanted to think further about it, agrees with me that both committees are entitled to know what this plan is.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT REPRESENTATIVE SIGNED THAI PLAN

Before you came in, it was said that this is the plan signed by the present Prime Minister, who is also Secretary of Defense, as we would call him, of Thailand, plus General Stilwell representing the American MAAG, which I assume to mean in theory that the Joint Chiefs are the participants rather than the State Department; is that correct? Normally the Ambassador representing the Commander in Chief would sign such an agreement rather than a representative of the Joint Chiefs, wouldn't he?

Mr. BROWN. I think it varies, sir, as to what the nature of the agreement is as to who signs it.

The CHAIRMAN. You signed the Brown letter as Ambassador, did you not?

Mr. BROWN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. That is considered a commitment by the United States to do various things for the Koreans, is it not?

Mr. BROWN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. In that case you were representing not the Joint Chiefs but the President of the United States.

Mr. BROWN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. In this case, the representative of the Joint Chiefs, I assume, General Stilwell, signed this contingency plan, if you want to call it that. I reject the idea of a contingency plan. It looks like a commitment; it was intended as a commitment.

Senator GORE. What is a treaty but a contingency plan?
The CHAIRMAN. Well, that is a word they use.

Senator CHURCH. Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Senator Church.

ANOTHER VIETNAM IN THAILAND POSSIBLE

Senator CHURCH. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that this Thai situation is so ambiguous that it definitely contains all the seeds of another Vietnam. We almost seem compulsively moving again in that direction.

I notice in the Washington Post that the words the President used in Bangkok were that we would stand with Thailand against those who might threaten it from without or from within which, I hardly need tell this committee, goes considerably beyond the commitment in the SEATO Treaty.

It has been said since that the President did not mean by that statement that American troops should be involved if an insurgency situation should develop in Thailand. Perhaps he did not. But at least the question is open for further inquiry by this committee.

That raises the second issue, which is: What is the contingency for which this plan is made? And my understanding is that the contingency is that very kind of insurgent, insurrectionary problem developing in Thailand as, in fact, developed in Vietnam, and that the plan addresses itself to that kind of situation and commits both American forces, and Thai forces, and specifically the number, even the commander. So it seems that this kind of an agreement or joint plan, call it whatever you want, flies in the face of what we are being toldnamely, that American troops are not again to be engaged in this kind of situation.

I do not know what the facts are, but I think we ought to be entitled to get the facts. We ought to see what this plan is and not just be given interpretations of the plan by representatives of the administration.

Senator JAVITS. Would the Senator yield?
Senator CHURCH. Yes.

CONSULTATION WITH EXECUTIVE BRANCH SUGGESTED

Senator JAVITS. Mr. Chairman, we are Senators but we are also men, and I think we understand how things go.

Bear in mind that some of these commitments were undertaken before we really got into trouble in Vietnam, and these were commitments of the American Government before we learned about them, really.

I do not think we need operate completely at arm's length with the administration unless they make us do so, because we are, after all, as a Russian once introduced me, part of the ruling classes of the United States.

So I would hope, Mr. Chairman, that in executive session, perhaps even in consultation with Mr. Richardson and, perhaps, even somebody from the Defense Department, after having heard everything they can tell us there is no use berating them, they can only go so far