As a correspondent he covered the French negotiations with Ho Chi Minh in 1946, the war in Indochina, the Geneva Conference of 1954, and the subsequent beginning of the American involvement in Vietnam.

In addition to writing and lecturing, Mr. Schoenbrun is a member of the faculties of the Graduate School of International Affairs of Columbia University and the New School for Social Research in New York City.

Mr. Ellsberg served in both the Departments of Defense and State during the crucial years of the American buildup in Vietnam. He was a special assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton during the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incidents, and served in Vietnam with the State Department from 1965 to 1967.

Following that and until last month he was employed at the Rand Corp. to analyze the U.S. decison making process on Vietnam policy. He is now a senior research associate at the Center for International Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mr. Schoenbrun and Mr. Ellsberg, we are very pleased to have you this morning.

Mr. Schoenbrun, do you have a statement to make first?

STATEMENT OF DAVID SCHOENBRUN

Mr. SCHOENBRUN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have presented to the committee a written statement of some length on the history of U.S.-Indochinese relations. I would like to submit that for the record and give a shorter verbal summary to you and open up for questions as rapidly as I can, although it is a very complex subject.

I would like to begin first, sir—————

The CHAIRMAN. The entire statement will be put in the record and you can proceed.

Mr. SCHOENBRUN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is always a privilege to testify before this committee, but I find it today a very sad privilege.

EXTENSION OF VIETNAM WAR INTO INDOCHINESE

In all the years that I covered as an eye-witness reporter and as a student of Indochinese affairs, my worst nightmares never led me to believe that one day I would be testifying before the Senate of the United States on the American Indochinese war. But that, in fact, is what has happened as a result of the American penetration of Cambodia and American activities in Laos.

Senator GORE. Mr. Chairman, I don't quite understand that. Will you say again what is happening.

Mr. SCHOENBRUN. Yes, Senator Gore. I said in the many years in which I covered the French Indochinese war and the affairs of the countries of Indochina, I never believed in my worst nightmares that I would one day be testifying about an American Indochinese war. But that is in fact what has happened as a result of the events of the last

few weeks.

Indeed I was shocked as a citizen when I first heard the President of the United States in an address to the Nation refer to the Indochina war. Until now he had been talking about the war in Vietnam but it

was the President's own phrase that alerted me to the fact that there was something changed in Washington now, in the Government, that we were now in a war in Indochina.

I hope that we are not, for much as I have opposed the war in Vietnam, I would even more greatly oppose an extension of it into Indochina itself.

VIETNAMIZATION OF CAMBODIA

Senator GORE. Do you think there is some point in the phrase, "to Vietnamize Cambodia," which I used a few moments ago?

Mr. SCHOENBRUN. Yes, sir, I think that your question was very well put to the witness. We are Vietnamizing Cambodia insofar as we are penetrating into that country, aiding and abetting and giving encouragement to that Government in its own repressive measures inside its own country and also, so far as I am able to determine, in a position where our ally, our so-called ally, South Vietnam, has stated in the persons of President Thieu and Vice President Ky that they feel free to go into Cambodia or to stay in the Cambodia frontier areas in the defense of their forces as they determine their right to do so and that they count upon American logistical support for their forces. If that is true then, I think, Senator, your phrase was most apt that there has been a Vietnamization of Cambodia.

PROPOSED MILITARY ALLIANCE BETWEEN SOUTH VIETNAM, THAILAND, CAMBODIA, AND LAOS

Senator GORE. I understand Mr. Thieu said today, in Saigon, that it wouuld be necessary to have military alliance between South Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos.

Mr. SCHOENBRUN. Yes, sir, I have heard talk of that kind. Our own Government has not confirmed that it is itself considering this proposition, but our past experience leads us, at least, to be fearful that that might be the consequence.

U.S. AFFINITY FOR UNPOPULAR MILITARY DICTATORSHIPS

Senator GORE. At least I would like to observe that, regrettably, we have a strange affinity for unpopular military dictatorships.

Mr. SCHOENBRUN. Yes, sir, I am afraid that in a career of some 25 years as a reporter, I have seen that to be the case in a widespread span from Athens to Santo Domingo, Rio de Janeiro, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and many other places around the world.

VIETNAMIZATION AND NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT

Senator GORE. The previous witness asserted that it had been only for the past couple of years that the United States had given top priority to bring the Saigon government to the point of defending itself. Is not Vietnamization in itself contradictory to the goal of a negotiated settlement?

Mr. SCHOENBRUN. Well, I think that Vietnamization is, at the very best that can be said for it, is a hedge against the likelihood that there will not be a negotiated settlement. It seems that-I am not quite sure,

sir, just what Vietnamization is. My own suspicion is that it is another form, if I can say so, of Koreanization. I think that is a more accurate description.

PUBLIC IGNORANCE OF U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN INDOCHINA

I wonder, perhaps, Senator Gore, if I might be permitted to go right into the heart of the story by giving the history of the case, what happened step by step to bring us where we are now, for I feel that all of the fine work that this committee has done over the years, and you know how often I have testified before it, I remember the excellent investigations conducted by Senator Mansfield during the French Indochinese affair, that despite all of that the general American public remains almost totally ignorant of how we got in, toe to ankle, to knee, to hip deep into the quagmire of Indochina.

Senator GORE. I think it would be helpful.

Mr. SCHOENBRUN. All across this country, Senator Gore, people are beginning to ask, where, what is Indochina? When, how, why have we gotten involved? They are not familiar with the key documents in the case. They are not familiar with the Geneva Accords.

I asked audience after audience: "Have you read the Geneva Accords?" which are only two and a half pages long, and they have not read it and they are not familiar with it.

REASONS GIVEN FOR U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN VIETNAM DOUBTED

They are not familiar with the SEATO Treaty. It sometimes seems to me as though our very own government is not familiar with these treaties and documents, for their references to them as American commitments to defend South Vietnam do not accord with my understanding of the record of the case as laid down before this distinguished committee itself. I think it is useful to describe how it happened because our government has told us at various times, gentlemen, that we are there, one, to stop a Communist aggression. I do not believe that a Communist aggression actually took place in Vietnam. I believe there was an aggression, but it was a French aggression, followed up by American intervention, and, perhaps, I am too polite a citizen to call it an American aggression, but I think history may so judge it.

We have been told that, secondly, we are there also under a principle of self-determination for the people of South Vietnam. I do not believe that to be true, Senators. I believe, in fact, that the French and the Americans have interfered with the process of self-determination which was well underway before the Western interference.

We have been told, thirdly, that we are there under treaty commitment solemnly undertaken and I say to this committee, which knows better than anybody else, that there is no treaty commitment to defend South Vietnam and I would like to go into the SEATO Treaty thoroughly in the course of my testimony.

Senator GORE. Since you mention the SEATO Treaty, does it not, in fact, provide against the kind of action which we have just taken by this invasion?

Mr. SCHOENBRUN. Yes, sir, and I was present during the ratification debates and I recall the distinct answers and promises that Sec

retary Dulles made to Senators Cooper and Green under very tight questioning by your committee.

So I would like to examine this proposition. (1) Was there a Communist aggression? (2) Were we going in for self-determination? (3) Are there treaty commitments? In other words, why are we there? How did it happen?

1944 U.S. ALLIANCE WITH HO CHI MINH

I saw the whole thing start, gentlemen. I had been a young intelligence officer on the staff of General Eisenhower when I first heard about Indochina in a report sent through by the Commander in Chief in the Far East, General Douglas MacArthur.

General Douglas MacArthur was full of praise of a man he called & patriot fighting for the independence of his country, who was our ally in the war against Japan, and that man's name, stated by General MacArthur in his report, was Ho Chi Minh. He was allied with us, in a very modest way of course, the head of a small guerrilla band. MacArthur's agents and OSS agents, such as General Gallagher, Major Patti and other Americans, brought electronic equipment, radio tracking equipment, and I might say

The CHAIRMAN. When was this? Would you identify it.

Mr. SCHOENBRUN. 1944, sir. 1944. We maintained very close liaison with Ho Chi Minh in the limestone caves of North Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh, with the aid of this American equipment, was sending through intelligence information on the movements of Japanese troops and how ironical it is to think today, sir, they were doing what they could to rescue American pilots shot down over North Vietnam by the Japanese. I recall Vietnamese agents in Paris and elsewhere, whom I met during that period of time, telling me how thrilled they were by the promises of President Roosevelt and the four freedoms of the Atlantic Charter and that they felt that World War II was a war for national liberation as they saw it and that they would be freed of imperial domination.

U.S. INTENTIONS IN WORLD WAR II

Roosevelt made it quite clear to Winston Churchill, as you know, that we were not fighting World War II in order to reinstate the French and British empires, and this was the understanding of many peoples around the world whom I met as a soldier and as a reporter. This was understood by the Sulton of Morocco when our troops first landed in Casablanca and in Fedela.

The French understood we were landing there to free them, but the Moroccan people thought that they too were going to be made free.

This led to the further conflict in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, places all around the world, and most particularly in Vietnam, a country that had been under French imperial control for almost a century.

END OF FRENCH CLAIM TO VIETNAM

When World War II broke out, the French government of Marshal Petain, the Fascist state of Marshal Petain, became allied with Hitler and Tojo against us and the French in Indochina became our enemies allied with the Japanese who were their overlords.

In March 1945 the Japanese disarmed the French, interned the French, their own allies, threw them in jail and took over Vietnam as a Japanese colony, and the so-called Emperor, who had been a French puppet immediately denounced his old masters, the French, and joined his new masters, the Japanese.

I would submit to this committee that in March of 1945, therefore, France's legal rights to Indochina, which were always questionable in the sense that one nation should not own another nation, but those legal rights as well as moral rights came to an end, and Vietnam became a Japanese colony, so that when the Japanese were defeated in August of 1945 there was no legal authority left, and the only authority was the authority of the Vietnamese people.

HO CHI MINH AT THE END OF WORLD WAR II

This authority was expressed in the person of Ho Chi Minh, who was the leader of the partisan band who had been fighting on the side of the Western Powers during the war.

When Ho Chi Minh came out of the underground in September 1945, gentlemen, he addressed a public meeting of his people in Hanoi, and offered to them a declaration of independence and in this declaration of independence were two very interesting phases:

One was that "all men are created equal," and the other that "all men are born and remain equal in rights", the first, of course, being a translation from our own Declaration of Independence and the second being a translation from the French Declaration of The Rights of Man during their 18th-century Revolution, and it was quite interesting that Ho chose to do so because he was informing the French and Americans that he expected them to live up to their own principles of equality and freedom for all peoples.

At the same time, being a Marxist, being a longtime international Communist servant, yet abandoning all Communist international slogans, he was in a subtle way telling the Russians that he was not going to be their servant, that he was going to be an independent man. Ho had the same kind of view on this subject as Tito of Yugoslavia had. There was no other power present and so he assumed power in September 1945, declared a republic, held an election and was elected overwhelmingly, not that he rigged the election, but because he didn't have to rig the election any more than Tito did. He was the leader of his people; he led them in a war; he defeated an imperial power and he was really acclaimed as President.

CONVENTION OF MARCH 1946

His acclamation as President and his declaration of a republic was not contested by the French. They were too weak at that time to do anything about it anyway and they recognized him as such and they