Rusk On Vietnam Policy

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31003, 8 March 1966, Page 17

Rusk On Vietnam Policy

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter —Copyright? WASHINGTON, March 7. The United States would face a far worse military confrontation, involving China and Russia, if it walked out on Vietnam, the Secretary of State, Mr Dean Rusk, warned today. “If Peking and Moscow discover that our commitment there doesn’t mean anything, then we are facing . . . ■ dangers far beyond those now on the horizon,” he said in a television programme. “Peking and Moscow would make decisions about the lack of will of the United States that would move us into a war that no-one Would want”

Mr Rusk said a United States victory in Vietnam would mean that “100 small countries around the world will breathe a sigh of relief.” A constant critic of American policy in Vietnam, Senator William Fulbright, said today there was a real danger of a United States war with China. Senator Fulbright announced that the Senate foreign relations committee, of which he is chairman, will begin a series of hearings this week to increase public knowledge about China. “ . . . The danger of war between China and America is real because an ‘openended’ war in Vietnam can bring the two great Powers into conflict with each other, by accident or by design, at almost any time,” he said in a statement. “Perhaps a concerted effort to increase our understanding of China and the Chinese

would alter that fatal expectancy. Perhaps if our expectations were altered theirs, too, would change. “It is anything but a sure thing but, considering the stakes and considering the alternative, it seems worth a try.

There is no easy way for us to make ourselves known to the Chinese as the decent and honourable people we really are, and it is not likely that the dogmatic men who rule Peking will soon remove the blinkers of ideology and look at the world in realistic and human terms. “This makes it all the more important for Americans to be open-minded and inquisitive. to set aside ideological preconception and try to' learn all that we can about the Chinese and their be-’ haviour and attitudes, and; especially to try to find out| why exactly the Chinese are so hostile to the West and'

.what if anything can be done to eliminate that hostility.” i The foreign relations comI mittee recently held a series lof hearings on Vietnam in which a number of critics of United States policy there aired their views. In New York, Senator Edward Kennedy today backed his brother Robert’s controversial views on American policy in Vietnam and urged immediate direct talks with the Viet Cong to end the war. Edward Kennedy said in a television interview that he agreed with his elder brother's view that the United States had to give the Viet Cong assurances that there would ibe free elections following I the war and that America i i would abide by the results i of these elections. Senator Kennedy said he, supported America’s funda-| mental commitment in Vietnam and President Johnson’s! objectives there. 1