Mr. SALISBURY. I doubt that very much, Mr. Fulbright. I think this is a grandiose idea. I don't think that we really intend to conquer Asia. I hope that isn't our intention.

The CHAIRMAN. I don't think we do, either. We didn't intend to get as far as we are now. Nearly everyone agrees that our involvement came without anyone intending it to become what it is, isn't that correct?

Mr. SALISBURY. I am sure that is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. I have heard most of the commentators and even those who are most anxious to escalate the war say, well, we didn't intend to do it but here we are.

Mr. SALISBURY. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. So the intention is not very relevant, is it?

What's relevant is what actually evolved.

Mr. SALISBURY. That is quite true.

The CHAIRMAN. If the statement of the Chinese is correct, and I accept what you say about it, it seems to me we ought to consider very seriously whether or not to pursue our present policy.

Mr. SALISBURY. I hope that we are considering that.

The CHAIRMAN. I hope so, too.

Senator LAUSCHE. Mr. Chairman, will you yield for a moment? The CHAIRMAN. I yield to Senator Sparkman.

Senator SPARKMAN. I yield to Senator Lausche.

THE TEN-MINUTE RULE

Senator LAUSCHE. In our executive meeting the other day it was said by the chairman that the ten-minute rule would be abandoned but each Senator would, on his own, comply with it.

Now, I submit

The CHAIRMAN. I submit nothing of that sort was said.

Senator LAUSCHE. That is exactly what was said and I submit to the chairman that it is not fair to the junior members of this committee nor to the people of the country to have a one-slanted, one-sided view developed as it is being done in the manner in which we are proceeding. I resent it and I resent the implication that by my presence I am confirming the effort of the chairman to create a portrait that doesn't quite accurately reflect the position of our country.

Senator SPARKMAN. May I say to the Senator from Ohio I shall not use more than ten minutes.

U.S. BOMBING OF NORTH VIETNAM IS UNPRODUCTIVE

Mr. Salisbury, you say that you feel that our bombing North Vietnam is unsound policy.

Mr. SALISBURY. Yes, in general I

Senator SPARKMAN. I want to be sure.

Mr. SALISBURY. I don't know whether I would use the word unsound, I think it is unproductive.

Senator SPARKMAN. Well, I think Senator Fulbright used the word "unsound" and you agreed with it.

Mr. SALISBURY. I would use the word "unproductive," counter-productive.

Senator SPARKMAN. That is what I want to follow up. I understand from what you said that it was having considerable effect. Mr. SALISBURY. That is quite true.

Senator SPARKMAN. What do you mean by being unproductive? Mr. SALISBURY. Well, Senator, I put my valuation of the bombing policy in two categories. I described as best I could the physical results of that bombing, the damage to the roads and the highways and that sort of thing. And I pointed out that in my opinion, at least as far as I could figure out in spite of that damage they are getting the stuff through, the stuff they want to get through, but it is costing them manpower and it is costing material, it is taking labor away from the rice paddies.

This is a military plus and I emphasize that, because it is a military plus.

The military minus which we pay for that is produced in this will to resist, this spirit of national patriotism which is stimulated by the bombing.

To my way of thinking, the one cancels out the other or there may be a slight negative there. That is the reason I make that statement. Senator SPARKMAN. I thought perhaps you misunderstood. I thought you said it had slowed up the flow of men and materials into the south.

Mr. SALISBURY. It may have been in some small degree, but that would be very difficult to measure. I think they are sending out about as much as they are prepared to absorb down there.

CIVILIAN CASUALTIES AN INEVITABLE RESULT OF BOMBING

Senator SPARKMAN. You say in your written statement:

While there has been much reaction in this country over my reports of the damage to civilians and the casualties among civilians, I myself was not surprised at the results from our bombings, since past experience has shown that it is impossible to bomb military targets, particularly in a heavily populated country, without causing civilian casualties.

As I recall, about the time your articles came out most of the criticism that developed was over the fact that you had apparently criticized the civilian losses and particularly the civilian casualties without going as far as you go in this statement to the effect that it was an almost inevitable result.

In fact, I go a little further. I recall there was one city, I don't remember which one it was, in which you detailed the losses and you said either outright or by implication that it was not a military area. Yet I noticed right after that an officer who had served there, I believe he was a flier, said this particular place was filled with military.

Mr. SALISBURY. He said it was heavily defended by antiaircraft. I would say, in the first place, my reports were not designed as criticisms and I don't think it is the role of the reporter in his reporting of what he sees to include criticism and I don't believe I included any criticism in the reports————

Senator SPARKMAN. I probably used the wrong word there, but at least you put forth those statements

Mr. SALISBURY. I sent back

Senator SPARKMAN. From which inferences were drawn.

Mr. SALISBURY. Inferences were drawn from them. I described the actual physical results of the bombing and I described the results to this particular city which is Nam Dinh, a large textile manufacturing city. They call it large; it is small by our standards, about 90,000 population, and I described in that dispatch a considerable area of the residential part of that city which had been destroyed as a result of bombing. This was largely around this textile plant.

This is true. It was destroyed all right, and this did not really surprise me very much, frankly, since I have seen a great deal of bombing in my life. I saw a great deal of it in England, I saw the results of it in Germany after the war, and I saw it in the Soviet Union, and I know perfectly well it is very hard to hit a military target in any kind of a built-up area without hitting other things as well. As I make this statement here that I was not surprised at the results of the bombing because I wasn't.

I was surprised at the reaction in this country when I reported what seemed to me to be a perfectly ordinary result. I frankly agreed entirely with President Eisenhower when he said, "Well, of course, you can't hit military objectives without some civilians being killed." This is true. This is commonsense.

The only reason I can suppose that there was a big reaction to this thing was because, I believe it may be true that the Pentagon had sort of encouraged the feeling that we were able to drop our bombs without hitting any civilians. I just don't know whether that was true or not, but I suspect it may be.

MENTION OF NAM DINH IN U.S. COMMUNIQUÉS

Senator SPARKMAN. In the USIA reaction analysis dated for the week ending December 30, 1966, there seems to be something to be pleased with, anyhow. It quotes the Paris paper, France Soir, that

must be stressed that "the Americans are playing fair." The paper spelled out this assertion in these words: "Washington has validated a passport for a country with which the United States is in a de facto conflict. The U.S. press has not hesitated to publish reports contradicting those of the Government, and the latter has done nothing to prevent it. So many facts prove that American democracy is not a mere word." Still, the paper said, "the American people had had to learn from Salisbury that 'the third largest city in North Vietnam, Nam Dinh, had been systematically attacked since June 28 *** yet American communiques had never mentioned those bombings,"

and so forth.

Do you have any comment on that?

Mr. SALISBURY. Yes. I think that is probably a pretty fair comment about the European reaction to the reports. I think there was very favorable reaction so far as their image of this country was concerned, because it demonstrated that we are a democracy and we don't try to stifle conflicting views.

With respect to the report about Nam Dinh and it not having been mentioned in communiques, this became a matter of some controversy with the Pentagon as well but, again, I think slightly off the point. I didn't say it hadn't been mentioned by the Pentagon, I said the people in Nam Dinh were not aware of it ever having been mentioned in the communique. That was the specific language I used.

Well, after several days the Pentagon did discover that they had mentioned it, I think three times, twice about a year ago last spring and one other date which I never did get from them. So I really don't know what that proves one way or the other.

Senator SPARKMAN. I remind you again that this is put out by our own Government.

Mr. SALISBURY. That is right.

Senator SPARK MAN. It seems that the statements made that we were fair indicated it.

Mr. SALISBURY. I think so.

Senator SPARKMAN. That is all, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hickenlooper?

AREA COVERED BY MR. SALISBURY

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Mr. Salisbury, how long were you in the Hanoi area?

Mr. SALISBURY. Two weeks.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. And I believe your statement says that you got as far as 80 to 90 miles below Hanoi south and north to a distance of 15 or 20 miles.

Mr. SALISBURY. That is right.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. In area.

Did you confine your on-the-ground inspection to a particular highway or a particular route of travel?

Mr. SALISBURY. Not any particular one, but the principal observations were made in the course of two trips along the road, although we didn't follow the same highway in both cases, one was a trip to this town of Nam Dinh we are just talking about and the other was a trip to an area which is generally called Phat Diem, which is somewhat south of Nam Dinh, and to the west of it.

And these were in both cases these were trips that-one was a weekend trip and one was a long day trip.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Did you get north of Hanoi and west to the railroad junctions that come in from China?

Mr. SALISBURY. No, unfortunately I didn't. I was going to make a trip up there one day and instead of that we went off to the Phat Diem trip so I didn't see that junction which has been quite heavily bombed, of course, by ourselves.

MILITARY SIGNIFICANCE OF AREAS BOMBED

Senator HICKENLOOPER. I think the connotation which resulted from at least your earlier stories about Hanoi and the surrounding area, whether it is a correct understanding or not, is that you thought we were bombing nothing but metropolitan areas with no military significance of any kind and were killing civilians.

I think the general impression came about that there was no real military significance of these areas bombed.

Mr. SALISBURY. I would say, Senator, that such an impression would only occur from a very superficial or hasty looking at the stories, because this is not the correct impression nor is it-I think if you examine the stories again you will see, that is not correct.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Did you find installations of significant military importance in the bombed areas you visited?

Mr. SALISBURY. In some areas they exist. In others, they don't, and this is hard to generalize about.

The principal military objectives which have been bombed in North Vietnam, and the ones which I described and I described in great detail in one of my very earliest dispatches, are the highways and the railroads and the bridges. These are, for the most part, the basic military objectives that we go after. In addition to this, we attack oil storage capacity, where it exists, and as I described earlier we knocked that out. There is practically none left.

We attacked certain areas which are transshipment areas where stuff may be moved, let's say, from Haiphong by barge and then transshipped by truck or vice versa. We attack such things as motor depots if they exist, although they are mostly fairly small scale, and then the only other things of any great consequence that I know of at any rate that we attacked are antiaircraft installations.

ATTACK ON MIG AIRFIELDS

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Did you find that we attacked any major airfields where the Migs are on the ground, or did we let them alone? Mr. SALISBURY. I didn't see there is one field as you perhaps know, where the MIG-21s are based which is outside of Hanoi. I didn't see that but I think you know it has not been attacked.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Did you find out in your investigation why our pilots are not allowed to attack that airfield, leaving the Migs sitting there on the ground to come out and attack us?

Mr. SALISBURY. I have read in the Times a good deal about that. I believe there are specific orders against that.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. I understand there are specific orders against that. My question was, did you find out why?

Mr. SALISBURY. No. Nobody over there knew why. [Laughter.] Senator HICKENLOOPER. I think they share our wonder here, also. [Laughter.]

Mr. SALISBURY. It could be.

PAYMENT OF GOODS FROM RUSSIA AND CHINA

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Are the goods that come into North Vietnam from China and from Russia donations? Are they sold on credit? How do the North Vietnamese pay for these?

Mr. SALISBURY. That is a pretty good question, and I don't know the answer to it. I am pretty sure that they are given to them.

If they are given on loan or if they expect to get paid, they are going to be waiting a long time because North Vietnam doesn't have anything to pay with.

Knowing the Russians as I do I wouldn't be surprised if technically this staff is all being provided on credit, but again, I would hate to have to wait for any pay.