Statement by Committee Seeking Peace with Freedom in Vietnam (1967)

STATEMENT BY COMMITTEE SEEKING PEACE WITH FREEDOM IN VIETNAM (1967)

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The Committee Seeking Peace with Freedom in Vietnam was a group of prominent American business people, educators, scientists, government officials, and religious leaders who supported American actions in Vietnam. The committee felt that popular opposition to the war in Vietnam did not, in fact, represent the feelings of America's "silent center": a majority of "independent and responsible men and women who have consistently opposed rewarding international aggressors."

This statement, published in the New York Times din 1967, advocates a "noncompromising resistance to aggression" in Vietnam. The committee believes that communism will spread if unchecked and that it is in the best interests of all Americans to support the fight against totalitarian regimes. Though the bipartisan group was actively supported by the Johnson administration, it failed to affect the influence of the rapidly growing peace movement.

Mark D. Baumann,
New York University

See also Antiwar Movements ; Peace Movements ; Vietnam Wr .

We are a group of concerned citizens who seek peace with freedom in Vietnam.

We do so in the conviction that our own vital national interests are at stake in that troubled land. We are not ashamed to admit that our primary motivation is self-interest—the self-interest of our own country in this shrinking world. America cannot afford to let naked aggression or the suppression of freedom go unchallenged. To Americans, peace and freedom are inseparable.

Our committee is national and nonpartisan—it is composed of Democrats, Republicans and independents, and of "liberals," "moderates" and "conservatives" drawn from all sections and all sectors of our country.

Concern With Principle

We believe in the great American principle of civilian control and a civilian Commander in Chief. And we strongly support our commitment in Vietnam and the policy of noncompromising, although limited, resistance to aggression. All four of the post-World War II American Presidents—Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson—have proclaimed America's basic purpose of defending freedom. We are not supporters of a President or of an Administration; we are supporters of the office of the Presidency.

As a committee, we shall strive to stay above partisan politics, political personalities and transitory opinion polls. Our concern is not with politics or popularity, but with principle.

We are opposed to surrender, however, camouflaged. Yet nothing we advocate can be interpreted as unnecessarily risking a general war in Asia or a nuclear war in the world. We favor a sensible road between capitulation and the indiscriminate use of raw power.

A Small Country

We believe that, in this, we speak for the great "silent center" of American life, the understanding, independent and responsible men and women who have consistently opposed rewarding international aggressors from Adolf Hitler to Mao Tse-tung. And we believe that the "silent center" should now be heard.

A great test is taking place in Vietnam—that test is whether or not the rulers of one territory can cheaply and safely impose a government and a political system upon their neighbors by internal subversion, insurrection, infiltration and invasion. These are the tactics of the Communist "wars of liberation," which depend for success upon achieving their goals at an endurable price and a bearable risk.

Our objective in Vietnam is to make the price too high and the risk too great for the aggressor. This is why we fight.

Vietnam is a small country and we Americans had little contact with it until after World War II. It still seems isolated and remote to many of us, although all of our Presidents for 30 years have had to concern themselves with our national interests in East Asia. For better perspective, we must turn our sights to the edge of East Asia, that enormous area of peninsulas and islands from Korea and Japan south to Taiwan and the Philippines, then west across Southeast Asia to Burma, then southeast to Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand.

That area contains 370 million people—approximately twice the population of the United States. Each of these nations is different from the others but they have one thing in common—all of them are free from external domination. Will this be true if we abandon Vietnam? Or will Peking and Hanoi, flushed with success, continue their expansionist policy through many other "wars of liberation," each conducted at a price which they can endure and a risk which they can bear? We believe they would.

Loud and Clear

Never in over a century has there been as much loud and violent opposition expressed in America to a conflict in which our fighting men are heavily and heroically engaged. Our committee specifically affirms and supports the right of opponents of our national policy to criticize that effort and to offer alternatives consistent with our national interest and security. However, we are concerned that voices of dissent have, thus far, received attention far out of proportion to their actual numbers.

Our objective as a committee is not to suppress the voices of such opposition. Our objective is to make sure that the majority voice of America is heard—loud and clear—so that Peking and Hanoi will not mistake the strident voices of some dissenters for American discouragement and a weakening of will. And, at the same time, we want to give renewed assurance to our fighting men that their sacrifices are neither in vain nor unappreciated—or unwanted—by the great bulk of their fellow citizens.

We want the aggressors to know that there is a solid, stubborn, dedicated, bipartisan majority of private citizens in America who approve our country's policy of patient, responsible, determined resistance which is dependent for its success on having the enemy realize that we shall keep the pressure on and not back down, that the peace we insist upon is a peace with freedom and, thus, with honor.

Today, America is a great world power, shedding its blood and expending its treasure in a distant country for the simple privilege of withdrawing in peace as soon as that country is guaranteed the effective right of self-determination. We ask nothing for ourselves and insist upon nothing for South Vietnam except that it be free to chart its own future, no matter what course it may choose. Surely this is a noble and worthy objective consistent with all that is best in American life and tradition.

Our committee has been formed to rally and articulate the support of the concerned, independent thinking, responsible citizens in America who favor our nation's fundamental commitment to peace with freedom.

Will you join with us?

List of the Members

Membership roster of Citizens Committee for Peace With Freedom in Vietnam:

TRUMAN, HARRY S.—33d President of the United States.

EISENHOWER, DWIGHT D.—34th President of the United States.

ACHESON, DEAN—Former Secretary of State.

ALEXANDER, HOLMES—Syndicate columnist.

ARNOLD, THURMAN—Former Assistant Attorney General in charge of Antitrust Division.

BANDLER, NED—Business executive.

BARNETT, FRANK R.—President, National Strategy Information Center, Inc.

BARON, MURRAY—Industrial consultant.

BEIRNE, JOSEPH W.—President, Communications Workers of America.

BRADLEY, General of the Army OMAR N.—Former chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.

BREIT, Dr. GREGORY—Donner Professor of Physics, Yale University.

BROWN, Dr. J. DOUGLAS—Professor of Economics, Princeton University. Former dean of the faculty.

BROWN, EDMUND G.—Former Governor of California.

BURNS, Dr. JAMES MacGREGOR—James Phinney Baster Professor of History and Public Affairs and chairman, Department of Political Science, Williams College.

BYRNES, JAMES F.—Former Secretary of State.

CABOT, THOMAS D.—Chairman of the board, Cabot Corporation, Boston. Former director, Office of International Security Affairs, Department of State.

CHERNE, LEO—Executive director, the Research Institute of America, Inc.

CLAY, Gen. LUCIUS D.—Senior partner, Lehman Brothers.

CONANT, Dr. JAMES B.—Former president, Harvard University. Former Ambassador to Germany.

CONNELLY, MARC—Playwright.

DARDEN, COLGATE—Former president, University of Virginia.

DAVIS, THURSTON N., S.J.—Editor in chief, America.

DOUGLAS, PAUL H.—Former Senator from Illinois.

DRAPER, Gen. WILLIAM H.—Partner, Draper, Gaither & Anderson.

DRUMMOND, ROSCOE—Syndicated columnist.

ELLISON, RALPH—Author.

EMMETT, CHRISTOPHER—Chairman, American Friends of the Captive Nations.

ENGEL, IRVING M.—Attorney-at-law. Past president, American Jewish Committee.

FARLAND, JOSEPH S.—Former Ambassador to the Dominican Republic and to the Republic of Panama.

FARRELL, JAMES T.—Author.

FISHER, JOHN M.—President, American Research Foundation, Chicago.

GASTON, A. G.—President, Booker T. Washington Insurance Company, Birmingham.

GATES, THOMAS S.—Chairman, Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, former Secretary of Defense.

GIDEONSE, Dr. HARRY D.—Chancellor, New School for Social Research.

GULLION, Dr. EDMUND A.—Dean, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

GUNDERSON, Mrs. ROBERT—Former Civil Service Commissioner.

HACKER, LOUIS M.—Historian and professor of economics, Columbia University.

HANDLIN, Dr. OSCAR—Director, Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University.

HANES, JOHN W. Jr.—Investment banker. Former Assistant Secretary of State.

HARRIS, Dr. HUNTINGTON—Business executive.

HECHT, Rabbi ABRAHAM B.—President, Rabbinical Alliance of America.

HOFFER, ERIC—Author and long-shoreman.

JONES, Dr. FRANK—Physician and surgeon.

KELLER, W. W.—President, Phillips Petroleum Company.

KEGGI, Dr. KRISTAPS J.—Assistant professor of orthopedic surgery, Yale University.

KING, WILSON—Farmer.

LAPP, Dr. RALPH E.—Nuclear physicist and author.

LIEBMAN, MORRIS I.—Attorney-at-law, Chicago.

DE LIMA, OSCAR—Business executive. Chairman, executive committee, United Nations Association.

LINDSAY, HOWARD—Playwright, producer and actor.

LOCKE, EDWIN ALLEN Jr.—President, Modern Homes Construction Company.

LODGE, GEORGE C.—University official. Former Assistant Secretary of Labor.

LOOMIS, HENRY—Former director, Voice of America.

LORD, Mrs. OSWALD B.—Former United States representative on Human Rights Commission, United Nations.

LUCEY, ARCHBISHOP ROBERT E.—San Antonio prelate.

McCALEB, CLAUDE B.—Book company executive.

McDOUGAL, MYRES S.—Sterling Professor of Law, Yale University.

McGILL, RALPH—Syndicated columnist.

MARSHALL, BRIG. Gen. S. L. A.—Military historian.

MARTIN, C. V.—President, Carson Pirie Scott & Co.

MEANY, GEORGE—President, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.

MICHAEL, FRANZ—Associate director, Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies, George Washington University.

NASH, Dr. PHILLFO—Consulting anthropologist. Former Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

NEVINS, ALLAN—Historian.

NEWMAN, RALPH G.—Author, publisher and columnist.

RANDALL, Mrs. ANN HAGEN—Television producer and former foreign correspondent.

REID, WHITELAW—Business executive.

ROBINSON, PROF. JAMES A.—Director, Mershon Center for Education in National Security, Ohio State University.

ROOSEVELT, KERMIT—President, Kermit Roosevelt & Associates.

ROSE, Dr. FRANK—President, University of Alabama.

ROWE, JAMES H. Jr.—Former assistant to President Roosevelt and former Assistant Attorney General.

RUBIN, RABBI SCHULEN—New York City.

SACKS, PROF. I. MILTON—Dean of the undergraduate school, Brandeis University.

SALTONSTALL, LEVERETT—Former Senator from Massachusetts.

SALTZMAN, CHARLES E.—Investment banker. Former Under Secretary of State.

SCALAPINO, ROBERT A.—Professor of political science, University of California.

SLABURY, Dr. PAUL—Professor of political science, University of California.

SEIZTZ, Dr. FREDERICK—President, National Academy of Sciences.

SHUSTER, Dr. GEORGE N.—President emeritus, Hunter College.

SMITH, HOWARD E.—News analyst, commentator and author.

SMITHIES, Dr. ARTHUR—Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy, Harvard University.

DE SOLA POOL, Dr. NHIEL—Professor of political science Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

SONNE, H. CHRISTIAN—Chairman, National Planning Association.

STEPHENS, CHARLES J.—Student, University of California, Berkeley.

STOUT, REX—Author.

STRAUSS, Miss ANNA LORD—Former president, League of Women Voters of the United States.

STRAUSS, LEWIS L.—Former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

STULBERG, LOUIS—President, International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.

SWEARINGEN, RODGER—Professor of international relations, University of Southern California.

SWIG, BENJAMIN H.—Chairman of the board, Fairmont Hotel Company.

TATUM, Dr. E. L.—Nobel laureate in medicine and physio-Professor, Rockefeller University.

TAYLOR, Prof. GEORGE E.—Director, Far Eastern and Russian Institute, University of Washington.

THACHER, JAMES—Attorney-at-law.

TRAGER, FRANK N.—Professor of international affairs, New York University

TYROLER, CHARLES 2d—President, Quadri Science, Inc.

UREY, Dr. HAROLD C.—Nobel laureate in chemistry. Professor of chemistry at large, University of California.

VAN DUSEN, Dr. HENRY P.—Clergyman, educator and author. Chairman, Foundation for Theological Education in Southeast Asia.

WASHBURN, ABBOTT—Former deputy director, United States Information Agency.

WHITE, ROBERT P.—Student, University of Oklahoma.

WHITNEY, JOHN HAY—Former Ambassador to Britain.

WIGNER, EUGENE P.—Nobel laureate in physics. Professor of physics, Princeton University.

WILLIAMS, T. HARRY—Boyd Professor of History, Louisiana State University.

WILSON, JOSEPH C.—Chairman of the board, Xerox Corporation.

source: New York Times, 1967.