Rusk 7J, Dean Rusk Speech

Partial Transcript: We're just gonna do one, because we start really in the 45, we don't have-- we're not really going to spend a great time on the 45-60 period.

Segment Synopsis: Dean Rusk talks about changes in U.S. policy on Indochina from WW2 to the Korean War. He also discusses the views of President Dwight Eisenhower and President Harry Truman.

Keywords: British Empire; CBI theater; Chief of War Plans Dean Rusk; Cold War; FDR; General Joseph Stillwell; Prime Minister Winston Churchill; Truman Administration; WWII; World War 2; World War II; colonialism; communism; imperialism

Partial Transcript: Now during the Truman Administration, we had talks at the staff level about the possibility of a security treaty in Southeast Asia.

Segment Synopsis: Dean Rusk discusses the creation of SEATO during the Eisenhower Administration. He also briefly shares his personal criticisms.

Keywords: Secretary of State John Foster Dulles; Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty; Truman Administration; communism; divided states

Partial Transcript: Now, one of the earliest efforts in Congress to question this policy in Indochina was Morse...

Segment Synopsis: Dean Rusk speaks about the proposal to bring problems with Vietnam to the U.N. prior to the Vietnam War, giving the reasons this was not possible.

Keywords: Article 33; Senator Wayne Morse; U.N. Charter; United Nations Charter; United Nations Security Council; colonialism

Partial Transcript: Now in 1954, we come to the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

Segment Synopsis: Dean Rusk discusses the U.S. response to the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, drawing parallels to WWII, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. He also talks about the role of Congress and President Dwight Eisenhower.

Keywords: Eisenhower Administration; First Indochina War; Free World; General Matthew Ridgeway; JFK; President John F. Kennedy; Red River Valley; Secretary of State John Foster Dulles; gradualism

Partial Transcript: There's the other question: Eisenhower, before he made the decision not to intervene in Diem Niem Phu, consulted with congressional leaders...

Segment Synopsis: Dean Rusk speaks about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. He talks about the motivating factors, political process, the role of Congress, the resolution's content, and the political climate at the time.

Keywords: Johnson Administration; Korean War; President Dwight Eisenhower; President Harry Truman; President John Kennedy; Senator Robert Alphonso Taft Sr.; United Nations Security Council; bombing of Vietnam; gradualism

Partial Transcript: Now, I'm aware of the fact that there was some dispute about the accuracy of the reports of the second incident.

Segment Synopsis: Dean Rusk discusses the accuracy of the reports about the second Gulf of Tonkin incident. He gives political context to the reports and talks about additional comments made by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

Keywords: Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; USS Maddox incident; Vietnam War

Partial Transcript: Do you agree with Katzenbach that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was the functional equivalent of a Declaration of War?

Segment Synopsis: Dean Rusk considers whether the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was a declaration of war on legal and functional levels.

Keywords: Appropriations Committee; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution rescinded; Senator Wayne Morse; U.S. Congress; Under Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach; wartime powers

Partial Transcript: There's another aspect to this: if you're looking at the attitudes of the Congress on such issues, from the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine onward...

Segment Synopsis: Dean Rusk talks about the presence of anti-communist preambular statements in legislation from the 1940s-1960s. He discusses later efforts to remove them by people like Senator James William Fulbright. He also briefly speaks about whether the Vietnam War was legally a war.

Keywords: Bill Fulbright; Captive Nations Proclamation; Captive Nations Resolution; Foreign Aid Bill; Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Senate Judicial Committee; Soviet Union; communism

Partial Transcript: In 1965 in one of the executive sessions, the question of increasing troop commitments under the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution came up, and there was some discussion...

Segment Synopsis: Dean Rusk discusses the extent to which President Lyndon Johnson consulted with Congress during the Vietnam War. He talks about different levels of consultation for issues including troop increase and general policy.

Keywords: Commander-in-Chief; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Senator Michael Mansfield; Senator Mike Mansfield; Vietnam War dove; Vietnam War hawk

Partial Transcript: Now, my own judgment, at the time and later reflecti... has been... in the first half of 1968, people at the grassroots--not college students on campus...

Segment Synopsis: Dean Rusk speaks about U.S. impatience with wars. He discusses this primarily in the context of the growing grassroots opposition to the Vietnam War as time passed.

Keywords: British Empire; President Harry Truman; SEATO; South-East Asia Treaty Organization; WW2; WWII; World War 2; World War II; collective security; nuclear war; televised war

Partial Transcript: We've heard some discussion of what was called the nuclear scenario.

Segment Synopsis: Dean Rusk analyzes Congress's views on Vietnam throughout the war. He focuses on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the congressional structure, and the beginning of President Richard Nixon's presidency.

Keywords: Nixon Administration; Senator James William Fulbright; Vietnam War dissent; whales of Congress

Partial Transcript: Now, when the president was faced with those choices in March of 1968, he called some leaders in the night before he met with you and the other Cabinet officers and the other advisers...

Segment Synopsis: Dean Rusk talks about the context and reasons for the 1968 request for 206,000 more troops for the Vietnam War. Later, he discusses the U.S. policy of limited war, sharing its advantages and disadvantages.

Keywords: Joseph Stalin; President Harry S. Truman; Senator Richard B. Russell; U.S. draft; U.S. military demobilization; V-J Day; Victory in Japan Day; Vietnam War draft; nuclear crisis; nuclear war