University of Virginia Library

McGovern raps
arms 'madness'

By Barry Levine
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

Before a crowd of over 3200 at University
Hall Friday night, Senator George
McGovern displayed his characteristically
methodical approach as he blasted the
nation's Vietnam involvement and
expressed hope in America's capacity for
renewal. "My plea tonight," he said in his
speech sponsored by the Student Legal
Forum, "is that the government stop the
killing now. The Thieu-Ky regime in
Saigon is not worth the 40,000
Americans who have died there. I do not
think that regime is worth the 8,000 who
have died in the first nine months of
1969. I do not think it is worth the 150
or 200 who will die this week, and the
next, and the next. I do not think it is
worth one additional life. Let's stop the
saving of face and start the saving of life."

Repeatedly interrupted by applause,
Senator McGovern attacked a national
lack of priorities as a "madness, not
security, that devotes 70 per cent of our
budget to armaments, and only 11 per
cent devoted to a whole range of issues
that can only be described as lifting the
qualities of life. The time has come to
stop permitting the economy of death
from starving the economy of life."

Asked following his address to
comment on President Shannon's
decision to continue classes during the
Moratorium, Senator McGovern replied,
"President Shannon is right. Every
student should make their own judgment
(about observing the Moratorium). If the
President makes the judgment for them,
there is no contribution by the student."
He added that if he were a student, he
would definitely be participating in the
Moratorium.

Senator McGovern defended the
anti-war movement as an example of the
highest form of patriotism. "It is carried
out mostly by young Americans who love
this country enough to call her to a
higher standard. And I regret that
President Nixon has said that he will pay
no attention to that lesson. Let me say
that if he holds to that course, he will
learn to his sorrow, as his predecessor did,
that American foreign policy cannot be
formed in defiance of the conscience and
common sense of the American people."

"I have come to the conclusion myself
that there is no way to end the war
except through the systematic withdrawal
of our forces. I would hope that the
United States and scores of other friendly
countries around the world would open
up their borders to any Vietnamese who
would be threatened by our
disengagement. Once we have made the
necessary tactical arrangements for the
safety of our own forces during the
withdrawal process, I would hope within
a year's time or less, that every last
American could be removed from
Vietnam. . . personally regard the War as
the most regrettable involvement in all
the military history of this country."

Senator McGovern also spoke of the
pressing problems facing the nation. He
spoke of the "disgrace of racism" that
must be eliminated, and of the "tragedy

of hunger" that he seeks to eliminate
through the Senate Subcommittee on
Nutrition and Human Needs, which he
heads. He also briefly discussed the move
for reform in the method of selecting
candidates in the Democratic Party, with
"every voter exerting his influence in the
selection," and his intention as chairman
of the subcommittee on Indian Affairs to
investigate carefully the recent land
claims of Eskimos in Alaska.

Tracing United States involvement in
Southeast Asia from the period following
World War II until the present, Senator
McGovern outlined what he called the
"three major mistakes leading to our
involvement." The first was the gradual
shift of American foreign policy to
support French attempts to recapture her
colonial empire in Indochina, "with the

desertion of our time-honored
commitment against colonialism."

The second was American moves to
block the election and restoration of
Vietnam as called for by the Geneva
Accord. "We blocked that election of
1956 for only one reason, because we
were afraid Ho Chi Minh would win. Now
how ironical it is, that we come here
tonight, fifteen years later, listening to
the words of our President at his last
press conference saying that the one issue
we will never negotiate is the right of
self-determination for the people of
Vietnam. The hypocrisy of all this is that
our long involvement in Vietnam has
been to block the self-determination of
that country."

The third major mistake described by
Senator McGovern was the continued
support of Diem, even after President
Eisenhower promised support only on the
condition of "fundamental reforms that
would give them the respect and
confidence of their people...We have no
right to save a political regime abroad
that does not have respect of its own
people."

The Senator emphasized the lessons
that the War has painfully taught. "We
went in after all to reduce the terror,
reduce the killing in the countryside, and
we ended up with a young American
major, a year and a half ago, saying
somewhat sadly after the destruction by
American artillery and air power of the
city of Ben Trch, a city of some 35,000
people, that we had to destroy that city
in order to save it. Does anyone believe
that we have really advanced the cause of
life and peace and dignity by what has
happened?

"Perhaps out of this bitter jungle will
come the humility and the national
wisdom that will lead us into a more
enlightened and more rational policy in
the days ahead. I think we need to learn
what lessons that experience has to teach
us, and to the best of my knowledge,
that's about the only contribution this
terrible sacrifice of blood and treasure
can make to us. If we don't learn that, we

certainly have broken faith with those
who have died in this war.

"And then we have the further
responsibility to apply that wisdom to
the construction of a new and different
type foreign policy, one that is calculated
to lead us in a direction of peace, and less
calculated to involve us in hopeless
ventures of this kind that destroys the
lives of others and at the same time
poisons the wellsprings of our own
national life.

"We need to learn that there are some
complex and difficult lessons around this
turbulent world that you cannot solve by
military might...We must nevertheless
stop seeing ourselves as the policeman of
the revolutionary world."

Commenting in a question period
following his speech, Senator McGovern
said that he was "not in mourning" over
the removal of General Hershey, and he
labeled the draft as "obsolete and
unjust." He criticized President Nixon's
civil rights policy and "the negligible
withdrawals" from Vietnam. While
commenting disfavorably on the
nomination of Clement Haynsworth for
the Supreme Court, Senator McGovern
accidentally referred to him as "Justice
Haynsworth," but quickly corrected
himself. He denied the possibility that his
mistake was a Freudian slip.