Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
SUMMARY
Because the SEATO Treaty has been used by the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Administrations to justify U.S. policy, aid, and presence in Vietnam, and because many have questioned this justification, the treaty has become a center of controversy. The issue is whether by intent of the parties and by treaty terminology the U.S. was obligated to use force to help defend the territorial independence and integrity of South Vietnam. No one seriously challenges U.S. military and economic aid provisions under the SEATO Treaty; the thrust of the criticism is the use of U.S. ground combat forces.
There are plentiful statements over time by the U.S. Government on the importance of SEATO.
President Eisenhower stated: "We gave military and economic assistance to the Republic of Vietnam. We entered into a treaty — the Southeast Asia Security Treaty — which plainly warned that an armed attack against this area would endanger our own peace and safety and that we would act accordingly."
President Kennedy stated: "...The SEATO Pact...approved by the Senate with only, I think, two against it, under Article 4, stated that the United States recognized that aggression by means of armed attack against Vietnam would threaten our own peace and security. So since that time the United States has been assisting the government of Vietnam to maintain its independence...The attack on the government by communist forces, with assistance from the north, became of greater and greater concern to the Government of Vietnam and the Government of the United States."
Secretary Rusk, speaking for the Johnson Administration, made the strongest statement of all: "We have sent American forces to fight in the jungles...because South Viet-Nam has, under the language of the SEATO Treaty, been the victim of 'aggression by means of armed attack.' Those who challenge this rationale contend that unlike the NATO Treaty which specifically included the 'use of armed force' and unambiguously intended such action, the SEATO Treaty was not meant by its U.S. framers as an umbrella for American military intervention."
This is the kind of issue that can readily be argued either way. It is obvious the language of the SEATO Treaty allows the signatories the choice of military means. And, a respectable argument can be made for the further step of obligation. For example, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Report on the treaty in 1954 stated:
- "The committee is not impervious to the risks which this treaty entails. It fully appreciates that acceptance of these additional obligations commits the United States to a cause of action over a vast expanse of the Pacific. Yet these risks
