Humphrey Speaks Out on Vietnam

June 4, 1965 - Vice President Hubert Humphrey (pictured left last November) says that air strikes alone will not do the job and that the war in Vietnam will have to be won on the ground by South Vietnamese forces.

Humphrey said in an interview that he believed that South Vietnamese fighting units, given sufficient time, could subdue their Communist opponents.

He said the Viet Cong would quit once they became convinced that the U.S. was determined to stay to the end.

While a year or two ago Humphrey felt deep concern over U.S. involvement in the area, he now strongly supports the kind of action President Johnson has taken there.

“I’m still concerned,” he said, “but I know what we’re doing is what we have to do. If we have the patience and the will and the determination and if we seek no quick and easy answers and any sudden victories, I believe we can win.”

In Saigon today, a senior American officer, reviewing setbacks suffered in the last week by South Vietnamese government forces, predicted that U.S. combat troops would enter the war this summer.

“The time will come when they will play their role,” he said. 

It was the most explicit public statement on plans for the use of American troops, which U.S. commanders have confirmed privately. Thus far, American forces in South Vietnam have been classed as defensive and advisory.

Recent weeks have brought increasingly frequent reports that U.S. commanders were preparing their troops for full participation in the war.

This afternoon, two U.S. Marines were killed and 19 were wounded in a battle believed to be the Marines’ heaviest fighting since their arrival in Vietnam. Five Marine companies and Marine jets were believed to have killed as many as 79 Communist guerrillas with the help of a help of a Viet Cong prisoner turned informer.

The informer flew with a U.S. observation plane and pointed out Viet Cong targets for the Marine jets. He noted two company-size positions, and the observation pilot marked them with smoke bombs.

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