Rusks Warns Soviets and Chinese

May 26, 1965 - Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned the Soviet Union and Communist China today against underestimating the gravity of the situation in Vietnam or the risks of widening their military involvement there.

Rusk said it would be a great mistake for the Communist nations to believe “that they can have a larger war with impunity and that a larger war on their side would remove us from Southeast Asia.”

Commenting on Vietnam at a news conference in Washington, Rusk resorted five times to the word “serious” in stressing U.S. determination to defend South Vietnam and in speculating on misunderstandings that might be caused by ideological differences and commitments. 

Rusk’s statement was apparently inspired by evidence of a deepening Soviet commitment through the construction of anti-aircraft missile sites in North Vietnam and by indirect reports that Premier Aleksei Kosygin had talked of a joint Moscow-Peking strike at U.S. troops in Vietnam.

Kosygin was quoted this week as having said last Thursday that U.S. policies had left “no alternative but to fight” and that Moscow would fight “with everything we have” unless bombings of North Vietnam were halted.

In Moscow, reliable sources and Soviet officials expressed confidence today that anti-aircraft defenses around Hanoi would soon be strong enough to deter U.S. attacks.

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