Download Wayne Morse on Face the Nation (1964)

Wayne Morse
Wayne Morse
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Background: In early August, 1965, President Johnson
announced that North Vietnamese torpedo boats had attacked two
United States destroyers patrolling in the Gulf of Tonkin off the
coast of North Vietnam. Johnson angrily declared that Americans
had been the victims of an “unprovoked” attack. He urged
Congress to pass a resolution giving him authority to take “all
necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of
the United States and to prevent further aggression.” An alarmed
Congress almost unanimously passed the Gulf Tonkin Resolution.
Of the 545 congressman, 533 voted to pass the resolution. Two
did not. One was Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon. The
resolution was not a declaration of war, but it authorized Johnson
to widen the war. The resolution, he said, “was like Grandma’s
nightshirt—it covered everything.”
Few Americans questioned the President’s account of the incident.
Years later, however, it was reveled that Johnson had withheld the
truth from the public and Congress. The American warships had
been helping South Vietnamese commandos raid two North
Vietnamese islands the night of the attacks.
Transcript: "Face the Nation" May 5, 1964
You can see the video of this exchange at
http://www.uoregon.edu/~morse/aboutwayne.html
Moderator Peter Lisagor: "Senator, the Constitution gives to the president of the United
States the sole responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy."
Wayne Morse: "Couldn't be more wrong. You couldn't make a more unsound legal
statement than the one you have just made. This is the promulgation of an old fallacy that
foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States. That's nonsense."
Lisagor: "To whom does it belong, then, Senator?"
Morse: "It belongs to the American people. What I'm saying is -- under our Constitution
all the president is, is the administrator of the people's foreign policy, those are his
prerogatives, and I'm pleading that the American people be given the facts about foreign
policy --"
Lisagor: "You know, Senator, that the American people cannot formulate and execute
foreign policy --"
Morse: "Why do you say that? Why, you're a man of little faith in democracy if you
make that kind of comment. I have complete faith in the ability of the American people
to follow the facts if you'll give them. And my charge against my government is we're not
giving the American people the facts."