Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, if we were meeting in this Chamber 200 years ago, someone would say that ''these are times that try men's souls." It is 1975, however, and not 1775. And this Chamber has been the scene of many fierce debates about the region of the world that preoccupies us today. Asia has not been one of our conspicuous successes overseas, during our Nation's history. To paraphrase someone else, it seems that when Asia sneezes, America catches cold.

Among my illustrations are: Perry's excursion into Japan in the Inid-19th century; Our acquisition of the Philippine Islands; The need to rescue endangered Americans from China during the Boxer Rebellion; and Our war with Japan. Since the end of World War II, there has occurred a succession of unhappy events, including: Seizure of China by the Communists; The war in Korea that spawned such nasty domestic political consequences; and Indochina, where hopefully, we can avoid a similar reaction at home. It seems that in respect to Asia, our foreign policy has been one of magniflcent obsessions and lost causes.

Today, we are discussing the shambles that is Vietnam, and an involvement with that country, as well as Laos and Cambodia, that six successive Democratic and Republican Presidential administrations have been associated with in varying degrees. We now may be-I hope--writing a final chapter in the book of Indochina. And I hope we can keep things in perspective.

In my judgment, there is occurring no "fading of America," as some commentators are trying to call it-no time for pretentious talk of "watersheds" and "tides of history" running against us as a Nation. As I read the news dispatches, the need is not to reassure other nations that we are not withdrawing into a shell. The need is that we should have more confidence in ourselves. We should not exaggerate our successes-and at this critical junction, we should not exaggerate our failure in Indochina.

A man with a flair for epigram and sound generalizations said at a time when his country was under stress: If we permit a quarrel between the past and the future, we will imperil our future. That man was Winston Churchill.

I believe that today in the Senate we can simply say in respect to Indochina: "Enough," and proceed with our work. And in so doing exercise the statesmanship that Talleyrand defined as "The art to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence." And we do have work to do in the world.

We who view with apprehension the bill before us today are not "isolationists." Even if I wished to be-which I do not-it could not happen-if for no other reason than our commercial interests abroad-at the beginning of last year, the total of accumulated book value of U.S. investments abroad totaled $173 billion, including the Latin American nations and Canada, and our total dollar exports in 1974 amounted to $98 billion. I believe that it is cold and rough out there in the back alleys and the chancellory offices of the world.

We need to keep a strong defense. We need to keep troops abroad where our primary interests are. We need to proceed with caution with arms-control negotiations at the forthcoming SALT talks. We need to keep in mind that the terrible tragedy that has befallen Cambodia and Vietnam is in considerable measure the result of gross abuses by the Communist powers. Let us make no mistake-I do not keep company with those who shout that this conflict is "America's war." Our policy in Southeast Asia was mistaken; this policy stubbornly persisted in long after it should have been discarded.

But it takes two to tango--in fact, in this case three--the Soviet Union and China were running their "proxy" war. As I said earlier, I hope that today we can focus on this bill-without any Cassandra-like wringing of hands that we are doomed to extinction as a big power. We should, as judges remind lawyers, stick to the case.

What happened? What led us from Lexington and Concord to Saigon? What led us from Independence Hall to Indochina? Perhaps, as an explorer once said about Mount Everest, because it is there. And the bill before us today poses still another question. How do we avoid a recurrence of our misadventures in Indochina that resulted in the death of 56,000 American servicemen and an estimated expenditure of $150 billion? My apprehension is that this bill has a potential of beckoning us back into Vietnam. The State Department's emissaries who have come before us in the Foreign Relations Committee have not quieted the apprehension of this Senator, myself.

Therefore, I oppose the bill in the form it was reported from the Foreign Relations Committee on April 18, 1975. MY decision was not one taken lightly, or m haste, in part because those on the committee who voted for the bill are men for whom I have both a high regard and deep respect.

Nevertheless the bill is flawed. It does not assist one bit in evacuating Americans from the Saigon war zone. The President already has that authority under the Constitution-an authority exercised in the past by other Presidents who sent troops to rescue endangered Americans in Japan China and Nicaragua. And the bill's authorization for American troops to reenter Vietnam, albeit to assist in evacuating Americans now there, generates apprehension on my part that the book may not yet be closed on our military involvement in Vietnam-a faulty commitment that already has cost the lives of 56,000 American servicemen and $150 billion of American treasure.

What is the Primary-in my view the only-objective of the U.S. Goverment at this moment? It is, or should be, the evacuation of all Americans and their dependents now in South Vietnam, mostly in Saigon. The exact number is not known but it totals several thousand. But the bill complicates the matter of evacuation; first, because it would also authorize evacuation of "endangered foreign nationals" unspecified as to numbers and identity.

I do not believe the United States has an obligation, moral or otherwise, to evacuate foreign nationals--other than perhaps an estimated 1,800 diplomatic personnel assigned to foreign embassies in Saigon. The United States has no obligation to evacuate 1, or 100,001, South Vietnamese.

As I read the language of the bill, the evacuation of Americans in South Vietnam conceivably could be endangered because of the provisions also permitting the evacuation of untold numbers of foreign nationals. The President's representatives inform us that as many as 175,000 South Vietnamese are consialered eligible for evacuation.

Second, a majority of the committee made every good-faith effort to restrict the employment of Armed Forces of the United States, should they be sent to South Vietnam to evacuate both American citizens and their dependents and foreign nationals. Nevertheless, the language is insufficiently precise to allay my apprehensions. In blunt terms, the President should have evacuated all Americans by nowhe has the ships and the planes at his disposal, and the money. Not to have done so suggests he either cannot control his representatives in Saigon or that Americans there are, in effect, held "hostage" to accommodate other aspects of administration policy relating to Vietnam.

This bill does not afford the President authority that he does not already have to proceed with complete evacuation. Moreover, the mechanics of the evacuation itself, as described to us directly by Assistant Secretary of State Habib on April 17, 1975, in executive session of the committee, does not inspire confidence and, consequently, heightens the apprehensions I have earlier stated relating to the bill's authorization for American troops, in untold numbers and for an unspecified period of time, to return to South Vietnam. For example the committee was given one table, compiled by the State Department, purporting to identify by numbers various categories of persons now in South Vietnam who would be eligible for evacuation-U.S. nationals and their dependents, USAID personnel, defense contractors and their dependents, purportedly endangered South Vietnamese and their dependents, et cetera. The figures in the table did not stand up under questioning. The numbers who are now being evacuated from the Saigon area changed-increasing as well as decreasing-with each inquiry by committee members and with each telephone call to the State Department for clarification and, in one instance, to Saigon itself.

Colleagues on the committee disagree with me, but I do not believe that at the time the committee voted favorably on this bill that an evacuation plan existed--or, if one existed, it certainly was not presented to the committee in a fashion that satisfied my definition. Even accepting the broad outlines of the bill, it is deficient in that it does not require a daily accounting to the Congress of the progress of the evacuation-no complicated tables, with subcategories and subtotals, but simply a clear concise reportage stating the number of persons evacuated by plane and ship each day from South Vietnam.

I suggested certain language changes in order to circumscribe the authority in the bill relating to evacuation and foreign nationals. I am sorry these were not adop