INTERVENTION IN VIETNAM

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29872, 12 July 1962, Page 14

INTERVENTION IN VIETNAM

Protest Letter To U.S. President

The United States’ intervention in South Vietnam constituted a violation of internation law, of United Nations’ principles, and of America's own highest ideals, says an open letter to President Kennedy from a group of Americans. A copy of the letter has been received by the New Zealand Peace Council. “We urge that you bring this intervention to an immediate end and that you initiate a special international conference to work out a peaceful solution,” says the letter. “The people of South Vietnam have suffered enough. Having fought eight long years to win independence from France, they have been compelled to fight seven more years, 1955-1962, to achieve independence from dictator Diem and the United States which has maintained him in power. It is time to end the ordeal of the South Vietnamese people and to permit them to enjoy the fruits of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Among those who signed the letter are R. H. Bainton, professor of history at Yale Divinity School; J. Davis, a former professor at Yale Divinity School; Professor T. I. Emerson, New Haven, Connecticut; the Rev. S. H. Fritchman, Unitarian minister, Los Angeles; Professor F. V. Harper, New Haven. Connecticut; J. Higgins, managing editor of the “New York Gazette and Daily”; C. Lamont, author and educator; Professor L. Pauling. Nobel Prize-winning physicist; H. R. Rudin, professor of history, Yale University; F. L. Schuman, author and professor of political science; Dr. E. R. Skorpen, philosophy department, Yale University; Professor R. E. Turner, history department, Yale University.