"Communist Radio Commentary on Vice President Agnew's Trip – Part 1: Eldridge
Cleaver Comments Broadcast by Hanoi." August 25, 1970.
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ELDRIDGE CLEAVER COMMENTS BROADCAST BY HANOI
[Hanoi in English to Southeast Asia, 100 GMT, 25 August 1970]
We have asked Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther Information Minister and Head of the visiting
U.S. people's anti-imperialist delegation, to comment on U.S. (Vice—Ed) President Spiro
Agnew's visit to Asia. Here is Eldridge Cleaver.
[Here follows recorded voice with American accent—Ed] U.S. Vice-President Spiro Agnew's
visit to Asia, starting with his arrival in South Korea, can only be characterized as a tour to
(? deal) with domination and murder that the U.S. government has inflicted on the people of Asia
with barbarous neocolonialist policies. Agnew's itinerary includes almost all the fascist, puppet
regimes that the U.S. has been able to pop up in Asia since 1950—South Korea, Taiwan, South
Viet-Nam, and Thailand.
Agnew's visit to South Viet-Nam, however, must be restricted to the one or two places that the over
400,000 U.S. troops can absolutely guarantee his security, for the valiant Vietnamese people have
been able to gain control over most of the territory of the southern half of their fatherland, in
spite of the massive technical superiority of the U.S. aggressor.
When the U.S. ruling class visit Viet-Nam, they visit Saigon and the Tan Son Nhut airbase. When the
American people visit Viet-Nam, they always visit Hanoi and tour the provinces of the DRVN [as
heard—Ed]. This is because the people fighting inside the U.S. and all the struggling people
in the world, but especially the Vietnamese people, have a common enemy—U.S. imperialism. The
main target of the anti-imperialist, anti-fascist struggle inside the U.S. is the war in Viet-Nam in
particular and U.S. aggression in Asia in general, for it is in Asia that U.S. neocolonialist policies
are being most hotly tested because the ability of the people to raise liberation wars is most highly
developed in Asia.
Spiro Agnew is coming to Asia to view the Nixon doctrine in action in order to go back and further
mislead the American people about the situation in Asia. The Nixon doctrine is not a new doctrine,
not a new policy. It is just a restatement of the U.S. colonialist policy against Asia which had
existed since the end of World War II. John Foster Dulles knew this policy well and himself spoke
of letting Asians fight Asians.
In Viet-Nam, the Nixon doctrine takes the form of the so-called Vietnamization-of-the-war. Nixon
tells the American people that the Vietnamese puppet troops, backed by U.S. advisers, support troops,
the U.S. air force—all under the nuclear umbrella—could be used to fight and defeat the
Viet Cong.
Here in Hanoi, we learn, in fact, that this is a reversion to the policy of special war that was developed
by the Kennedy administration in the early 1960's. The only difference this time is that Vietnamese puppet
troops will be backed by several hundred thousand U.S. troops instead of tens of thousands of advisers.
Special war did not work in Kennedy's time. It cannot work in Nixon's time.
When Nixon sent 100,000 troops to invade Cambodia, mostly U.S. troops but also some Vietnamese puppet
troops, he extended the war to all of Indochina. Almost immediately, the liberation forces of Viet-Nam,
Laos, and Cambodia united into the Indochinese people's front, thereby bringing about the very unity that
the U.S. imperialists feared most.
At the same time that the war is being expanded in scope, Nixon continued to withdraw some U.S. troops
from Viet-Nam. We know that this is part of a plot to hide the fact that the atrocious nature of the
war is increasing, that air raids and artillery fired into South Viet-Nam, Laos, and Cambodia are
increasing. In the DRVN [as heard—Ed], we have learned that Vietnamization is a dangerous plan
because it is designed to prolong the war, to carry out protracted war against the Vietnamese people,
but the growing anti-imperialist movement inside the U.S. will not be fooled by these maneuverings.
Agnew's visit does more than highlight the crimes of U.S. aggression in Asia. It is also a gauge of the
ultimate defeat of U.S. imperialism in Asia. As he hops from one small ugly airport to another in his
U.S. air force jet, the great majority of the hundreds of millions of people in Asia look on in wrath.
We join them in denouncing these idiot crimes of U.S. imperialism in Asia and particularly in Viet-Nam,
and dedicate ourselves to the long struggle inside the U.S. to bring down this monster which inflicts
fresh pain on the people of the world.
Long live the spirit of President Ho Chi Minh!
All power to the heroic Vietnamese struggle!
Kill U.S. aggressors and defeat U.S. imperialism everywhere! [End of recording—Ed]
That was our interview with Black Panther Information Minister Eldridge Cleaver on U.S. Vice-President
Agnew's current Asian tour.
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