 Rusk who served as Johnson's principle spokesman on Vietnam was sent by the president together with General Maxwell Taylor to serve as his rebuttal witnesses before the Foreign Relations Committee.Rusk testified that the war was a morally justified struggle to halt "the steady extension of Communist power through force and threat".Karnow wrote the televised hearings were a compelling "political theater" as Fulbright and Rusk verbally dueled about the merits of the Vietnam war with both men pouncing on any weaknesses in the other's argument.