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Chapter 7: The
Launching of the Ground War: March -July, 1965
Highlights of
the Period: March-July, 1965
Within a month of
the start of Operation Rolling Thunder, the
Pentagon study says, the Johnson Administration had made the first
of the decisions that were to lead, in the next months, to American
assumption of the major burden of the ground war in South Vietnam.
Here, in chronological order, are highlights of these months:
MARCH 1965
The first "Rolling Thunder" air strike hit an ammunition depot
and a naval base. Two Marine batallions were deployed in Vietnam.
APRIL 1965
The President approved an 18,000-20,000-man increase in "military
support forces" and "a change of mission" for the marines "to
permit their more active use ... " Memo noted his desire for "all
possible
precautions" against "premature publicity" and to "minimize
any appearance of sudden changes in policy."
John T. McNaughton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International
Security Affairs, urged that the 173rd Airborne Brigade also
be deployed.
Ambassador Maxwell D. Taylor called this "hasty and ill-conceived."
The conferees at a Honolulu strategy meeting agreed to urge an
increase in U.S. troops to 82,000.
George W Ball, Under Secretary of State, proposed that the U.S.
"cut its losses" and withdraw instead, the study says.
MAY 1965
The Vietcong "summer offensive" began, the analyst says. There
were about 200 Marine casualties during April and May.
JUNE 1965
Gen. William C. Westmoreland, commander in Vietnam, said the
U.S. must "reinforce our efforts ... as rapidly as practical." He
asked for a total of 44 battalions.
The State Department announced that U.S. troops were "available
for combat support."
The first major ground action by U.S. forces took place northwest
of Saigon.
Gen. Westmoreland, in reply to the Joint Chiefs, made a "big pitch
... for a free hand to maneuver the troops around ... " the analyst
says.
Ambassador Taylor "confirms the seriousness of the military
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situation" and the "very tenuous hold" of the new government, the
study goes on.
General Westmoreland was given the authority to use U.S. forces
in battle when necessary "to strengthen" South Vietnamese forces.
Mr. Ball, the analyst writes, opposed the increase in ground
troops, saying it gave "absolutely no assurance" of success and risked
a "costly and indeterminate struggle." He urged a "base defense and
reserve" strategy "while the stage was being set for withdrawal."
William P. Bundy, the history says. urged the President to avoid
the "ultimate aspects" of both the Ball and Westmoreland proposals.
He said that U.S. troops should be limited to a supporting, "reserve
reaction" role.
JULY 1965
The President' initially approved the deployment of 34 battalions,
about 100,000 men; 44 battalions were finally agreed to, for a total
of 193,887 troops.
The history says this decision was "perceived as a threshhold entrance
in Asian land war ... "
By the end of the year, the history notes, U.S. forces in South Vietnam
totaled 184,314.
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Chapter 7
The Launching oj the
Ground War:
March-July, 1965
-BY NEIL SHEEHAN
President Johnson decided on April 1, 1965, to use American
ground troops for offensive action in South Vietnam because
the Administration had discovered that its long-planned
bombing of North Vietnam-which had just begun-was not
going to stave off collapse in the South, the Pentagon's study
of the Vietnam war discloses. He ordered that the decision
be kept secret.
"The fact that this departure from a long-held policy had
momentous implications was well recognized by the Administration
leadership," the Pentagon analyst writes, alluding
to the policy axiom since the Korean conflict that another
land war in Asia should be avoided.
Although the President's decision was a "pivotal" change,
the study declares, "Mr. Johnson was greatly concerned that
the step be given as little prominence as possible."
The decision was embodied in National Security Action
Memorandum 328, on April 6, which included the following
paragraphs:
"5. The President approved an 18-20,000 man increase
in U.S. military support forces to fill out existing units and
supply needed logistic personnel.
"6. The President approved the deployment of two additional
Marine Battalions and one Marine Air Squadron and
associated headquarters and support elements.
"7. The President approved a change of mission for all
Marine Battalions deployed to Vietnam to permit their more
active use under conditions to be established and approved
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by the Secretary of Defense in consultation with the Secretary
of State."
The paragraph stating the President's concern about publicity
gave stringent orders in writing to members of the
National Security Council:
"11. The President desires that with respect to the actions
in paragraphs 5 through 7, premature publicity be avoided
by all possible precautions. The actions themselves should be
taken as rapidly as practicable, but in ways that should minimize
any appearance of sudden changes in policy, and official
statements on these troop movements will be made only with
the direct approval of the Secretary of Defense, in consultation
with the Secretary of State. The President's desire is that
these movements and changes should be understood as being
gradual and wholly consistent with existing policy." [See
Document #98.]
The period of increasing ground-combat involvement is
shown in the Pentagon papers to be the third major phase of
President Johnson's commitment to South Vietnam. This
period forms another section of the presentation of those
papers by The New York Times.
In the spring of 1965, the study discloses, the Johnson
Administration pinned its hopes on air assaults against the
North to break the enemy's will and persuade Hanoi to stop
the Vietcong insurgency in the South. The air assaults began
on a sustained basis on March 2.
"Once set in motion, however, the bombing effort seemed
to stiffen rather than soften Hanoi's backbone, as well as the
willingness of Hanoi's allies, particularly the Soviet Union,
to work toward compromise," the study continues.
"Official hopes were high that the Rolling Thunder program
would rapidly convince Hanoi that it should agree to negotiate
a settlement to the war in the South. After a month of
bombing with no response from the North Vietnamese, optimism
began to wane," the study remarks.
"The U.S. was presented essentially with two options: (1)
to withdraw unilaterally from Vietnam leaving the South
Vietnamese to fend for themselves, or (2) to commit ground
forces in pursuit of its objectives. A third option, that of
drastically increasing the scope and scale of the bombing, was
rejected because of the concomitant high risk of inviting
Chinese intervention."
And so within a month, the account continues, with the
Administration recognizing that the bombing would not work
quickly enough, the crucial decision was made to put the two
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Marine battalions already in South Vietnam on the offensive.
The 3,500 marines had landed at Danang on March 8-
bringing the total United States force in South Vietnam to
27,00o-with their mission restricted to the static defense of
the Danang airfield.
As a result of the President's wish to keep the shift of
mission from defense to offense imperceptible to the public,
the April 1 decision received no publicity "until it crept out
almost by accident in a State Department release on 8 June,"
in the words of the Pentagon study.
The day before, the hastily improvised static security and
enclave strategies of the spring were overtaken by a request
from Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the American commander
in Saigon, for nearly 200,000 troops. He wanted these
forces, the Pentagon study relates, to hold off defeat long
enough to make possible a further build-up of American
troops.
"Swiftly and in an atmosphere of crisis," the study says,
President Johnson gave his approval to General Westmoreland's
request a little more than a month later, in mid-July.
And once again, the study adds Mr. Johnson concealed his
decision.
New Warnings of Failure
Before the opening of the air war in the spring warnings
were sounded high in the Administration that it would not
succeed. Now there were warnings that a ground war in the
South might prove fruitless. The warnings came not only from
Under Secretary of State George W. Ball, long known as a
dissenter on Vietnam, but also from John A. McCone, Director
of Central Intelligence, who felt the actions planned were
not strong enough.
On April 2 Mr. McCone circulated a memorandum within
the National Security Council asserting that unless the United
States was willing to bomb the North "with minimum restraint"
to break Hanoi's will, it was unwise to commit ground
troops to battle.
"In effect," he said, "we will find ourselves mired down
in combat in the jungle in a military effort that we cannot
win and from which we will have extreme difficulty extracting
ourselves." [See Document #97.]
396
It is not clear from the documentary record whether President
Johnson read this particular memorandum, but the
Pentagon study says Mr. McCone expressed these same views
in a personal memorandum to the President on April 28.
In a separate intelligence estimate for the President on May
6, Vice Adm. William F. Raborn Jr., Mr. McCone's successor,
indicated agreement with Mr. McCone.
Mr. Ball's dissent came from the opposite side. He believed
that neither bombing the North nor fighting the guerrillas in
the South nor any combination of the two offered a solution
and said so in a memorandum circulated on June 28, the
study reports.
"Convinced that the U.S. was pouring its resources down
the drain in the wrong place," the account goes on, Mr. Ball
proposed that the United States "cut its losses" and withdraw
from South Vietnam.
"Ball was cold-blooded in his analysis," the study continues,
describing the memorandum. "He recognized that the U.S.
would not be able to avoid losing face before its Asian allies
if it staged some form of conference leading to withdrawal
of U.S. forces. The losses would be of short-term duration,
however, and the U.S. could emerge from this period of
travail as a 'wiser and more mature nation.' ••
On July I, the analyst says, Mr. Ball reiterated his proposal
for withdrawal in a memorandum to the President entitled "A
Compromise Solution for South Vietnam." [See Document
#103.]
But the President, the narrative continues, was now heeding
the counsel of General Westmoreland to embark on a full-scale
ground war. The study for this period concludes that
Mr. Johnson and most of his Administration were in no mood
for compromise on Vietnam.
As an indication of the Administration's mood during this
period, the study cites "a marathon public-information campaign"
conducted by Secretary of State Dean Rusk late in
February and early in March as sustained bombing was
getting under way.
Mr. Rusk, the study says, sought "to signal a seemingly
reasonable but in fact quite tough U.S. position on negotiations,
demanding that Hanoi 'stop doing what it is doing against its
neighbors' before any negotiations could prove fruitful.
"Rusk's disinterest in negotiations at this time was in concert
with the view of virtually all of the President's key advisers,
that the path to peace was not then open," the
Pentagon account continues. "Hanoi held sway over more
397
than half of South Vietnam and could see the Saigon government
crumbling before her very eyes. The balance of power
at this time simply did not furnish the U.S. with a basis for
bargaining and Hanoi had no reason to accede to the hard
terms that the U.S. had in mind. Until military pressures on
North Vietnam could tilt the balance of forces the other way,
talk of negotiation could be little more than a hollow exercise."
The study also says that two of the President's major moves
involving the bombing campaign in the spring of 1965 were
designed, among other aims, to quiet critics and obtain public
support for the air war by striking a position of compromise.
But in fact, the account goes on, the moves masked publicly
unstated conditions for peace that "were not 'compromise'
terms, but more akin to a 'cease and desist' order that, from
the D.R.V./VC point of view, was tantamount to a demand
for their surrender." "D.R.V." denotes the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam; "VC" the Vietcong.
In Mr. Johnson's first action, his speech at the Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore on April 7, he offered to negotiate
"without posing any preconditions" and also held out what
the study calls a "billion-dollar carrot" in the form of an
economic-development program for the Mekong River Basin
financed by the United States, in which North Vietnam might
participate.
The second action was the unannounced five-day pause in
bombing in May, during which the President called upon
Hanoi to accept a "political solution" in the South. This
"seemed to be aimed more at clearing the decks for a subsequent
intensified resumption than it was at evoking a reciprocal
act of deescalation by Hanoi," the study says. Admiral
Raborn, in his May 6 memorandum, had suggested a pause
for this purpose and as an opportunity for Hanoi "to make
concessions with some grace."
The air attacks had begun Feb. 8 and Feb. 11 with reprisal
raids, code-named Operations Flaming Dart I and II, announced
as retaliation for Vietcong attacks on American
installations at Pleiku and Quinhon.
In public Administration statements on the air assaults, the
study goes on, President Johnson broadened "the reprisal concept
as gradually and imperceptibly as possible" into sustained
air raids against the North, in the same fashion that the analyst
describes him blurring the shift from defensive to offensive
action on the ground during the spring and summer of
1965.
398
The study declares that the two February strikes-unlike
the Tonkin Gulf reprisals in August, 1964, which were tied
directly to a North Vietnamese attack on American ships were
publicly associated with a "larger pattern of aggression"
by North Vietnam. Flaming Dart II, for example, was characterized
as "a generalized response to 'continued acts of
aggression,'" the account notes.
"Although discussed publicly in very muted tones," it goes
on, "the second Flaming Dart operation constituted a sharp
break with past U.S. policy and set the stage for the continuing
bombing program that was now to be launched in earnest."
In another section of the study, a Pentagon analyst remarks
that "the change in ground rules . . . posed serious public information
and stage-managing problems for the President."
It was on Feb. 13, two days after this second reprisal, that
Mr. Johnson ordered Operation Rolling Thunder. An important
influence on his unpublicized decision was a memorandum
from his special assistant for national security affairs,
McGeorge Bundy, who was heading a fact-finding mission in
Vietnam when the Vietcong attack at Pleiku occurred on
Feb. 7. With Mr. Bundy were Assistant Secretary of Defense
John T. McNaughton and Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State Leonard Unger.
"A policy of sustained reprisal against North Vietnam" was
the strategy advocated by Mr. Bundy in his memorandum,
drafted on the President's personal Boeing 707, Air Force
One, while returning from Saigon the same day. [See Document
#92.]
The memorandum explained that the justification for the
air attacks against the North, and their intensity, would be
keyed to the level of Vietcong activity in the South.
"We are convinced that the political values of reprisal
require a continuous operation," Mr. Bundy wrote. "Episodic
responses geared on a one-for-one basis to 'spectacular' outrages
would lack the persuasive force of sustained pressure.
More important still, they would leave it open to the Communists
to avoid reprisals entirely by giving up only a small
element of their own program. . . . It is the great merit of
the proposed scheme that to stop it the Communists would
have to stop enough of their activity in the South to permit
the probable success of a determined pacification effort."
The analyst notes, however, that Mr. Bundy's memorandum
was a "unique articulation of a rationale for the Rolling
Thunder policy" because Mr. Bundy held out as the immediate
benefit an opportunity to rally the anti-Communist elements
3Q9
in the South and achieve some political stability and progress
in pacification. "Once such a policy is put in force," Mr.
Bundy wrote, in summary conclusions to his memorandum,
we shall be able to speak in Vietnam on many topics and in
many ways, with growing force and effectiveness."
It was also plausible, he said, that bombing in the North,
"even in a low key, would have a substantial depressing effect
upon the morale of Vietcong cadres in South Vietnam."
Mr. Bundy, the study remarks, thus differed from most
other proponents of bombing. These included Ambassador
Maxwell D. Taylor, who despaired of improving the Saigon
Government's effectiveness and who wanted bombing primarily
as a will-breaking device "to inflict such pain or threat
of pain upon the D.R.V. that it would be compelled to order
a stand-down of Vietcong violence," in the study's words.
As several chapters of the Pentagon study show, a number
of Administration strategists-particularly Walt W. Rostow,
chairman of the State Department's Policy Planning Council had
assumed for years that "calculated doses" of American air
power would accomplish this end.
Mr. Bundy, while not underrating the bombing's "impact on
Hanoi" and its use "as a means of affecting the will of
Hanoi," saw this as a "longer-range purpose."
The bombing might not work, Mr. Bundy acknowledged.
"Yet measured against the costs of defeat in Vietnam," he
wrote, "this program seems cheap. And even if it fails to turn
the tide-as it may-the value of the effort seems to us to
exceed its cost."
President Johnson informed Ambassador Taylor of his
Rolling Thunder decision in a cablegram drafted in the White
House and transmitted to Saigon late in the afternoon of
Sunday, Feb. 13.
The cable told the Ambassador that "we will execute a
program of measured and limited air action jointly with the
GVN [the Government of Vietnam] against selected military
targets in D.R.V., remaining south of the 19th Parallel until
further notice."
"Our current expectation," the message added, "is that
these attacks might come about once or twice a week and
involve two or three targets on each day of operation." [See
Document #93.]
Mr. Johnson said he hoped "to have appropriate GVN
concurrence by Monday if possible .... "
The study recounts that "Ambassador Taylor received the
news of the President's new program with enthusiasm. In his
4(lO
response, however, he explained the difficulties he faced in
obtaining authentic GVN concurrence 'in the condition of
virtual nongovernment' which existed in Saigon at that
moment."
Gen. Nguyen Khanh, the nominal commander of the South
Vietnamese armed forces, had ousted the civilian cabinet of
Premier Tran Van Huong on Jan. 27. Led by Air Vice
MarshaL Nguyen Cao Ky, a group of young generals-the
so-called Young Turks-were in turn intriguing against General
Khanh.
(A footnote in the account of the first reprisal strikes, on
Feb. 8, says that Marshal Ky, who led the South Vietnamese
planes participating in the raid, caused "consternation" among
American target controllers by dropping his bombs on the
wrong targets. "In a last minute switch," the footnote says,
Marshal Ky "dumped his flight's bomb loads on an unassigned
target in the Vinhlinh area, in order, as he later explained,
to avoid colliding with U.S.A.F aircraft which, he claimed,
were striking his originally assigned target when his flight
arrived over the target area." Adm. U. S. Grant Sharp, commander
of United States forces in the Pacific, reported the
incident to the Joint Chiefs.)
Referring to the political situation in Saigon, the account
says: "This Alice-in-Wonderland atmosphere notwithstanding,
Taylor was undaunted."
"It will be interesting to observe the effect of our proposal
on the internal political situation here," the Ambassador
cabled back to Mr. Johnson in Washington about the bombing.
"I will use the occasion to emphasize that a dramatic
change is occurring in U.S. policy, one highly favorable to
GVN interests but demanding a parallel dramatic change of
attitude on the part of the GVN. Now is the time to install
the best possible Government as we are clearly approaching
a climax in the next few months."
Ambassador Taylor apparently obtained what concurrence
was possible and on Feb. 18 another cable went out from
the State Department to London and eight United States
Embassies in the Far East besides the one in Saigon. The
message told the ambassadors of the forthcoming bombing
campaign and instructed them to "inform head of government
or State (as appropriate) of above in strictest confidence
and report reactions." [See Document #95.]
Both McGeorge Bundy and Ambassador Taylor had recommended
playing down publicity on the details of the raids.
"Careful public statements of U.S.G. [United States Govern-
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ment], combined with fact of continuing air actions, are expected
to make it clear that military action will continue while
aggression continues," the cable said. "But focus of public
attention will be kept as far as possible on D.R.V. aggression;
not on joint GVN/US military operations.
The President had scheduled the first of the sustained
raids, Rolling Thunder I, for Feb. 20. Five hours after the
State Department transmitted that cable, a perennial Saigon
plotter, Co!. Ph am Ngoc Thao, staged an unsuccessful "semicoup"
against General Khanh and "pandemonium reigned in
Saigon," the study recounts. "Ambassador Taylor promptly
recommended cancellation of the Feb. 20 air strikes and his
recommendation was equally promptly accepted" by Washington,
the Pentagon study says.
The State Department sent a cablegram to the various
embassies rescinding the instructions to notify heads of government
or state of the planned air war until further notice
"in view of the disturbed situation in Saigon."
The situation there, the study says, remained "disturbed"
for nearly a week while the Young Turks also sought to get
rid of General Khanh.
"The latter made frantic but unsuccessful efforts to rally
his supporters," the study says, and finally took off in his
plane to avoid having to resign as commander in chief.
"Literally running out of gas in Nhatrang shortly before dawn
on Feb. 21, he submitted his resignation, claiming that a
'foreign hand' was behind the coup. No one, however, could
be quite certain that Khanh might not 're-coup' once again,
unless he were physically removed from the scene."
This took three more days to accomplish, and on Feb. 25
General Khanh finally went into permanent exile as an ambassador
at large, with Ambassador Taylor seeing him off at
the airport, "glassily polite," in the study's words. "It was
only then that Taylor was able to issue, and Washington could
accept, clearance for the long-postponed and frequently
rescheduled first Rolling Thunder strike."
Less than three weeks earlier, in his memorandum to the
President predicting that "a policy of sustained reprisal"
might bring a better government in Saigon, McGeorge Bundy
had said he did not agree with Ambassador Taylor that
General Khanh "must somehow be removed from the . . .
scene."
"We see no one else in sight with anything like his ability
to combine military authority with some sense of politics,"
the account quotes Mr. Bundy as having written.
402
In the meantime two more Rolling Thunder strikes-II and
III-had also been scheduled and then cancelled because, the
study says, the South Vietnamese Air Force was on "coup
alert," in Saigon.
During part of this period, air strikes against North Vietnam
were also inhibited by a diplomatic initiative from the Soviet
Union and Britain. They moved to reactivate their co-chairmanship
of the 1954 Geneva conference on Indochina to consider
the current Vietnam crisis. Secretary Rusk cabled Ambassador
Taylor that the diplomatic initiative would not affect
Washington's decision to begin the air war, merely its timing.
According to the Pentagon study, the Administration regarded
the possibility of reviving the Geneva conference of
1954, which had ended the French Indochina War, "not as
a potential negotiating opportunity, but as a convenient vehicle
for public expression of a tough U.S. position."
But, the account adds, this "diplomatic gambit" had "languished"
by the time General Khanh left Saigon, and the
day of his departure Mr. Johnson scheduled a strike, Rolling
Thunder IV, for Feb. 26.
The pilots had been standing by, for nearly a week, with
the orders to execute a strike being canceled every 24 hours.
But the order to begin the raid was again canceled, a last
time, by monsoon weather for four more days.
Rolling Thunder finally rolled on March 2, 1965, when
F-lOO Super Sabre and F-105 Thunderchief jets of the United
States Air Force bombed an ammunition depot at Xombang
while 19 propeller-driven A-1H fighter-bombers of South
Vietnam struck the Quangkhe naval base.
The various arguments in the Administration over how the
raids ought to be conducted, which had developed during the
planning stages, were now revived in sharper form by the
opening blow in the actual air war.
Secretary McNamara, whose attention to management of
resources and cost-effectiveness is cited repeatedly by the
study, was concerned about improving the military efficacy of
the bombing even before the sustained air war got under way.
He had received bomb damage assessments on the two reprisal
strikes in February, reporting that of 491 buildings
attacked, only 47 had been destroyed and 22 damaged. The
information "caused McNamara to fire off a rather blunt
memorandum" to Gen. Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Feb. 17, the account says.
"Although the four missions [flown during the two raids]
left the operations at the targets relatively unimpaired, I am
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quite satisfied with the results," Mr. McNamara began. "Our
primary objective, of course, was to communicate our political
resolve. This I believe we did. Future communications or
resolve, however, will carry a hollow ring unless we accomplish
more military damage than we have to date .... Surely
we cannot continue for months accomplishing no more with
267 sorties than we did on these four missions." A sortie is a
flight by a single plane.
General Wheeler replied that measures were being taken to
heighten the destructiveness of the strikes and said that one
way to accomplish this was to give the operational commander
on the scene "adequate latitude" to attack the target as he
saw fit, rather than seeking to control the details from Washington.
One measure approved by the President on March 9 was
the use of napalm in North Vietnam.
And the day before, the day that 3,500 marines came ashore
at Danang to protect the airfield there, Ambassador Taylor
had already expressed, in two cables to Washington, what the
historian describes as "sharp annoyance" with the "unnecessarily
timid and ambivalent" way in which the air war was
being conducted.
No air strikes had been authorized by the President beyond
the initial Rolling Thunder raids that began on March 2, and,
according to the study, the Ambassador was irritated at "the
long delays between strikes, the marginal weight of the attacks
and the great ado about behind-the-scenes diplomatic feelers."
With the concurrence of General Westmoreland, Ambassador
Taylor proposed "a more dynamic schedule of strikes,
a several week program relentlessly marching north" beyond
the 19th Parallel, which President Johnson had so far set as a
limit, "to break the will of the D.R.V."
Ambassador Taylor cabled: "Current feverish diplomatic
activity particularly by French and British" was interfering
with the ability of the United States to "progressively turn the
screws on n.R.V."
"It appears to me evident that to date D.R.V. leaders believe
air strikes at present levels on their territory are meaningless
and that we are more susceptible to international pressure for
negotiations than they are," the Ambassador said. He cited
as evidence a report from J. Blair Seaborn, the Canadian member
of the International Control Commission, who, in Hanoi
earlier that month, had performed one of the series of secret
diplomatic missions for the United States.
Mr. Seaborn had been sent back to convey directly to the
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Hanoi leaders an American policy statement on Vietnam that
had been delivered to China on Feb. 24 through its embassy
in Warsaw.
In essence, the Pentagon study reports, the policy statement
said that while the United States was determined to take whatever
measures were necessary to maintain South Vietnam, it
"had no designs on the territory of North Vietnam, nor any
desire to destroy the D.R.V."
The delivery of the message to the Chinese was apparently
aimed at helping to stave off any Chinese intervention as a
result of the forthcoming bombing campaign.
But the purpose in sending Mr. Seaborn back, the study
makes clear, was to convey the obvious threat that Hanoi now
faced "extensive future destruction of . . . military and economic
investments" if it did not call off the Vietcong guerrillas
and accept a separate, non-Communist South.
Premier Pham Van Dong of North Vietnam, who had seen
Mr. Seaborn on two earlier visits, declined this time, and the
Canadian had to settle for the chief North Vietnamese liaison
officer for the commission, to whom he read Washington's
statement.
The North Vietnamese officer, the account says, commented
that the message "contained nothing new and that the North
Vietnamese had already received a briefing on the Warsaw
meeting" from the Chinese Communists.
This treatment led the Canadian to sense "a mood of confidence"
among the Hanoi leaders, Ambassador Taylor told
Washington in a cablegram, and Mr. Seaborn felt "that Hanoi
has the impression that our air strikes are a limited attempt
to improve our bargaining position and hence are no great
cause for immediate concern."
"Our objective should be to induce in D.R.V. leadership
an attitude favorable to U.S. objectives in as short a time as
possible in order to avoid a build-up of international pressure
to negotiate," the Ambassador said.
Therefore, he went on, it was necessary to "begin at once a
progression of U.S. strikes north of 19th Parallel in a slow
but steadily ascending movement" to dispel any illusions in
Hanoi.
"If we tarry too long in the south [below the 19th Parallel),
we will give Hanoi a weak and misleading signal which will
work against our ultimate purpose," he said.
The next Rolling Thunder strikes, on March 14 and 15,
were the heaviest of the air war so far, involving 100 American
and 24 South Vietnamese planes against barracks and depots
405
on Tiger Island off the North Vietnamese coast and the ammunition
dump near Phuqui, 100 miles southwest of Hanoi.
For the first time, the planes used napalm against the North,
a measure approved by Mr. Johnson on March 9 to achieve
the more efficient destruction of the targets that Mr. Mc-
Namara was seeking and to give the pilots protection from
antiaircraft batteries.
But the Ambassador regarded these, too, as an "isolated,
stage-managed joint U.S.lGVN operation," the Pentagon study
says. He sent Washington another cable, saying that "through
repeated delays we are failing to give the mounting crescendo
to Rolling Thunder which is necessary to get the desired
results. "
Meanwhile, Admiral Sharp in Honolulu and the Joint Chiefs
in Washington were quickly devising a number of other programs
to broaden and intensify the air war now that it had
begun.
On March 21, Admiral Sharp proposed a "radar busting
day" to knock out the North Vietnamese early-warning system,
and a program "to attrite harass and interdict the D.R.V.
south" of the 20th Parallel by cutting lines of communication,
"LOC" in official terminology.
The "LOC cut program" would choke off traffic along all
roads and rail lines through southern North Vietnam by bombing
strikes and would thus squeeze the flow of supplies into
the South.
"All targets selected are extremely difficult or impossible to
bypass," the admiral said in a cable to the Joint Chiefs. "LOC
network cutting in this depth will degrade tonnage arrivals at
the main 'funnels' and will develop a broad series of new
targets such as backed-up convoys, offloaded materiel dumps
and personnel staging areas at one or both sides of cuts."
These probable effects might in turn "force major D.R.V.
log flow to seacarry and into surveillance and attack by our
SVN [South Vietnamese] coastal sanitization forces," the
admiral added.
In Washington at this time, the narrative goes on, the Joint
Chiefs were engaged in an "interservice division" over potential
ground-troop deployments to Vietnam and over the air
war itself.
Gen. John P. McConnell, Chief of Staff of the Air Force
adopted a "maverick position" and was arguing for a short
and violent 28-day bombing campaign. All of the targets on
the original 94-target list drawn up in May, 1964, from bridges
to industries, would be progressively destroyed.
406
"He proposed beginning the air strikes in the southern part
of North Vietnam and continuing at two- to six-day intervals
until Hanoi was attacked," the study continues.
The raids would be along the lines of the mighty strikes,
including the use of B-52 bombers, that the Joint Chiefs had
proposed in retaliation for the Vietcong mortar attack in
Beinhoa airfield on Nov. 1, 1964, the narrative says. General
McConnell contended that his plan was consistent with previous
bombing proposals by the Joint Chiefs.
The general abandoned his proposal, however, when the
other members of the Joint Chiefs decided to incorporate
Admiral Sharp's "LOC cut program" and some of General
McConnell's individual target concepts into a bombing program
of several weeks. They proposed this to Mr. McNamara
on March 27.
This plan proposed an intense bombing campaign that would
start on road and rail lines south of the 20th Parallel and
then "march north" week by week to isolate North Vietnam
from China gradually by cutting road and rail lines above
Hanoi. In later phases upon which the Joint Chiefs had not yet
fully decided, the port facilities were to be destroyed to isolate
North Vietnam from the sea. Then industries outside populated
areas would be attacked "leading up to a situation where the
enemy will realize that the Hanoi and Haiphong areas will be
the next logical targets in our continued air campaign."
But the President and Mr. McNamara declined to approve
any multiweek program, the study relates. "They clearly preferred
to retain continual personal control over attack concepts
and individual target selection."
In mid-March, after a Presidential fact-finding trip to Vietnam
by Gen. Harold K. Johnson, the Army Chief of Staff,
the President did regularize the bombing campaign and relaxed
some of the restrictions. Among the innovations was the
selection of the targets in weekly packages with the precise
timing of the individual attacks left to the commanders on the
scene. Also, "the strikes were no longer to be specifically
related to VC atrocities" and "publicity on the strikes was to
be progressively reduced," the study says.
The President did not accept two recommendations from
General Johnson relating to a possible ground war. They were
to dispatch a division of American troops to South Vietnam
to hold coastal enclaves or defend the Central Highlands in
order to free Saigon Government forces for offensive action
against the Vietcong. The second proposal was to create a
four-division force of American and Southeast Asia Treaty
407
Organization troops, who, to interdict infiltration, would patrol
both the demilitarized zone along the border separating North
and South Vietnam and the Laotian border region.
Better organization for the air war meant that concepts
such as Admiral Sharp's "LOC cut program" and his "radar
busting" were now incorporated into the weekly target packages.
But President Johnson and Secretary McNamara continued
to select the targets and to communicate them to the
Joint Chiefs-and thus, eventually, to the operating strike
forces-in weekly Rolling Thunder planning messages issued
by the Secretary of Defense.
Operation Rolling Thunder was thus being shifted from
an exercise in air power "dominated by political and psychological
considerations" to a "militarily more significant, sustained
bombing program" aimed at destroying the capabilities
of North Vietnam to support a war in the South.
But the shift also meant that "early hopes that Rolling
Thunder could succeed by itself" in persuading Hanoi to call
off the Vietcong were also waning.
"The underlying question that was being posed for the
Administration at this time was well formulated," the study
says, by Mr. McNaughton in a memorandum drafted on
March 24 for Secretary McNamara in preparation for the
April 1-2 National Security Council meetings.
"Can the situation inside SVN be bottomed out (a) without
extreme measures against the DRV and/or (b) without
deployment of large numbers of U.S. (and other) combat
troops inside SVN?"
Mr. McNaughton's answer was "perhaps, but probably
no." [See Document #96.]
General Westmoreland stated his conclusions in a half-inch-
thick report labeled "Commander's Estimate of the
situation in SVN." The document, "a classic Leavenworth-style
analysis," the analyst remarks, referring to the Command
and General Staff College, was completed in Saigon on March
26 and delivered to Washington in time for the April 1-2
strategy meeting.
The Saigon military commander and his staff had begun
working on this voluminous report on March 13, the day
after General Johnson left Vietnam with his ground war
proposals of an American division to hold enclaves and a
four-division American and SEA TO force along the borders,
the study notes.
General Westmoreland predicted that the bombing campaign
against the North would not show tangible results until
408
June at the earliest, and that in the meantime the South
Vietnamese Army needed American reinforcements to hold
the line against growing Vietcong strength and to carry out
an "orderly" expansion of its own ranks.
And, paraphrasing the report, the study says that the
general warned that the Saigon troops, "although at the moment
performing fairly well, would not be able in the face of
a VC summer offensive to hold in the South long enough for
the bombing to become effective."
General Westmoreland asked for reinforcements equivalent
to two American divisions, a total of about 70,000 troops,
counting those already in Vietnam.
They included 17 maneuver battalions. The general proposed
adding two more Marine battalion landing teams to
the two battalions already at Danang in order to establish
another base at the airfield at Phubai to the north; putting
an Army brigade into the Bienhoa-Vungtau area near Saigon,
and using two more Army battalions to garrison the central
coastal ports of Quinhon and Nhatrang as logistics bases.
These bases would sustain an army division that General
Westmoreland proposed to send into active combat in the
strategic central highlands inland to "defeat" the Vietcong
who were seizing control there.
General Westmoreland said that he wanted the 17 battalions
and their initial supporting elements in South Vietnam
by June and indicated that more troops might be required
thereafter if the bombing failed to achieve results.
The Saigon military commander and General Johnson were
not alone in pressing for American ground combat troops to
forestall a Vietcong victory, the study points out.
On March 20, the Joint Chiefs as a body had proposed
sending two American divisions and one South Korean division
to South Vietnam for offensive combat operations against
the guerrillas.
Secretary McNamara, the Joint Chiefs and Ambassador
Taylor all discussed the three-division proposal on March 29,
the study relates, while the Ambassador was in Washington
for the forthcoming White House strategy conference.
The Ambassador opposed the plan, the study says, because
he felt the South Vietnamese might resent the presence of
so many foreign troops-upwards of 100,000 men-and also
because he believed there was still no military necessity for
them.
The Joint Chiefs "had the qualified support of Mc-
409
Namara," however, the study continues, and was one of the
topics discussed at the national security council meeting.
Thus, the study says, at the White House strategy session
of April 1-2, "the principal concern of Administration policy
makers at this time was with the prospect of major deployment
of V.S. and third-country combat forces to SVN."
A memorandum written by McGeorge Bundy before the
meeting, which set forth the key issues for discussion and
decision by the President, "gave only the most superficial
treatment to the complex matter of future air pressure policy,"
the Pentagon analyst remarks.
The morning that Ambassador Taylor left Saigon to attend
the meeting, March 29, the Vietcong guerrillas blew up the
American Embassy in Saigon in what the study calls "the
boldest and most direct Communist action against the V.S.
since the attacks at Pleiku and Quinhon which had precipitated
the Flaming Dart reprisal airstrikes."
Admiral Sharp requested permission to launch a "spectacular"
air raid on North Vietnam in retaliation, the narrative
continues, but the "plea . . . did not fall on responsive ears"
at the White House.
"At this point, the President preferred to maneuver quietly
to help the nation get used to living with the Vietnam crisis.
He played down any drama intrinsic in Taylor's arrival" and
refused to permit a retaliation raid for the embassy bombing.
After his first meeting with Taylor and other officials on
March 31, the President responded to press inquiries concerning
dramatic new developments by saying: "I know of
no far-reaching strategy that is being suggested or promulgated."
"But the President was being less than candid," the study
observes. "The proposals that were at that moment being
promulgated, and on which he reached significant decision
the following day, did involve a far-reaching strategy change:
acceptance of the concept of V.S. troops engaged in offensive
ground operations against Asian insurgents. This issue greatly
overshadowed all other Vietnam questions then being reconsidered."
The analyst is referring to the President's decision at the
White House strategy conference on April 1-2 to change the
mission of the Marine battalions at Danang from defense to
offense.
McGeorge Bundy embodied the decision in National Security
Action Memorandum 328, which he drafted and signed
on behalf of the President on April 6. The analyst says that
410
this "pivotal document" followed almost "verbatim" the text
of another memorandum that Mr. Bundy had written before
the N.S.C. meeting to outline the proposals for discussion
and decision by the President.
The Pentagon study notes that the actual landing of 3,500
marines at Danang the previous month had "caused surprisingly
little outcry."
Secretary of State Rusk had explained on a television
program the day before the marines came ashore that their
mission was solely to provide security for the air base and
"not to kill the Vietcong," in the words of the study. This
initial mission for the marines was later to be referred to as
the short-lived strategy of security that would apply only to
this American troop movement into South Vietnam.
The President's decision to change their mission to offense
now made the strategy of base security "a dead letter," the
study says, when it was less than a month old.
At the April 1-2 meeting, Mr. Johnson had also decided
to send ashore two more Marine battalions, which General
Westmoreland had asked for in a separate request on March
17. Mr. Johnson further decided to increase support forces
in South Vietnam by 18,000 to 20,000 men.
The President was "doubtless aware" of the general's additional
request for the equivalent of two divisions, and of
the Joint Chiefs' for three divisions, the Pentagon account
says, but Mr. Johnson took no action on them.
"The initial steps in ground build-up appear to have been
grudgingly taken," the study says, "indicating that the President
... and his advisers recognized the tremendous inertial
complications of ground troop deployments. Halting ground
involvement was seen to be a manifestly greater problem than
halting air or naval activity.
"It is pretty clear, then, that the President intended, after
the early April N .S.C. meetings, to cautiously and carefully
experiment with the U.S. forces in offensive roles," the analyst
concludes.
National Security Action Memorandum 328 did not precisely
define or limit the offensive role it authorized, and
Ambassador Taylor, who had attended the National Security
Council meeting during his visit to Washington, was not satisfied
with the guidance he received from the State Department.
Therefore, on his way back to Saigon on April 4, the Ambassador,
formerly President John F. Kennedy's military
adviser and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, sent a cable from
411
the Honolulu headquarters of the Commander of Pacific
forces to the State Department, saying:
"I propose to describe the new mission to [Premier Ph am
Huy] Quat as the use of marines in a mobile counterinsurgency
role in the vicinity of Danang for the improved
protection of that base and also in a strike role as a reserve
in support of ARVN operations anywhere within 50 miles of
the base. This latter employment would follow acquisition of
experience on local counter-insurgency missions."
Ambassador Taylor's 50-mile limit apparently became an
accepted rule-of-thumb boundary for counterinsurgency
strikes.
And so, the analyst sums up, with the promulgation of
National Security Action Memorandum 328, "the strategy
of security effectively becomes a dead letter on the first of
April," and the strategy of enclave begins.
Confusion and Suspicion
There was some confusion, suspicion and controversy about
the President's approval of an 18,000-20,000 increase in support
troops, which, he explained, was meant "to fill out
existing units and supply needed logistic personnel."
On April 21, Secretary McNamara told the President that
11,000 of these new men would augment various existing
forces, while 7,000 were logistic troops to support "previously
approved forces."
"It isn't entirely clear from the documents exactly what
the President did have in mind for the support troop addons,"
the study comments. "What is clear, however, . . .
was that the J .C.S. were continuing to plan for the earliest
possible introduction of two to three divisions into RVN."
The analyst cites a memorandum from Mr. McNamara to
General Wheeler on April 6 as evidence of this planning.
Later, on May 5, the study continues, Assistant Secretary
of Defense McNaughton would send a memorandum to
Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus R. Vance, saying that
"the J.C.S. misconstrued the [support] add-ons to mean logistic
build-up for coastal enclaves and the possible later introduction
of two to three divisions." (These were the divisions the
Joint Chiefs had requested on March 20.)
The enclave strategy had as its object the involvement of
412
United States combat units at "relatively low risk." It proposed
"that U.S. troops occupy coastal enclaves, accept full
responsibility for enclave security, and be prepared to go to
the rescue of the RVNF as far as 50 miles outside the
enclave .... The intent was not to take the war to the enemy
but rather to deny him certain critical areas," the study says.
To prove the viability of its "reserve reaction," the analyst
goes on, the enclave strategy required testing, but the rules
for committing United States troops under it had not been
worked out by the time it was overtaken by events-a series
of major military victories by the Vietcong in May and June
that led to the adoption of the search and destroy strategy.
Search and destroy, the account says, was "articulated by
Westmoreland and the J.C.S. in keeping with sound military
principles garnered by men accustomed to winning. The
basic idea ... was the desire to take the war to the enemy,
denying him freedom of movement anywhere in the country
... and deal him the heaviest possible blows." In the
meantime, the South Vietnamese Army "would be free to
concentrate their efforts in populated areas."
From April 11 through April 14, the additional two Marine
battalions were deployed at Hue-Phubai and at Danang,
bringing the total maneuver battalions to four.
"The marines set about consolidating and developing their
two coastal base areas, and, although they pushed their patrol
perimeters out beyond their tactical wire and thereby conducted
active rather than passive defense, they did not engage
in any offensive operations in support of ARVN for the next
few months," the study says.
At this point, the Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs
and General Westmoreland collaborated-as it turned out,
successfully-in what the study calls "a little
cart-before-horsemanship."
It involved the deployment to South Vietnam
of the 173d Airborne Brigade, two battalions that were then
situated on Okinawa in a reserve role.
General Westmoreland had had his eye on the 173d for
some time. On March 26, in his "Commander's Estimate of
the Situation," in which he requested the equivalent of two
divisions, he also recommended that the 173d Airborne Brigade
be deployed to the Bienhoa-Vungtau areas "to secure
vital U.S. installations." This recommendation, like that for
two divisions, was not acted upon by the National Security
Council in the April 1-2 meeting.
On April 11, General Westmoreland cabled Admiral Sharp,
the Pacific commander, that he understood from the National
413
Security Council's meetings and Ambassador Taylor's discussions
in Washington at the beginning of the month that
his requested divisions were not in prospect. But, he said, he
still wanted the 173d "Airborne Brigade.
This message, the study says, set in motion "a series of
cables, proposals and false starts which indicated that Washington
was well ahead of Saigon in its planning and in its
anxiety."
The upshot of all this communication was that at a meeting
in Honolulu of representatives of the Joint Chiefs and the
Pacific command from April 10 to April 12, the deployment
of the 173d Airborne Brigade was recommended. On April
14, the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered the deployment to
Bienhoa- Vungtau, and the replacement of the brigade by one
from the United States.
"This decision to deploy the 173d apparently caught the
Ambassador flatfooted," the study says, "for he had quite
obviously not been privy to it."
On the day of the Joint Chiefs' decision, Ambassador
Taylor cabled the State Department that "this [decision on
the deploying the brigade] comes as a complete surprise in
view of the understanding reached in Washington [during
his visit] that we would experiment with the marines in a
counterinsurgency role before bringing in other U.S. contingents."
He asked that deployment of the brigade be held up
until matters were sorted out.
However, the study notes, Ambassador Taylor "held the
trump card" because the proposed action had to be cleared
with Premier Quat, and the Ambassador told his superiors
on April 17 that he did not intend to tell the Premier without
clearer guidance explaining Washington's intentions. [See
Document #99.]
"That Washington was determined, with the President's
sanction, to go beyond what had been agreed to and formalized
in NSAM 328 was manifested unmistakably in a cable under
joint Defense/State auspices by Mr. McNaughton to the
Ambassador on 15 April," the Pentagon study says.
In the cablegram, Mr. McNaughton said: "Highest authority
[the President] believes the situation in South Vietnam
has been deteriorating and that, in addition to actions against
the North, something new must be added in the South to
achieve victory." He then listed seven recommended actions,
including the introduction of military-civil affairs personnel
into the air effort and the deployment of the 173d Airborne
Brigade to Bienhoa-Vungtau "as a security force for our in-
414
stal1ations and also to participate in counterinsurgency combat
operations" according to General Westmoreland's plans.
Reacting to that cable on April 17, Ambassador Taylor
protested to McGeorge Bundy in the White House against
the introduction of military-civilian affairs personnel into the
aid effort. The Ambassador's cablegram continued by saying
that the McNaughton message "shows a far greater willingness
to get into the ground war than I had discerned in Washington
during my recent trip."
"Mac, can't we be better protected from our friends?" the
Ambassador asked. "I know that everyone wants to help, but
there's such a thing as killing with kindness."
Discussing the contretemps between the Pentagon and
General Taylor, the study says: "The documents do not reveal
just exactly when Presidential sanction was obtained for the
expanded scope of the above [McNaughton] proposals. It is
possible that [on the approval for deploying the brigade] the
Ambassador may have caught the Defense Department and
the J.C.S. in a little cart-before-horsemanship."
In any event, on April 15, the day after it had ordered the
deployment of the brigade, the J .C.S. sent a memorandum
to Secretary McNamara dealing with the Ambassador's objections
and still insisting that the brigade was needed.
"Whether or not the J .C.S. wrote that memorandum with
red faces," the study remarks, "the Secretary of Defense
dates approval for final deployment of the 173d as of the
30th of April."
Pressure From Military
The strategy of base security having been ended by National
Security Action Memorandum 328, a high-level meeting began
in Honolulu on April 20 to "sanctify" and "structure", as the
Pentagon analyst puts it, "an expanded enclave strategy."
Present at the meeting were Secretary of Defense Mc-
Namara; William Bundy, Assistant Secretary of State for
Far Eastern Affairs; Assistant Secretary of Defense Mc-
Naughton; Ambassador Taylor; Admiral Sharp; General
Wheeler and General Westmoreland.
"Some of these men had helped produce the current optimism
in situation reports and cables," the Pentagon study
says, "and yet the consensus of their meeting was that the
415
then-present level of Vietcong activity was nothing but the
lull before the storm.
"The situation which presented itself to the Honolulu conferees
was in many ways the whole Vietnam problem in
microcosm. What was needed to galvanize everyone to action
was some sort of dramatic event within South Vietnam itself.
Unfortunately, the very nature of the war precluded the
abrupt collapse of a front or the loss of large chunks of
territory in lightning strokes by the enemy. The enemy in
this war was spreading his control and influence slowly and
inexorably but without drama. The political infrastructure
from which he derived his strength took years to create, and
in most areas the expansion of control was hardly felt until
it was a fait accompli."
Of the conferees, the study says, "by far the most dogged
protagonist of the enclave strategy was Ambassador Taylor."
It had already become apparent, however, and was to become
manifestly clear at Honolulu, that the Ambassador was fighting
a rear-guard action against both civilian and military officials
in the Pentagon who were bent on expansion of U.S.
forces in South Vietnam and an enlargement of their combat
mISSIon.
On March 18, in a message to Washington, Ambassador
Taylor had suggested that if a division were sent to South
Vietnam as had been proposed by the Army Chief of Staff,
General Johnson, then consideration should be given to deploying
it in either a highland or coastal enclave.
When he got no response, Ambassador Taylor sent another
message on March 27, stating that if United States forces
were to come, his preference was, as the study says, that they
be used in a combination of defensive or offensive enclave
plus reserve for an emergency, rather than in "territorial clear
and hold" operations.
The Ambassador, the study notes, interpreted the pivotal
National Security Action Memorandum as supporting his
position, because in it the President seemed to make plain that
he "wanted to experiment very carefully with a small amount
of force before deciding whether or not to accept any kind of
ground war commitment."
Therefore, the study says, "the Ambassador was surprised
to discover that the marines [the two additional battalions
that landed April 11-14] had come ashore with tanks, self·
propelled artillery, and various other items of weighty equipment
not 'appropriate for counterinsurgency operations.' "
In his April 17 cable to McGeorge Bundy, Ambassador
416
Taylor had also protested the "hasty and ill-conceived" proposals
for the deployment of more forces with which he was
being flooded.
"Thus was the Ambassador propelled into the conference
of 20 April 1965, only one step ahead of the Washington
juggernaut, which was itself fueled by encouragement from
Westmoreland in Saigon," the study comments. "Taylor was
not opposed to the U.S. build-up per se, but rather was concerned
to move slowly with combat troop deployments . . .
He was overtaken in Honolulu."
According to Mr. McNaughton's minutes, the conference
in preliminary discussions on April 20 agreed that:
"(1) The D.R.V. was not likely to quit within the next six
months; and in any case, they were more likely to give up
because of VC failure in the South than because of bomb-induced
'pain' in the North. It could take up to two years
to demonstrate VC failure.
"(2) The level of air activity through Rolling Thunder was
about right. The U.S. did not, in Ambassador Taylor's words,
want 'to kill the hostage.' Therefore, Hanoi and environs
remained on the restricted list. It was recognized that air
activity would not do the job alone.
"(3) Progress in the South would be slow, and great care
should be taken to avoid dramatic defeat. The current lull in
Vietcong activity was merely the quiet before a storm.
"( 4) The victory strategy was to 'break the will of the
D.R.V./VC by denying them victory.' Impotence would lead
eventually to a political solution."
At the time of the Honolulu conference, the study notes,
"the level of approved U.S. forces for Vietnam was 40,200,"
but 33,500 were actually in the country at that time.
"To accomplish the 'victory strategy' described above," the
study continues, the conferees agreed that U.S. ground forces
should be increased from 4 to 13 maneuver battalions and to
82,000 men. The United States, they agreed, should also seek
to get additional troops from Australia and South Korea that
would bring the so-called third-country strength to four maneuver
battalions and 7,250 men.
Thus, the Honolulu conferees proposed raising the recommended
United States-third country strength to 17 battalions.
The conferees also mentioned but did not recommend a
possible later deployment of 11 U.S. and 6 South Korean
battalions, which, when added to the approved totals, would
bring the United States-third country combat capability to 34
417
battalions. In this later possible deployment was included an
Army airmobile division.
Secretary McNamara forwarded the Honolulu recommendations
to the President on April 21, together with a notation
on possible later deployment of the airmobile division and the
Third Marine Expeditionary Force.
On April 30 the Joint Chiefs presented a detailed program
for deployment of some 48,000 American and 5,250 third-country
soldiers. "Included were all the units mentioned in the
Honolulu recommendations plus a healthy support package,"
the study says.
The Joint Chiefs said that these additional forces were "to
bolster GVN forces during their continued build-up, secure
bases and installations, conduct counterinsurgency combat
operations in coordination with the RVNAF, and prepare for
the later introduction of an airmobile division to the central
plateau, the remainder of the third M.E.F. [the marine force]
to the Danang area, and the remainder of a ROK [Republic
of Korea] division to Quangngai."
From the thrust of this memorandum by the Joint Chiefs,
the analyst comments, "it is apparent that the enclave strategy
was no stopping place as far as the Chiefs were concerned.
They continued to push hard for the earliest possible input of
three full divisions of troops. They were still well ahead of
the pack in that regard."
The Enemy Responds
The question of final Presidential approval of the 17-
battalion recommendations now became academic as the
enemy started attacks that provided the Pentagon and General
Westmoreland with a battlefield rationale for their campaign
to have American troops take over the major share of the
ground war.
As the manpower debates continued in March and April,
the study portrays the military situation: "The Vietcong were
unusually inactive throughout March and April. There had
been no major defeat of the enemy's forces and no signs of
any major shift in strategy on his part. Hence it was assumed
that he was merely pausing to regroup and to assess the effect
of the changed American participation in the war embodied in
418
air strikes and in the marines," the first two battalions deployed
at Danang on March 8.
"There were, however, plenty of indications in the early
spring of 1965 of what was to come," the study continues ....
"From throughout the country came reports that Vietcong
troops and cadres were moving into central Vietnam and into
areas adjacent to the ring of provinces ... around Saigon."
"Finally and most ominous of all," the study says, a
memorandum by the Central Intelligence Agency and the
Defense Intelligence Agency on April 21, 1965, "reflected the
acceptance into the enemy order of battle of one regiment
of the 325th PA VN [People's Army of Vietnam] division said
to be located in Kontum province. The presence of this regular
North Vietnamese unit, which had been first reported as early
as February, was a sobering harbinger. ... "
On May 11, when the Vietcong attacked Songbe, the capital
of Phuoclong Province. using more than a regiment of troops,
"the storm broke in earnest," the study says. The enemy overran
the town and the American advisers' compound, causing
heavy casualties. After holding the town for a day, the Vietcong
withdrew, the study relates.
Later in May, in Quangngai Province in the northern part
of South Vietnam, a battalion of Government troops-the
Army of the Republic of Vietnam-was ambushed and overrun
near Bagia, west of Quangngai. Reinforcements were also
ambushed.
"The battle," the study says, "dragged on for several days
and ended in total defeat for the ARVN. Two battalions were
completely decimated. . . . From Bagia came a sense of
urgency, at least among some of the senior U.S. officers who
had been witness to the battle."
Then in June, two Vietcong regiments attacked an outpost
at Dongxoai and when Government reinforcements were committed
"piecemeal" they were "devoured by the enemy" the
Pentagon study says.
"My mid-June, 1965," it asserts, "the Vietcong summer
offensive was in full stride." By mid-July, the Vietcong were
"systematically forcing the GVN to yield what little control it
still exercised in rural areas outside the Mekong Delta."
On June 7, after the attack on Bagia, General Westmoreland
sent a long message on the military situation and his needs
to the Pacific Commander for relay to the Joint Chiefs.
"In pressing their campaign," the general said, "the Vietcong
are capable of mounting regimental-size operations in all
419
four ARVN corps areas, and at least battalion-sized attack in
virtually all provinces ....
"ARVN forces on the other hand are already experiencing
difficulty in coping with this increased VC capability. Desertion
rates are inordinately high. Battle losses have been higher
than expected; in fact, four ARVN battalions have been
rendered ineffective by VC action in the I and II Corps
zones ....
"Thus, the GVN/VC force ratios upon which we based our
estimate of the situation in March have taken an adverse trend.
You will recall that I recommended the deployment of a
U.S. division in II Corps to cover the period of the RVNAF
build-up and to weight the force ratios in that important area.
We assumed at that time that the ARVN battalions would be
brought to full strength by now and that the force build-up
would proceed on schedule. Neither of these assumptions has
materialized ....
"In order to cope with the situation outlined above, I see
no course of action open to us except to reinforce our efforts
in SVN with additional U.S. or third country forces as rapidly
as is practical during the critical weeks ahead."
What General Westmoreland asked for added up to a total
force of 44 battalions and the June 7 message became known
as the "44-battalion request."
Just as intense internal debate was beginning on the request,
there was a "credibility" flare-up deriving from President
Johnson's injunction of secrecy on the change of missions for
the marines authorized on April 1 in National Security Action
Memorandum 328.
"The long official silence between the sanction for U.S.
offensive operations contained in NSAM 328 and the final
approval [in negotiations with Saigon] of the conditions under
which U.S. troops could be committed was not without cost,"
the study asserts. "The President had admonished each of
the N.S.C. members not to allow release of provisions of the
NSAM, but the unduly long interregnum inevitably led to
leaks." In addition, the marines had 200 casualties, including
18 killed, as they went about "tidying up," as the study puts
it, their newly assigned area in April and May.
"The Commandant of the Marine Corps," the study continues,
"raised the tempo of speculation by saying to the press
during an inspection trip to Vietnam in April that the marines
were not in Vietnam to 'sit on their dittyboxes'-and they
were there to 'kill Vietcong.'
"An honest and superficially innocuous statement by Department of State
Press Officer Robert McCloskey on 8 June
to the effect that 'American forces would be available for
combat support together with Vietnamese forces when and if
necessary' produced an immediate response [in the press].
"The White House was hoisted by its own petard. In an
attempt to quell the outcry, a statement was issued on the
9th of June which, because of its ambiguity, only served to
exacerbate the situation and to widen what was being described
as 'the credibility gap'."
The White House statement said: "There has been no
change in the mission of United States ground combat units in
Vietnam in recent days or weeks. The President has issued no
order of any kind in this regard to General Westmoreland
recently or at any other time. The primary mission of these
troops is to secure and safeguard important military installations
like the air base at Danang. They have the associated
mission of . . . patrolling and securing actions in and near the
areas thus safeguarded.
"If help is requested by the appropriate Vietnamese commander,
General Westmoreland also has authority within the
assigned mission to employ those troops in support of Vietnamese
forces faced with aggressive attack when other effective
reserves are not available and when, in his judgment, the
general military situation urgently requires it."
Discussing this statement, the Pentagon analyst says: "The
documents do not reveal whether or not the ground rules for
engagement of U.S. forces had actually been worked out to
everyone's satisfaction at the time of the White House statement.
There is good indication that they had not." The analyst
also notes that during the battles of Bagia and Dongxoai, the
Government forces "were desperately in need of assistance,"
but that United States forces were not committed although
the marines were available for Bagia and the 173d Airborne
Brigade for Dongxoai.
The study reports that the first major ground action by
United States forces took place northwest of Saigon from June
27 to June 30, and involved the 173d Airborne Brigade, an
Australian battalion and South Vietnamese forces.
"The operation could by no stretch of definition have been
described as a reserve reaction," the study says. "It was a
search and destroy operation into Vietcong base areas. . . .
The excursion was a direct result of the sanction given to
General Westmoreland ... [as a result of National Security
Action Memorandum 328 and the enemy offensive] to 'commit
U.S. troops to combat, independent of or in conjunction
421
with GVN forces in any situation in which the use of such
troops is requested by an appropriate GVN commander and
when in [General Westmoreland's] judgment, their use is
necessary to strengthen the relative position of GVN forces'."
The wording of this sanction came in a State Department
message.
However, as the study notes, "At that juncture the 44-
battalion debate was in full swing and the enclave strategy,
as a means to limit the amount and use of U.S. combat force
in Vietnam, was certainly overcome by events," and by "a
much more ambitious strategy sanctioned by the President."
Recapitulating the situation just before the debate, the study
gives this picture of deployment: At the beginning of June,
the enclave strategy was in its first stages with Marine Corps
forces at Phubai, Danang and Chulai, and Army forces in
Vungtau. Other enclaves were under consideration. Approved
for deployment-but not all arrived in South Vietnam yet were
approximately 70,000 troops in 13 maneuver battalions;
with third-country forces the total came to 77 ,250 men and 17
maneuver battalions.
This was the situation when, on June 7, General Westmoreland
asked for reinforcements "as rapidly as possible."
General Westmoreland's message, the Pentagon study says,
"stirred up a veritable hornet's nest in Washington," because
his request for large reinforcements and his proposed strategy
to go on the offensive "did not contain any of the comfortable
restrictions and safeguards which had been part of every
strategy debated to date."
"In such a move," the study continues "the specter of U.S.
involvement in a major Asian ground war was there for all to
see."
Just as Ambassador Taylor had consistently resisted involvement
of United States forces, the study says, so General Westmoreland
had been equally determined to get the troops into
the war and have "a free hand" in using them.
At the time of his message, the general had available in
Vietnam seven Marine and 2 Army maneuver battalions, plus
an Australian battalion. Now, he was asking for a total of 33
battalions, and if the 173d Airborne Brigade's two battalions which
were on temporary assignment-were added, the total
came to 35. But in a subparagraph, General Westmoreland
also identified nine other United States battalions that he
might request at a later date. Thus the total of 44 battalions,
and hence the name given the request. In the total was included
an airmobile division of nine battalions to be formed later.
422
Admiral Sharp favored the request in a message to the Joint
Chiefs on June 7, saying, "We will lose by staying in enclaves
defending coastal areas."
The Joint Chiefs, the Pentagon analyst says, favored bolstering
the United States troop commitment. As far back as
March 20, the Joint Chiefs had advocated sending three
divisions-two American and one Korean-with the objective
of "destroying the Vietcong."
Now, the study states, General Westmoreland's request
"altered drastically the role of the J.C.S. in the build-up debate.
"Up to that time," the study continues, "the J.C.S. had, if
anything, been ahead of General Westmoreland in advocating
allied forces for Vietnam. The 27 battalions of their three-division
plan were in themselves more than Westmoreland
ever requested until 7 June. After that date, the big push came
from Westmoreland in Saigon, and the J.C.S. were caught in
the middle between the latter and the powerful and strident
opposition his latest request for forces had surfaced in Washington."
On June 11, the Joint Chiefs cabled Admiral Sharp that
something less than General Westmoreland's request was
close to approval, but they wanted to know, the study says,
"where Westmoreland intended to put this force in Vietnam."
He replied on June 13 in detail and the study comments:
"This message was extremely important, for in it [he] spelled
out the concept of keeping U.S. forces away from the people.
The search and destroy strategy for U.S. and third country
forces which continues to this day and the primary focus of
RVNAF on pacification both stem from that concept. In addition,
Westmoreland made a big pitch in this cable for a
free hand to maneuver the troops around inside the country.
"
Ambassador Taylor, in a report on June 17, "confirmed the
seriousness of the military situation as reported by General
Westmoreland and also pointed up the very tenuous hold
the new government had on the country." This was the Government
of President Nguyen Van Thieu and Premier Nguyen
Cao Ky.
"This report apparently helped to remove the last obstacles
to consideration of all of the forces mentioned in Westmoreland's
request of 7 June," the analyst says.
On June 22, General Wheeler cabled General Westmoreland
and asked if the 44 battalions were enough to convince
the enemy forces that they could not win. General Westmoreland
replied, the study says, "that there was no evidence the
423
VC/DRV would alter their plans regardless of what the U.S.
did in the next six months."
"The 44-battalion force should, however, establish a favorable
balance of power by the end of the year," the study quotes
the general as having said. "If the U.S. was to seize the
initiative from the enemy, then further forces would be required
into 1966 and beyond .... "
On June 26, the general was given authority to commit
U.S. forces to battle when he decided they were necessary "to
strengthen the relative position of GVN forces."
"This was about as close to a free hand in managing the
forces as General Westmoreland was likely to get," the analyst
says. "The strategy was finished, and the debate from then
on centered on how much force and to what end."
Divergent Views at Home
The opposition to General Westmoreland had "its day in
court," late in June and early in July, the study says. The
embassy in Saigon, "while recognizing the seriousness of the
situation in South Vietnam, was less then sanguine about the
prospects for success if large numbers of foreign troops were
brought in."
Another critic of General Westmoreland's recommendations,
the account reports, was Under Secretary of State Ball
who was "convinced that the U.S. was pouring its resources
down the drain in the wrong place."
"In Ball's view," the account continues, "there was absolutely
no assurance that the U.S. could with the provision of more
ground forces achieve its political objectives in Vietnam. Instead,
the U.S. risked involving itself in a costly and indeterminate
struggle. To further complicate matters, it would be
equally impossible to achieve political objectives by expanding
the bombing of the North .... " [See Document #103.]
Assistant Secretary William P. Bundy, the study says, "like
so many others found himself in between Westmoreland and
Ball."
In a memorandum to the President on July 1, Mr. Bundy
gave his position, as summarized in the Pentagon study:
"The U.S. needed to avoid the ultimatum aspects of the 44
battalions and also the Ball withdrawal proposal. . . . The
U.S. should adopt a policy which would allow it to hold on
424
without risking disasters of scale if the war were lost despite
deployment of the full 44 battalions. For the moment, according
to Bundy, the U.S. should complete planned deployments
to bring in-country forces to 18 maneuver battalions and
85,000 men. . . . The forces in Vietnam, which Bundy assumed
would be enough to prevent collapse, would be restricted
to reserve reaction in support of RVNAF. This would
allow for some experimentation without taking over the war
effort-a familiar theme."
As for Secretary McNamara's views, the study comments:
"It is difficult to be precise about the position of the Secretary
of Defense during the build-up debate because there is so
little of him in the files."
"There are plenty of other indications in the files that the
Secretary was very carefully and personally insuring that the
Defense Establishment was ready to provide efficient and sufficient
support to the fighting elements in Vietnam," the study
continues. "From the records, the Secretary comes out much
more clearly for good management than he does for any
particular strategy."
The Secretary went to South Vietnam for a four-day inspection
starting July 16. The study says that while he was in
Saigon on July 17, he received a cable from Deputy Secretary
of Defense Vance informing him that the President had
decided to go ahead with the plan to deploy 34 battalions.
"The debate was over," the analyst says. "McNamara left
Saigon bearing Westmoreland recommendations for an even
greater increase in forces .... "
The study says 34 battalions. This is not entirely clear, because
in his request General Westmoreland had asked for a
total of 33, and if the battalions of the 173rd Airborne
Brigade were added, the total would be 35. The explanation
apparently is that when the Airmobile Division was finally
organized, it had eight rather than nine battalions. The 34
battalions were, of course, to be supplied immediately. The
nine others were to be requested later if needed.
The Pentagon analyst apparently did not have access to
White House memoranda, so he is able to give only a sketchy
account of Mr. Johnson's role. But he says: "There is no
question that the key figure in the early 1965 buildup was the
President. "
On May 4, the President asked Congress for a $700-million
supplemental appropriation "to meet mounting military requirements
in Vietnam."
"Nor can I guarantee this will be the last request," he said in
425
a message. "If our need expands I will turn again to the Congress.
For we will do whatever must be done to insure the
safety of South Vietnam from aggression. This is the firm and
irrevocable commitment of our people and nation."
On July 28, the President held a press conference in which
he said, "The lesson of history dictated that the U.S. commit
its strength to resist aggression in South Vietnam."
As for the troop increases, the President said:
"I have asked the commanding general, General Westmoreland,
what more he needs to meet this mounting aggression.
He has told me. We will meet his needs.
"I have today ordered to Vietnam the Airmobile Division
and certain other forces which will raise our fighting strength
from 75,000 to 125,000 men almost immediately. Additional
forces will be needed later, and they will be sent as requested.
"I have concluded that it is not essential to order Reserve
units into service now."
During the questioning after the announcement, this exchange
took place:
"Q. Mr. President, does the fact that you are sending additional
forces to Vietnam imply any change in the existing
policy of relying mainly on the South Vietnamese to carry out
offensive operations and using American forces to guard
installations and to act as emergency back-up?
"A. It does not imply any change in policy whatever. It
does not imply change of objective."
On July 30, the Joint Chiefs approved 44 maneuver battalions
for deployment, involving a total of 193,887 United
States troops. By the end of the year, United States forces in
South Vietnam numbered 184,314.
"The major participants in the decision knew the choices
and understood the consequences," the study says in summation.
The decision taken in mid-July to commit 44 battalions
of troops to battle in South Vietnam "was perceived
as a threshold-entrance into an Asian land war. The conflict
was seen to be long, with further U.S. deployments to follow.
The choice at that time was not whether or not to negotiate,
it was not whether to hold on for a while or let go-the
choice was viewed as winning or losing South Vietnam."
Accompanying this decision to give General Westmoreland
enough troops to embark on the first phase of his search-and-destroy
strategy "was a subtle change of emphasis," the study
says, adding:
"Instead of simply denying the enemy victory and con-
426
vincing him that he could not win, the thrust became defeating
the enemy in the South. This was sanctioned implicitly as
the only way to achieve the U.S. objective of a non-Communist
South Vietnam.
"The acceptance of the search-and-destroy strategy ... left
the U.S. commitment to Vietnam open-ended. The implications
in terms of manpower and money are inescapable.
"Final acceptance of the desirability of inflicting defeat on
the enemy rather than merely denying him victory opened
the door to an indeterminate amount of additional force."
Precisely what President Johnson and Secretary of Defense
McNamara expected their decisions of July to bring within
the near term "is not clear," the study says, "but there are
manifold indications that they were prepared for a long war."
427
KEY DOCUMENTS
Following are texts of key documents accompanying the Pentagon's
study of the Vietnam war, covering the opening of the sustained
bombing campaign against North Vietnam in the first half
of 1965. Except where excerpting is indicated, the documents are
printed verbatim, with only unmistakable typographical errors
corrected.
# 90
Letter from Rostow Favoring Commitment
of Troops by U.S.
Personal letter from Walt W. Rostow, chairman of the
State Department's Policy Planning Council, to Secretary
McNamara, Nov. 16, 1964, "Military Dispositions and
Political Signals."
Following on our conversation of last night I am concerned
that too much thought is being given to the actual damage we do
in the North, not enough thought to the signal we wish to send.
The signal consists of three parts:
a) damage to the North is now to be inflicted because they are
violating the 1954 and 1962 accords;
b) we are ready and able to go much further than our initial
act of damage;
c) we are ready and able to meet any level of escalation they
might mount in response, if they are so minded.
Four points follow.
1. I am convinced that we should not go forward into the next
stage without a U.S. ground force commitment of some kind:
a. The withdrawal of those ground forces could be a critically
important part of our diplomatic bargaining position. Ground
forces can sit during a conference more easily than we can maintain
a series of mounting air and naval pressures.
b. We must make clear that counter escalation by the Communists
will run directly into U.S. strength on the ground; and,
therefore the possibility of radically extending their position on
the ground at the cost of air and naval damage alone, is ruled out.
c. There is a marginal possibility that in attacking the airfield
428
they were thinking two moves ahead; namely, they might be planning
a pre-emptive ground force response to an expected U.S.
retaliation for the Bien Hoa attack.
2. The first critical military action against North Vietnam
should be designed merely to install the principle that they will,
from the present forward, be vulnerable to retaliatory attack in
the north for continued violations for the 1954 and 1962 Accords.
In other words, we would signal a shift from the principle involved
in the Tonkin Gulf response. This means that the initial
use of force in the north should be as limited and as un sanguinary
as possible. It is the installation of the principle that we are
initially interested in, not tit for tat.
3. But our force dispositions to accompany an initial retaliatory
move against the north should send three further signals lucidly:
a. that we are putting in place a capacity subsequently to step
up direct and naval pressure on the north, if that should be
required;
b. that we are prepared to face down any form of escalation
North Vietnam might mount on the ground; and
c. that we are putting forces into place to exact retaliation
directly against Communist China, if Peiping should join in an
escalatory response from Hanoi. The latter could take the form of
increased aircraft on Formosa plus, perhaps, a carrier force sitting
off China distinguished from the force in the South China Sea.
4. The launching of this track, almost certainly, will require
the President to explain to our own people and to the world our
intentions and objectives. This will also be perhaps the most
persuasive form of communication with Ho and Mao. In addition,
I am inclined to think the most direct communication we can
mount (perhaps via Vientiane and Warsaw) is desirable, as opposed
to the use of cut-outs. They should feel they now confront
an LBI who has made up his mind. Contrary to an anxiety
expressed at an earlier stage, I believe it quite possible to
communicate
the limits as well as the seriousness of our intentions
without raising seriously the fear in Hanoi that we intend at our
initiative to land immediately in the Red River Delta, in China,
or seek any other objective than the re-installation of the 1954
and 1962 Accords.
# 91
Memo from Rostow Advocating Ground
Troops and Air Attacks
Memorandum from Mr. Rostow to Secretary Rusk, Nov.
23, 1964, "Some Observations as We Come to the Crunch
in Southeast Asia."
429
I leave for Lima this Saturday for the ClAP and CIES meetings.
I presume that in early December some major decisions
on Southeast Asia will be made. I should, therefore, like to leave
with you some observations on the situation. I have already
communicated them to Bill Bundy.
1. We must begin by fastening our minds as sharply as we can
around our appreciation of the view in Hanoi and Peiping of the
Southeast Asia problem. I agree almost completely with SNIE
10-3-64 of October 9. Here are the critical passages:
"While they will seek to exploit and encourage the deteriorating
situation in Saigon, they probably will avoid actions that would
in their view unduly increase the chances of a major U.S. response
against North Vietnam (DRV) or Communist China. We are
almost certain that both Hanoi and Peiping are anxious not to
become involved in the kind of war in which the great weight of
superior U.S. weaponry could be brought against them. Even if
Hanoi and Peiping estimated that the U.S. would not use nuclear
weapons against them, they could not be sure of this ....
"In the face of new U.S. pressures against the DRV further
actions by Hanoi and Peiping would be based to a considerable
extent on their estimate of U.S. intentions, i.e., whether the U.S.
was actually determined to increase its pressures as necessary.
Their estimates on this point are probably uncertain, but we
believe that fear of provoking severe measures by the U.S. would
lead them to temper their responses with a good deal of caution
....
"If despite Communist efforts, the U.S. attacks continued,
Hanoi's leaders would have to ask themselves whether it was not
better to suspend their support of Viet Cong military action rather
than suffer the destruction of their major military facilities and
the industrial sector of their economy. In the belief that the tide
has set almost irreversibly in their favor in South Vietnam, they
might calculate that the Viet Cong could stop its military attacks
for the time being and renew the insurrection successfully at a
later date. Their judgment in this matter might be reinforced by
the Chinese Communist concern over becoming involved in a
conflict with U.S. air and naval power."
Our most basic problem is, therefore, how to persuade them
that a continuation of their present policy will risk major destruction
in North Viet Nam; that a preemptive move on the ground
as a prelude to negotiation will be met by U.S. strength on the
ground; and that Communist China will not be a sanctuary if it
assists North Viet Nam in counter-escalation.
2. In terms of force dispositions, the critical moves are, I believe,
these:
a. The introduction of some ground forces in South Viet Nam
and, possibly, in the Laos corridor.
b. A minimal installation of the principle that from the present
forward North Viet Nam will be vulnerable to retaliatory attacks
for continued violation of the 1954-1962 Accords.
430
c. Perhaps most
important of all, the introduction into the
Pacific Theater of massive forces to deal with any escalatory
response, including forces evidently aimed at China as well as
North Viet Nam, should the Chinese Communists enter the game.
I am increasingly confident that we can do this in ways which
would be understood-and not dangerously misinterpreted-in
Hanoi and Peiping.
3. But the movement of forces, and even bombing operations
in the north, will not, in themselves, constitute a decisive signal.
They will be searching, with enormous sensitivity, for the answer
to the following question: Is the President of the United States
deeply committed to reinstalling the 1954-1962 Accords; or is he
putting on a demonstration of force that would save face for,
essentially, a U.S. political defeat at a diplomatic conference?
Here their judgment will depend not merely on our use of force
and force dispositions but also on the posture of the President,
including commitments he makes to our own people and before
the world, and on our follow-through. The SNIE accurately
catches the extent of their commitments and their hopes in South
Viet Nam and Laos. They will not actually accept a setback until
they are absolutely sure that we really mean it. They will be as
searching in this matter as Khrushchev was before he abandoned
the effort to break our hold on Berlin and as Khrushchev was in
searching us out on the Turkish missiles before he finally dismantled
and removed his missiles from Cuba. Initial rhetoric and
military moves will not be enough to convince them.
4. Given the fundamental assessment in this SNIE, I have no
doubt we have the capacity to achieve a reinstallation of the
1954-1962 Accords if we enter the exercise with the same determination
and staying power that we entered the long test on
Berlin and the short test on the Cuba missiles. But it will take that
kind of Presidential commitment and staying power.
5. In this connection, the SNIE is quite sound in emphasizing
that they will seek, if they are permitted, either to pretend to call
off the war in South Viet Nam, without actually doing so; or to
revive it again when the pressure is off. (We can see Castro doing
this now in Venezuela.) The nature of guerrilla war, infiltration,
etc., lends itself to this kind of ambiguous letdown and reacceleration.
This places a high premium on our defining precisely what
they have to do to remove the pressure from the north. It is because
we may wish to maintain pressure for some time to insure
their compliance that we should think hard about the installation
of troops not merely in South Viet Nam south of the seventeenth
parallel, but also in the infiltration corridor of Laos. The same
consideration argues for a non-sanguinary but important pressure
in the form of naval blockade which will be easier to maintain
during a negotiation or quasi-negotiation phase than bombing
operations.
6. The touchstones for compliance should include the following:
the removal of Viet Minh troops from Laos; the cessation of
431
infiltration of South Viet Nam from the north; the turning off of
the tactical radio network; and the overt statement on Hanoi radio
that the Viet Cong should cease their operations and pursue their
objectives in South Viet Nam by political means. On the latter
point, even if contrary covert instructions are given, an overt
statement would have important political and psychological impact.
7. As I said in my memorandum to the President of June 6, no
one can be or should be dogmatic about how much of a war we
still would have-and for how long-if the external element were
thus radically reduced or eliminated. The odds are pretty good, in
my view, that, if we do these things in this way, the war will either
promptly stop or we will see the same kind of fragmentation of
the Communist movement in South Viet Nam that we saw in
Greece after the Yugoslav frontier was closed by the Tito-Stalin
split. But we can't proceed on that assumption. We must try to
gear this whole operation with the best counter-insurgency effort
we can mount with our Vietnamese friends outside the country;
and not withdraw U.S. forces from Viet Nam until the war is truly
under control. (In this connection, I hope everyone concerned
considers carefully RAND proposal of November 17, 1964, entitled
"SlAT: Single Integrated Attack Team, A Concept for
Offensive Military Operations in South Viet-Nam.")
8. I do not see how, if we adopt this line, we can avoid
heightened pressures from our allies for either Chinese Communist
entrance into the UN or for a UN offer to the Chinese Communists
on some form of two-China basis. This will be livable
for the President and the Administration if-but only if-we get
a clean resolution of the Laos and South Viet Nam problems. The
publication of a good Jordan Report will help pin our allies to the
wall on a prior reinstallation of the 1954 and 1962 Accords.
9. Considering these observations as a whole, I suspect what I
am really saying is that our assets, as I see them, are sufficient to
see this thing through if we enter the exercise with adequate
determination to succeed. I know well the anxieties and complications
on our side of the line. But there may be a tendency to
underestimate both the anxieties and complications on the other
side and also to underestimate that limited but real margin of
influence on the outcome which flows from the simple fact that at
this stage of history we are the greatest power in the world-if we
behave like it.
10. In the President's public exposition of his policy, I would
now add something to the draft I did to accompany the June 6
memorandum to the President. I believe he should hold up a vision
of an Asian community that goes beyond the Mekong passage in
that draft. The vision, essentially, should hold out the hope that if
the 1954 and 1962 Accords are reinstalled, these things are
possible:
a. peace;
b. accelerated economic development;
c. Asians taking a larger hand in their own destiny;
432
d. as much peaceful coexistence between Asian Communists and
non-Communists as the Communists wish.
11. A scenario to launch this track might begin as follows:
A. A Presidential decision, communicated to but held by the
Congressional leaders. Some leakage would not be unhelpful.
B. Immediate movement of relevant forces to the Pacific.
C. Immediate direct communication to Hanoi to give them a
chance to back down before faced with our actions, including a
clear statement of the limits of our objectives but our absolute
commitment to them.
D. Should this first communication fail (as is likely) installation
of our ground forces and naval blockade, plus first attack in North,
to be accompanied by publication up-dated Jordan Report and
Presidential speech.
# 92
McGeorge Bundy Memo to Johnson on
"Sustained Reprisal" Policy
Annex A, "A Policy of Sustained Reprisal," to memorandum
to President Lyndon B. Johnson from McGeorge
Bundy, Presidential assistant for national security, Feb. 7,
1965.
I. INTRODUCTORY
We believe that the best available way of increasing our chance
of success in Vietnam is the development and execution of a policy
of sustained reprisal against North Vietnam-a policy in whi~h air
and naval action against the North is justified by and related to
the whole Viet Cong campaign of violence and terror in the South.
While we believe that the risks of such a policy are acceptable,
we emphasize that its costs are real. It implies significant U.S. air
losses even if no full air war is joined, and it seems likely that it
would eventually require an extensive and costly effort against the
whole air defense system of North Vietnam. U.S. casualties would
be higher-and more visible to American feelings-than those
sustained in the struggle in South Vietnam.
Yet measured against the costs of defeat in Vietnam, this program
seems cheap. And even if it fails to turn the tide-as it may
-the value of the effort seems to us to exceed its cost.
ll. OUTLINE OF THE POLICY
In partnership with the Government of Vietnam, we should
develop and exercise the option to retaliate against any VC act of
violence to persons or property.
433
2. In practice, we may wish at the outset to relate our reprisals
to those acts of relatively high visibility such as the Pleiku incident.
Later, we might retaliate against the assassination of a province
chief, but not necessarily the murder of a hamlet official; we might
retaliate against a grenade thrown into a crowded cafe in Saigon,
but not necessarily to a shot fired into a small shop in the
countryside.
3. Once a program of reprisals is clearly underway, it should
not be necessary to connect each specific act against North Vietnam
to a particular outrage in the South. It should be possible,
for example, to publish weekly lists of outrages in the South and
to have it clearly understood that these outrages are the cause of
such action against the North as may be occurring in the current
period. Such a more generalized pattern of reprisal would remove
much of the difficulty involved in finding precisely matching targets
in response to specific atrocities. Even in such a more general
pattern, however, it would be important to insure that the general
level of reprisal action remained in close correspondence with the
level of outrages in the South. We must keep it clear at every stage
both to Hanoi and to the world, that our reprisals will be reduced
or stopped when outrages in the South are reduced or stopped and
that we are not attempting to destroy or conquer North
Vietnam.
4. In the early stages of such a course, we should take the
appropriate occasion to make clear our firm intent to undertake
reprisals on any further acts, major or minor, that appear to us and
the GVN as indicating Hanoi's support. We would announce that
our two governments have been patient and fore bearing in the
hope that Hanoi would come to its senses without the necessity
of our having to take further action; but the outrages continue and
now we must react against those who are responsible; we will not
provoke; we will not use our force indiscriminately; but we can
no longer sit by in the face of repeated acts of terror and violence
for which the DRV is responsible.
5. Having once made this announcement, we should execute our
reprisal policy with as low a level of public noise as possible. It
is to our interest that our acts should be seen-but we do not
wish to boast about them in ways that make it hard for Hanoi to
shift its ground. We should instead direct maximum attention to
the continuing acts of violence which are the cause of our continuing
reprisals.
6. This reprisal policy should begin at a low level. Its level of
force and pressure should be increased only gradually-and as
indicated above should be decreased if VC terror visibly decreased.
The object would not be to "win" an air war against Hanoi, but
rather to influence the course of the struggle in the South.
7. At the same time it should be recognized that in order to
maintain the power of reprisal without risk of excessive loss, an
"air war" may in fact be necessary. We should therefore be ready
to develop a separate justification for energetic flak suppression
434
and if necessary for the destruction of Communist air power. The
essence of such an explanation should be that these actions are
intended solely to insure the effectiveness of a policy of reprisal,
and in no sense represent any intent to wage offensive war against
the North. These distinctions should not be difficult to develop.
8. It remains quite possible, however, that this reprisal policy
would get us quickly into the level of military activity contemplated
in the so-called Phase II of our December planning. It may
even get us beyond this level with both Hanoi and Peiping, if
there is Communist counter-action. We and the GVN should also
be prepared for a spurt of VC terrorism, especially in urban areas,
that would dwarf anything yet experienced. These are the risks of
any action. They should be carefully reviewed-but we believe
them to be acceptable.
9. We are convinced that the political values of reprisal require
a continuous operation. Episodic responses geared on a one-for-one
basis to "spectacular" outrages would lack the persuasive force
of sustained pressure. More important still, they would leave it
open to the Communists to avoid reprisals entirely by giving up
only a small element of their own program. The Gulf of Tonkin
affair produced a sharp upturn in morale in South Vietnam. When
it remained an isolated episode, however, there was a severe
relapse. It is the great merit of the proposed scheme that to stop
it the Communists would have to stop enough of their activity in
the South to permit the probable success of a determined pacification
effort.
III. EXPECTED EFFECT OF SUSTAINED
REPRISAL POLICY
1. We emphasize that our primary target in advocating a reprisal
policy is the improvement of the situation in South Vietnam.
Action against the North is usually urged as a means of affecting
the will of Hanoi to direct and support the Vc. We consider this
ar. important but longer-range purpose. The immediate and critical
targets are in the South-in the minds of the South Vietnamese
and in the minds of the Viet Cong cadres.
2. Predictions of the effect of any given course of action upon
the states of mind of people are difficult. It seems very clear that
if the United States and the Government of Vietnam join in a
policy of reprisal, there will be a sharp immediate increase in
optimism in the South, among nearly all articulate groups. The
Mission believes-and our own conversations confirm-that in all
sectors of Vietnamese opinion there is a strong belief that the
United States could do much more if it would, and that they are
suspicious of our failure to use more of our obviously enormous
power. At least in the short run, the reaction to reprisal policy
would be very favorable.
3. This favorable reaction should offer opportunity for increased
American influence in pressing for a more effective government-
435
at least in the short run. Joint reprisals would imply military
planning in which the American role would necessarily be controlling,
and this new relation should add to our bargaining power
in other military efforts-and conceivably on a wider plane as well
if a more stable government is formed. We have the whip hand in
reprisals as we do not in other fields.
4. The Vietnamese increase in hope could well increase the
readiness of Vietnamese factions themselves to join together in
forming a more effective government.
5. We think it plausible that effective and sustained reprisals,
even in a low key, would have a substantial depressing effect upon
the morale of Viet Cong cadres in South Vietnam. This is the
strong opinion of CIA Saigon. It is based upon reliable reports of
the initial Viet Cong reaction to the Gulf of Tonkin episode, and
also upon the solid general assessment that the determination of
Hanoi and the apparent timidity of the mighty United States are
both major items in Viet Cong confidence.
6. The long-run effect of reprisals in the South is far less clear.
It may be that like other stimulants, the value of this one would
decline over time. Indeed the risk of this result is large enough
so that we ourselves believe that a very major effort all along the
line should be made in South Vietnam to take full advantage of
the immediate stimulus of reprisal policy in its early stages. Our
object should be to use this new policy to effect a visible upward
turn in pacification, in governmental effectiveness, in operations
against the Viet Cong, and in the whole U.S./GVN relationship.
It is changes in these areas that can have enduring long-term
effects.
7. While emphasizing the importance of reprisals in the South,
we do not exclude the impact on Hanoi. We believe, indeed, that
it is of great importance that the level of reprisal be adjusted
rapidly and visibly to both upward and downward shifts in the
level of Viet Cong offenses. We want to keep before Hanoi the
carrot of our desisting as well as the stick of continued pressure.
We also need to conduct the application of force so that there
is always a prospect of worse to come.
8. We cannot assert that a policy of sustained reprisal will
succeed in changing the course of the contest in Vietnam. It may
fail, and we cannot estimate the odds of success with any accuracy
-they may be somewhere between 25% and 75%. What we can
say is that even if it fails, the policy will be worth it. At a minimum
it will damp down the charge that we did not do all that we
could have done, and this charge will be important in many countries,
including our own. Beyond that, a reprisal policy-to the
extent that it demonstrates U.S. willingness to employ this new
norm in counter-insurgency-will set a higher price for the future
upon all adventures of guerrilla warfare, and it should therefore
somewhat increase our ability to deter such adventures. We must
recognize, however, that that ability will be gravely weakened if
there is failure for any reason in Vietnam.
436
IV. PRESENT ACTION RECOMMENDATIONS
1. This general recommendation was developed in intensive
discussions in the days just before the attacks on Pleiku. These
attacks and our reaction to them have created an ideal opportunity
for the prompt development and execution of sustained
reprisals. Conversely, if no such policy is now developed, we face
the grave danger that Pleiku, like the Gulf of Tonkin, may be a
short-run stimulant and a long-term depressant. We therefore
recommend that the necessary preparations be made for continuing
reprisals. The major necessary steps to be taken appear to us to
be the following:
(1) We should complete the evacuation of dependents.
(2) We should quietly start the necessary westward deployments
of [word illegible] contingency forces.
(3) We should develop and refine a running catalogue of Viet
Cong offenses which can be published regularly and related clearly
to our own reprisals. Such a catalogue should perhaps build on
the foundation of an initial White Paper.
(4) We should initiate joint planning with the GVN on both
the civil and military level. Specifically, we should give a clear
and strong signal to those now forming a government that we will
be ready for this policy when they are.
(5) We should develop the necessary public and diplomatic
statements to accompany the initiation and continuation of this
program.
(6) We should insure that a reprisal program is matched by
renewed public commitment to our family of programs in the
South, so that the central importance of the southern struggle
may never be neglected.
(7) We should plan quiet diplomatic communication of the
precise meaning of what we are and are not doing, to Hanoi, to
Peking and to Moscow.
(8) We should be prepared to defend and to justify this new
policy by concentrating attention in every forum upon its cause the
aggression in the South.
(9) We should accept discussion on these terms in any forum,
but we should not now accept the idea of negotiations of any sort
except on the basis of a stand down of Viet Cong violence. A
program of sustained reprisal, with its direct link to Hanoi's
continuing
aggressive actions in the South, will not involve us in
nearly the level of international recrimination which would be
precipitated by a go-North program which was not so connected.
For this reason the international pressures for negotiation should
be quite manageable.
437
# 93
White House Cable to Taylor on the
Rolling Thunder Decision
Excerpts from cablegram from the State Department to
Ambassador Taylor, Feb. 13, 1965, as provided in the body
of the Pentagon study. The words in brackets are those of
the study. The narrative says this message was drafted at
the White House.
The President today approved the following program for immediate
future actions in follow-up decisions he reported to you in
Deptel 1653. [The first FLAMING DART reprisal decision.]
1. We will intensify by all available means the program of
pacification within SVN.
2. We will execute a program of measured and limited air action
jointly with GVN against selected military targets in DRV,
remaining south of 19th parallel until further notice.
FYI. Our current expectation is that these attacks might come
about once or twice a week and involve two or three targets on
each day of operation. END FYI.
3. We will announce this policy of measured action in general
terms and at the same time, we will go to UN Security Council
to make clear case that aggressor is Hanoi. We will also make it
plain that we are ready and eager for 'talks' to bring aggression
to an end.
4. We believe that this 3-part program must be concerted with
SVN, and we currently expect to announce it by Presidential
statement directly after next authorized air action. We believe this
action should take place as early as possible next week.
5. You are accordingly instructed to seek immediate GVN
agreement on this program. You are authorized to emphasize our
conviction that announcement of readiness to talk is stronger
diplomatic position than awaiting inevitable summons to Security
Council by third parties. We would hope to have appropriate GVN
concurrence by Monday [Feb. 14th] if possible here.
In presenting above to GVN, you should draw fully, as you see
fit, on following arguments:
a. We are determined to continue with military actions regardless
of Security Council deliberations and any 'talks' or negotiations
when [words illegible]. [Beginning of sentence illegible] that
they cease [words illegible] and also the activity they are directing
in the south.
b. We consider the UN Security Council initiative, following
another strike, essential if we are to avoid being faced with really
damaging initiatives by the USSR or perhaps by such powers as
India, France, or even the UN.
c. At an early point in the UN Security Council initiative, we
438
would expect to see calls for the DRV to appear in the UN. If they
failed to appear, as in August, this will make doubly clear that it
is they who are refusing to desist, and our position in pursuing
military actions against the DRV would be strengthened. For some
reason we would now hope GVN itself would appear at UN and
work closely with U.S.
d. With or without Hanoi, we have every expectation that any
'talks' that may result from our Security Council initiative would
in fact go on for many weeks or perhaps months and would above
all focus constantly on the cessation of Hanoi's aggression as the
precondition to any cessation of military action against the DRV.
We further anticipate that any detailed discussions about any possible
eventual form of agreement returning to the essentials of the
1954 Accords would be postponed and would be subordinated to
the central issue ....
# 94
Draft by William Bundy on Results of
Policy in '65
Draft paper by William Bundy, "Where Are We Heading?,"
Feb. 18, 1965. An attached note, dated June 25, says,
"Later than November paper, and unfinished."
This memorandum examines possible developments and problems
if the U.S. pursues the following policy with respect to South
Viet-Nam:
a. Intensified pacification within South Viet-Nam. To meet
the security problem, this might include a significant increase in
present U.S. force strength.
b. A program of measured, limited, and spaced air attacks,
jointly with the GVN, against the infiltration complex in the
DRV. Such attacks would take place at the rate of about one a
week, unless spectacular Viet Cong action dictated an immediate
response out of sequence. The normal pattern of such attacks
would comprise one GVN and one U.S. strike on each occasion,
confined to targets south of the 19th parallel, with variations in
severity depending on the tempo of VC action, but with a slow
upward trend in severity as the weeks went by.
c. That the U.S. itself would take no initiative for talks, but
would agree to cooperate in consultations-not a conference undertaken
by the UK and USSR as Co-Chairmen of the Geneva
Conference. As an opening move, the British would request an
expression of our views, and we would use this occasion to spell
out our position fully, including our purposes and what we regard
as essential to the restoration of peace. We would further
present our case against the DRV in the form of a long written
439
document to be sent to the President of the United Nations Security
Council and to be circulated to members of the UN.
1. Communist responses.
a. Hanoi would almost certainly not feel itself under pressure
at any early point to enter into fruitful negotiations or to call
off its activity in any way. They would denounce the continued air
attacks and seek to whip up maximum world opposition to them.
Within South Viet-Nam, they might avoid spectacular actions, but
would certainly continue a substantial pattern of activity along
past lines, probably with emphasis on the kind of incidents we
have seen this week, in which Communist agents stirred up a
village "protest" against government air attacks, and against the
U.S. Basically, they would see the situation in South Viet-Nam as
likely to deteriorate further ("crumble", as they have put it),
and would be expecting that at some point someone in the GVN
will start secret talks with them behind our backs.
b. Communist China might supply additional air defense
equipment to the DRV, but we do not believe they would engage
in air operations from Communist China, at least up to the point
where the MIGs in the DRV were engaged and we had found it
necessary to attack Fukien or possibly-if the MIGs had been
moved there-Vinh.
c. The Soviets would supply air defense equipment to the DRV
and would continue to protest our air attacks in strong terms.
However, we do not believe they would make any new commitment
at this stage, and they would probably not do so even if the
Chicoms became even more deeply involved-provided that were
not ourselves attacking Communist China. At that point, the heat
might get awfully great on them, and they would be in a very
difficult position to continue actively working as Co-Chairman.
However, their approach to the British on the Co-Chairmanship
certainly suggests that they would find some relief in starting to
act in that role, and might use it as a hedge against further
involvement,
perhaps pointing out to Hanoi that the Co-Chairman
exercise serves to prevent us from taking extreme action and that
Hanoi will get the same result in the end if a political track is
operating and if, in fact, South Viet-Nam keeps crumbling. They
might also argue to Hanoi that the existence of the political track
tends to reduce the chances of the Chicoms having to become
deeply involved-which we believe Hanoi does not want unless it
is compelled to accept it.
2. Within South Viet-Nam the new government is a somewhat
better one, but the cohesive effects of the strikes to date have
at most helped things a bit. The latest MACV report indicates a
deteriorating situation except in the extreme south, and it is
unlikely that this can be arrested in any short period of time even
if the government does hold together well and the military go
about their business. We shall be very lucky to see a leveling off,
much less any significant improvement, in the next two months.
In short, we may have to hang on quite a long time before we can
440
hope to see an improving situation in South Viet-Nam-and this
in turn is really the key to any negotiating position we could have
at any time.
3. On the political track we believe the British will undertake
their role with vigor, and that the Soviets will be more reserved.
The Soviet can hardly hope to influence Hanoi much at this point,
and they certainly have no leverage with Communist China. In the
opening rounds, the Soviets will probably fire off some fairly
sharp statements that the real key to the situation is for us to get
out and to stop our attacks, and the opposing positions are so
far apart that it is hard to see any useful movement for some time
to come. We might well find the Soviets-or even the Canadians
-sounding us out on whether we would stop our attacks in return
for some moderation in VC activity. This is clearly unacceptable,
and the very least we should hold out on is a verified cessation of
infiltration (and radio silence) before we stop our attacks. Our
stress on the cessation of infiltration may conceivably lead to the
Indians coming forward to offer policing forces-a suggestion they
have made before-and this would be a constructive move we
could pick up. But, as noted above, Hanoi is most unlikely to
trade on this basis for a long time to come.
4. In sum-the most likely prospect is for a prolonged period
without major risks of escalation but equally without any give by
Hanoi. If, contrary to our present judgment, the GVN should
start to do better,
# 95
Cable to U.S. Envoys in Asia Announcing
Sustained Bombing
Cablegram from State Department to heads of nine
United States diplomatic missions in the Far East, Feb.
18, 1965, as provided in the body of the Pentagon study.
Policy on Viet-Nam adopted today calls for the following:
1. Joint program with GVN of continuing air and naval action
against North Viet-Nam whenever and wherever necessary. Such
action to be against selected military targets and to be limited and
fitting and adequate as response to continuous aggression in South
Viet-Nam directed in Hanoi. Air strikes will be jointly planned
and agreed with GVN and carried out on joint basis.
2. Intensification by all available means of pacification program
within South Viet-Nam, including every possible step to find and
attack VC concentrations and headquarters within SVN by all
conventional means available to GVN and U.S.
3. Early detailed presentation to nations of world and to public
of documented case against DRV as aggressor. Forum and form
441
this presentation not yet decided, but we do not repeat not expect
to touch upon readiness for talks or negotiations at this time. We
are considering reaffirmation our objectives in some form in the
near future.
4. Careful public statements of USG, combined with fact of
continuing air action, are expected to make it clear that military
action will continue while aggression continues. But focus of
public attention will be kept as far as possible on DRV aggression;
not on joint GVN-U.S. military operations. There will be no
comment of any sort on future actions except that all such actions
will be adequate and measured and fitting to aggression. (You will
have noted President's statement of yesterday, which we will
probably allow to stand.)
Addressees should inform head of government or State (as
appropriate) of above in strictest confidence and report reactions.
In the case of Canberra and Wellington [several words illegible]
subject to security considerations of each operation as it occurs,
as we did with respect to operations of February 7 and 11.
# 96
McNaughton Draft for McNamara on
"Proposed Course of Action"
First draft of "Annex-Plan for Action for South Vietnam,"
appended to memorandum from John T. McNaughton,
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security
Affairs, for Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara,
March 24,1965.
1. U.S. aims:
70%-To avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat (to our reputation
as a guarantor).
20%-To keep SVN (and the adjacent) territory from Chinese
hands.
10%-To permit the people of SVN to enjoy a better, freer way
of life.
ALSO-To emerge from crisis without unacceptable taint from
methods used.
NOT-to "help a friend," although it would be hard to stay in
if asked out.
2. The situation: The situation in general is bad and deteriorating.
The VC have the initiative. Defeatism is gaining among the
rural population, somewhat in the cities, and even among the
soldiers-especially those with relatives in rural areas. The Hop
Tac area around Saigon is making little progress; the Delta stays
bad; the country has been severed in the north. GVN control is
shrinking to the enclaves, some burdened with refugees. In
442
Saigon we have a remission: Quat is giving hope on the civilian
side, the Buddhists have calmed, and the split generals are in
uneasy equilibrium.
3. The preliminary question: Can the situation inside SVN be
bottomed out (a) without extreme measures against the DRV
and/or (b) without deployment of large numbers of U.S. (and
other) combat troops inside SVN? The answer is perhaps, but
probably no.
4. Ways GVN might collapse:
(a) VC successes reduce GVN control to enclaves, causing:
(I) insurrection in the enclaved population,
(2) massive defections of ARVN soldiers and even units,
(3) aggravated dissension and impotence in Saigon,
(4) defeatism and reorientation by key GVN officials,
(5) entrance of left-wing elements into the government,
(6) emergence of a popular-front regime,
(7) request that U.S. leave,
(8) concessions to the VC, and
(9) accommodations to the DRV.
b) VC with DRV volunteers concentrate on I and II Corps,
(1) conquering principal GVN-held enclaves there,
(2) declaring Liberation Government
(3) joining the I & II Corps areas to the DRV, and
(4) pressing the course in (a) above for rest of SVN.
c) While in a temporary funk, GVN might throw in sponge:
( I) dealing under the table with VC,
(2) asking the U.S. to cease at least military aid,
(3) bringing left-wing elements into the government,
(4) leading to a popular-front regime, and
(5) ending in accommodations to the VC and DRV.
d) In a surge of anti-Americanism, GVN could ask the U.S.
out and pursue course otherwise similar to (c) above.
5. The "trllemma": US policy appears to be drifting. This is
because, while there is consensus that efforts inside SVN (para 6)
will probably fail to prevent collapse, all three of the possible
remedial courses of action have so far been rejected:
a. Will-breaking strikes on the North (para 7) are balked (l)
by flash-point limits, (2) by doubts that the DRV will cave and
(3) by doubts that the VC will obey a caving DRV. (Leaving
strikes only a political and anti-infiltration nuisance.)
b. Large U.S. troop deployments. (para 9) are blocked by
"French-defeat" and "Korea" syndromes, and Quat is queasy.
(Troops could be net negatives, and be besieged.)
c. Exit by negotiations (para 9) is tainted by the humiliation
likely to follow.
Effort inside South Vietnam: Progress inside SVN is our main
aim. Great, imaginative efforts on the civilian political as well
as military side must be made, bearing in mind that progress
depends as much on GVN efforts and luck as on added U.S.
efforts. While only a few of such efforts can payoff quickly
443
enough to affect the present ominous deterioration, some may, and
we are dealing here in small critical margins. Furthermore, such
investment is essential to provide a foundation for the longer run.
a. Improve spirit and effectiveness. (fill out further, drawing
from State memo to the President)
(I) Achieve governmental stability.
(2) Augment the psy-war program.
(3) Build a stronger pro-government infrastructure.
b. Improve physical security. (fill out)
c. Reduce infiltration. (fill out)
STRIKES ON THE NORTH (PROGRAM OF
PROGRESSIVE MILITARY PRESSURE)
a. Purposes:
(I) to reduce DRV /VC activities by affecting DRV will.
(2) To improve the GVN/VC relative "balance of morale."
(3) To provide the U.S./GVN with a bargaining counter.
(4) To reduce DRV infiltration of men and materiel.
(5) To show the world the lengths to which U.S. will go for a
friend.
b. Program: Each week, I or 2 "mission days" with 100-plane
high-damage U.S.-VNAF strikes each "day" against important
targets, plus 3 armed recce missions-all moving upward in
weight of effort, value of target or proximity to Hanoi and China.
ALTERNATIVE ONE: 12-week DRV-wide program shunning
only "population" targets.
ALTERNATIVE TWO: 12-week program short of taking out
Phuc Yen (Hanoi) airfield.
c. Other actions:
(I) Blockade of DRV ports by VNAF /U.S.-dropped mines or
by ships.
(2) South Vietnamese-implemented 34A MAROPS.
(3) Reconnaissance flights over Laos and the DRV.
(4) Daily BARREL ROLL armed recce strikes in Laos (plus
T-28s).
(5) Four-a-week BARREL ROLL choke-point strikes in Laos.
(6) U.S./VNAF air & naval strikes against VC ops and bases
in SVN.
(7) Westward deployment of U.S. forces.
(8) No de Soto patrols or naval bombardment of DRV at
this time.
d. Red "flash points." There are events which we can expect
to imply substantial risk of escalation.
(l) Air strikes north of 17o. (This one already passed.)
(2) First U.S./VNAF confrontation with DRV MIGs.
(3) Strike on Phuc Yen MIG base near Hanoi.
(4) First strikes on Tonkin industrial/population targets.
(5) First strikes on Chinese railroad near China.
(6) First U.S./VNAF confrontation with Chicom MIGs.
444
(7) First hot pursuit of Chicom MIGs into China.
(8) First flak-suppression of Chic om or Soviet-manned SAM.
(9) Massive introduction of U.S. ground troops into SVN.
(10) U.S./ARVN occupation of DRV territory (e.g., Ile de
Tigre).
(11) First ChilSov-U.S. confrontation or sinking in blockade.
e) Blue "flash points." China/DRY surely are sensitive to
events which might cause us to escalate.
(1) All of the above "red" flash points.
(2) VC ground attack on Danang.
(3) Sinking of a U.S. naval vessel.
(4) Open deployment of DRV troops into South Vietnam.
(5) Deployment of Chinese troops into North Vietnam.
(6) Deployment of FROGs or SAMs in North Vietnam.
(7) DRV air attack on South Vietnam.
(8) Announcement of Liberation Government in IIII Corps
area.
f. Major risks:
(1) Losses to DRV MIGs, and later possibly to SAMs.
(2) Increased VC activities, and possibly Liberation Government.
(3) Panic or other collapse of GVN from under us.
(4) World-wide revulsion against us (against strikes, blockades,
etc.).
(5) Sympathetic fires over Berlin, Cyprus, Kashmir, Jordan
waters.
(6) Escalation to conventional war with DRV, China (and
USSR?)
(7) Escalation to the use of nuclear weapons.
g. Other Red moves:
(1) More jets to NVN with DRV or Chicom pilots.
(2) More AA (SAMs?) and radar gear (Soviet-manned?) to
NVN.
(3) Increased air and ground forces in South China.
(4) Other "defensive" DRV retaliation (e.g., shoot-down of a
U-2)
(5) PL land grabs in Laos.
(6) PL declaration of new government in Laos.
(7) Political drive for "neutralization" of Indo-China.
h. Escalation control. We can do three things to avoid escalation
too-much or too fast:
(1) Stretch out. Retard the program (e.g., 1 not 2 fixed strikes
a week).
(2) Circuit breaker. Abandon at least temporarily the theory
that our strikes are intended to break D.R.V. will, and "plateau"
them below the "Phuc Yen Airfield" flash point on one or the
other of these tenable theories:
(a) That we strike as necessary to interdict infiltration.
(b) That our level of strikes is generally responsive to the level
of VC/DRV activities in South Vietnam.
445
(3) Shunt. Plateau the air strikes per para (2) and divert the
energy into:
(a) A mine-and/or ship-blockade of DRV ports.
(b) Massive deployment of U.S. (and other?) troops into SVN
(and Laos?):
(1) To man the "enclaves", releasing ARVN forces.
(2) To take over Pleiku, Kontum, Darlac provinces.
(3) To create a [word illegible] sea-Thailand infiltration wall.
i. Important miscellany:
(1) Program should appear to be relentless (Le., possibility of
employing "circuit-breakers" should be secret).
(2) Enemy should be kept aware of our limited objectives.
(3) Allies should be kept on board.
(4) USSR should be kept in passive role.
(5) Information program should preserve U.S. public support.
PROGRAM OF LARGE U.S. GROUND EFFORT
IN SVN AND SEA
a. Purposes:
( 1) To defeat the VC on the ground.
(2) To improve GVN/VC relative "morale balance."
(3) To improve U.S.lGVN bargaining position.
(4) To show world lengths to which U.S. will go to fulfill commitments.
b. Program:
(1) Continue strike-North "crescendo" or "plateau" (para 7
above.)
(2) Add any "combat support" personnel needed by MACV;
and (3) Deploy remainder of the III Marine Expeditionary Force
to Danang; and (4) Deploy one U.S. (plus one Korean?) division
to defeat VC in Pleiku-Kontum-Darlac area, and/or (5)
Deploy one U.S. (plus one Korean?) division to hold enclaves
(Bien Hoa/Ton Son Nhut, Nha Trang, Qui Non, Pleiku); and/or
(6) Deploy 3-5 U.S. divisions (with "international" elements)
across Laos-SVN infiltration routes and at key SVN population
centers.
c. Advantages:
(1) Improve (at least initially) manpower ratio vs. the VC.
(2) Boost GVN morale and depress DRV /VC morale.
(3) Firm up U.S. commitment in eyes of all Reds, allies and
neutrals.
(4) Deter (or even prevent) coups in the South.
d. Risks:
(1) Deployment will suck Chicom troops into DRV.
(2) Deployment will suck counter-balancing DRV /Chinese
troops into SVN.
(3) Announcement of deployment will cause massive DRV/
Chicom effort preemptively to occupy new SVN territory.
(4) U.S. losses will increase.
446
(5) Friction with GVN (and Koreans?) over command will
arise.
(6) GVN will tend increasingly to "let the U.S. do it."
(7) Anti-U.S. "colonialist" mood may increase in and outside
SVN.
(8) U.S. forces may be surrounded and trapped.
e. Important miscellany:
(l) There are no obvious circuit-breakers. Once U.S. troops are
in, it will be difficult to withdraw them or to move them, say, to
Thailand without admitting defeat.
(2) It will take massive deployments (many divisions) to
improve the GVN/U.S.:VC ratio to the optimum 10+:1.
(3) In any event, our Project 22 planning with the Thais for
defense of the Mekong towns must proceed apace.
EXIT BY NEGOTIATIONS
a. Bargaining counters.
(l) What DRV could give:
(a) Stop training and sending personnel to SVN/Laos.
(b) Stop sending arms and supplies into SVN /Laos.
(c) Stop directing military actions in into SVN /Laos.
(d) Order the VC/PL to stop their insurgencies.
(e) Stop propaganda broadcasts to South Vietnam.
(0 Remove VM forces and cadres from SVN and Laos.
(g) See that VC/PL stop incidents in SVN and Laos.
(h) See that VC/PL cease resistance.
(i) See that VC/PL turn in weapons and bases.
(j) See that VC/PL surrender for amnesty/expatriation.
(2) What GVN/U.S. could give:
(a) Stop (or not increase) air strikes on DRV.
(b) Remove (or not increase) U.S. troops in SVN.
(c) Rice supply to DRV.
(d) Assurance that U.S.lGVN have no designs on NVN.
(e) Assurance that U.S./GVN will not demand public renunciation
by the DRV of Communist goals.
(0 Assurance that "peaceful coexistence" (e.g., continuation
of Red propaganda in SVN) is acceptable.
(g) Capitulation: Leftists in GVN, coalition government, and
eventual incorporation of SVN into DRV.
b. Possible outcomes.
( 1) Pacified non-Communist South Vietnam.
(2) "Laotian" solution, with areas of de facto VC dominion, a
"government of national unity," and a Liberation Front ostensibly
weaned from DRV control.
(3) Explicit partition of SVN, with each area under a separate
government.
(4) A "semi-equilibrium"-a slow-motion war-with slowly
shifting GVN-VC lines.
(5) Loss of SVN to the DRV.
447
c. Techniques to minImize impact of bad outcomes. If/when
it is estimated that even the best U.S.lGVN efforts mean failure
("flash" or defeat), it will be important to act to minimize the
afterdamage to U.S. effectiveness and image by steps such as
these:
( 1) Publicize uniqueness of congenital impossibility of SVN
case (e.g., Viet Minh held much of SVN in 1954, long sieve-like
borders, unfavorable terrain, no national tradition, few administrators,
mess left by French, competing factions, Red LOC advantage,
late U.S. start, etc.).
(2) Take opportunity offered by next coup or GVN anti-U.S.
tantrum to "ship out" (coupled with advance threat to do so if
they fail to "shape up"?)
(3) Create diversionary "offensives" elsewhere in the world
(e.g., to shore up Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, India, Australia;
to launch an "anti-poverty" program for underdeveloped areas).
(4) Enter multi-nation negotiations calculated to shift opinions
and values.
d. Risks. With the physical situation and the trends as they are
the fear is overwhelming that an exit negotiated now would result
in humiliation for the U.S.
Evaluation: It is essential-however badly SEA may go over
the next 1-3 years-that U.S. emerge as a "good doctor." We must
have kept promises, been tough, taken risks, gotten bloodied, and
hurt the enemy very badly. We must avoid harmful appearances
which will affect judgments by, and provide pretexts to, other
nations regarding how the U.S. will behave in future cases of
particular interest to those nations-regarding U.S. policy, power,
resolve and competence to deal with their problems. In this connection,
the relevant audiences are the Communists (who must
feel strong pressures), the South Vietnamese (whose morale must
be buoyed), our allies (who must trust us as "underwriters") and
the U.S. public (which must support our risk-taking with U.S.
lives and prestige).
Urgency: If the strike-North program (para 7) is not altered:
we will reach the MIG/Phuc Yen flash point in approximately
one month. If the program is altered only to stretch out the
crescendo: up to 3 months may be had before that flash point,
at the expense of a less persuasive squeeze. If the program is
altered to "plateau" or dampen the strikes: much of their negotiating
value will be lost. (Furthermore, there is now a hint of
flexibility on the Red side: the Soviets are struggling to find a
Gordian knot-cutter; the Chicoms may be wavering (Paris 5326).
possmLE COURSE
(l) Redouble efforts inside SVN (get better organized for it).
(2) Prepare to deploy U.S. combat troops in phases, starting
with one Army division at Pleiku and a Marine MEF at Danang.
448
(3) Stretch out strike-North program, postponing Phuc Yen
until June (exceed flash points only in specific retaliations).
(4) Initiate talks along the following lines, bearing in mind that
formal partition, or even a "Laos" partition, is out in SVN; we
must break the VC back or work out an accommodation.
PHASE ONE TALKS:
(A) When: Now, before an avoidable flash point.
(B) Who: U.S.-USSR, perhaps also U.S.-India. (Not with China
or Liberation Front; not through UK or France or U Thant; keep
alert to possibility that GVN officials are talking under the table.)
(C) How: With GVN consent, private, quiet (refuse formal
talks) .
(D) What:
(1) Offer to stop strikes on DRV and withhold deployment of
large U.S. forces in trade for DRV stoppage of infiltration,
communications
to VC, and VC attacks, sabotage and terrorism, and
for withdrawal of named units in SVN.
2. Compliance would be policed unilaterally. If as is likely,
complete compliance by the DRV is not forthcoming, we would
carry out occasional strikes.
(3) We make clear that we are not demanding cessation of Red
propaganda nor a public renunciation by Hanoi of its doctrines.
(4) Regarding "defensive" VC attacks-i.e., VC defending VC-held
areas from encroaching ARVN forces-we take the public
position that ARVN forces must be free to operate throughout
SVN, especially in areas where amnesty is offered (but in fact,
discretion will be exercised).
(5) Terrorism and sabotage, however, must be dampened
markedly throughout the country, and civilian administrators must
be free to move and operate freely, certainly in so-called contested
areas (and perhaps even in VC base areas).
PHASE TWO TALKS:
(A) When: At the end of Phase One.
(B) Who: All interested nations.
(C) How: Publicly in large conference.
(D) What:
( 1) Offer to remove U.S. combat forces from South Vietnam
in exchange for repatriation (or regroupment?) of DRV infiltrators
and for erection of internatipnal machinery to verify the end
of infiltration and communication.
(2) Offer to seek to determine the will of the people under
international supervision, with an appropriate reflection of those
who favor the VC.
(3) Any recognition of the Liberation Front would have to be
accompanied by disarming the VC and at least avowed VC independence
from DRV control.
PHASE THREE TALKS: Avoid any talks regarding the future
of all of Southeast Asia. Thailand's future should not be up for
discussion; and we have the 1954 and 1962 Geneva Accords covering
the rest of the area.
449
c. Special Points:
(1) Play on DRV's fear of China.
(2) To show good will, suspend strikes on North for a few
days if requested by Soviets during efforts to mediate.
(3) Have a contingency plan prepared to evacuate U.S. personnel
in case a para-9-type situation arises.
(4) If the DRV will not "play" the above game, we must be
prepared (a) to risk passing some flash points, in the Strike-North
program. (b) to put more U.S. troops into SVN, and/or (c) to
reconsider our minimum acceptable outcome.
# 97
McCone Memo to Top Officials on
Effectiveness of Air War
Memorandum from John A. McCone, Director of Central
Intelligence, to Secretary Rusk, Secretary McNamara,
McGeorge Bundy and Ambassador Taylor, April 2, 1965,
as provided in the body of the Pentagon's study. Paragraphs
in italics are the study's paraphrase or explanation.
McCone did not inherently disagree with the change in the U.S.
ground-force role, but felt that it was inconsistent with the decision
to continue the air strike program at the feeble level at which it
was then being conducted. McCone developed his argument as
follows:
I have been giving thought to the paper that we discussed in
yesterday's meeting, which unfortunately I had little time to study,
and also to the decision made to change the mission of our ground
forces in South Vietnam from one of advice and static defense to
one of active combat operations against the Viet Cong guerrillas.
I feel that the latter decision is correct only if our air strikes
against the North are sufficiently heavy and damaging really to
hurt the North Vietnamese. The paper we examined yesterday
does not anticipate the type of air operation against the North
necessary to force the NVN to reappraise their policy. On the
contrary, it states, "We should continue roughly the present slowly
ascending tempo of ROLLING THUNDER operations--," and
later, in outlining the types of targets, states, "The target systems
should continue to avoid the effective GCI range of MIG's," and
these conditions indicate restraints which will not be persuasive
to the NVM and would probably be read as evidence of a U.S.
desire to temporize.
I have reported that the strikes to date have not caused a
change in the North Vietnamese policy of directing Viet Cong
insurgency, infiltrating cadres and supplying material. If anything,
the strikes to date have hardened their attitude.
450
I have now had a chance to examine the 12-week program
referred to by General Wheeler and it is my personal opinion that
this program is not sufficiently severe and [words illegible] the
North Vietnamese to [words illegible] policy.
On the other hand, we must look with care to our position
under a program of slowly ascending tempo of air strikes. With
the passage of each day and each week, we can expect increasing
pressure to stop the bombing. This will come from various elements
of the American public, from the press, the United Nations
and world opinion. Therefore time will run against us in this
operation and I think the North Vietnamese are counting on this.
Therefore I think what we are doing is starting on a track which
involves ground force operations, which, in all probability, will
have limited effectiveness against guerrillas, although admittedly
will restrain some VC advances. However, we can expect requirements
for an ever-increasing commitment of U.S. personnel without
materially improving the chances of victory. I support and
agree with this decision but I must point out that in my judgment,
forcing submission of the VC can only be brought about by a
decision in Hanoi. Since the contemplated actions against the
North are modest in scale, they will not impose unacceptable
damage on it, nor will they threaten the DRV's vital interests.
Hence, they will not present them with a situation with which
they cannot live, though such actions will cause the DRV pain
and inconvenience.
I believe our proposed track offers great danger of simply
encouraging Chinese Communists and Soviet support of the DRV
and VC cause, if for no other reason than the risk for both will
be minimum. I envision that the reaction of the NVN and Chinese
Communists will be to deliberately, carefully, and probably
gradually, build up the Viet Cong capabilities by covert infiltration
on North Vietnamese and, possibly, Chinese cadres and thus bring
an ever-increasing pressure on our forces. In effect, we will find
ourselves mired down in combat in the jungle in a military effort
that we cannot win, and from which we will have extreme difficulty
in extracting ourselves.
Therefore it is my judgment that if we are to change the mission
of the ground forces, we must also change the ground rules
of the strikes against North Vietnam. We must hit them harder,
more frequently, and inflict greater damage. Instead of avoiding
the MIG's, we must go in and take them out. A bridge here and
there will not do the job. We must strike their airfields, their
petroleum resources, power stations and their military compounds.
This, in my opinion, must be done promptly and with minimum
restraint.
If we are unwilling to take it this kind of a decision now, we
must not take the actions concerning the mission of our ground
forces for the reasons I have mentioned [words illegible].
451
# 98
April, '65, Order Increasing Ground Force
and Shifting Mission
National Security Action Memorandum 328, April 6,
1965, signed by McGeorge Bundy and addressed to the
Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense and the Director
of Central Intelligence.
On Thursday, April 1, The President made the following decisions
with respect to Vietnam:
1. Subject to modifications in light of experience, to coordination
and direction both in Saigon and in Washington, the President
approved the 41-point program of non-military actions submitted
by Ambassador Taylor in a memorandum dated March 31, 1965.
2. The President gave general approval to the recommendations
submitted by Mr. Rowan in his report dated March 16, with the
exception that the President withheld approval of any request for
supplemental funds at this time-it is his decision that this program
is to be energetically supported by all agencies and departments
and by the reprogramming of available funds as necessary
within USIA.
3. The President approved the urgent exploration of the 12
suggestions for covert and other actions submitted by the Director
of Central Intelligence under date of March 31.
4. The President repeated his earlier approval of the 21-point
program of military actions submitted by General Harold K.
Johnson under date of March 14 and re-emphasized his desire that
aircraft and helicopter reinforcements under this program be
accelerated.
5. The President approved an 18-20,000 man increase in U.S.
military support forces to fill out existing units and supply needed
logistic personnel.
6. The President approved the deployment of two additional
Marine Battalions and one Marine Air Squadron and associated
headquarters and support elements.
7. The President approved a change of mission for all Marine
Battalions deployed to Vietnam to permit their more active use
under conditions to be established and approved by the Secretary
of Defense in consultation with the Secretary of State.
8. The President approved the urgent exploration, with the
Korean, Australian, and New Zealand Governments, of the possibility
of rapid deployment of significant combat elements from
their armed forces in parallel with the additional Marine deployment
approved in paragraph 6.
9. Subject to continuing review, the President approved the
following general framework of continuing action against North
Vietnam and Laos:
452
We should continue roughly the present slowly ascending tempo
of ROLLING THUNDER operations being prepared to add
strikes in response to a higher rate of VC operations, or conceivably
to slow the pace in the unlikely event VC slacked off sharply
for what appeared to be more than a temporary operational lull.
The target systems should continue to avoid the effective GGI
range of MIGs. We should continue to vary the types of targets,
stepping up attacks on lines of communication in the near future,
and possibly moving in a few weeks to attacks on the rail lines
north and northeast of Hanoi.
Leaflet operations should be expanded to obtain maximum
practicable psychological effect on North Vietnamese population.
Blockade or aerial mining of North Vietnamese ports need
further study and should be considered for future operations. It
would have major political complications, especially in relation to
the Soviets and other third countries, but also offers many
advantages.
Air operation in Laos, particularly route blocking operations in
the Panhandle area, should be stepped up to the maximum remunerative
rate.
10. Ambassador Taylor will promptly seek the reactions of the
South Vietnamese Government to appropriate sections of this
program and their approval as necessary, and in the event of
disapproval or difficulty at that end, these decisions will be
appropriately
reconsidered. In any event, no action into Vietnam under
paragraphs 6 and 7 above should take place without GVN
approval or further Presidential authorization.
11. The President desires that with respect to the actions in
paragraphs 5 through 7, premature publicity be avoided by all
possible precautions. The actions themselves should be taken as
rapidly as practicable, but in ways that should minimize any
appearance of sudden changes in policy, and official statements
on these troop movements will be made only with the direct
approval of the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the
Secretary of State. The President's desire is that these movements
and changes should be understood as being gradual and wholly
consistent with existing policy.
#99
Taylor Cable to Washington on Step-Up
in Ground Forces
Cablegram April 17, 1965, from Ambassador Maxwell
D. Taylor in Saigon to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, with
a copy to the White House for the attention of McGeorge
Bundy.
453
This message undertakes to summarize instructions which I have
received over the last ten days with regard to the introduction of
third-country combat forces and to discuss the preferred way of
presenting the subject to the GVN.
As the result of the meeting of the President and his advisors
on April 1 and the NSC meeting on the following day, I left
Washington and returned to Saigon with the understanding that
the reinforcement of the Marines already ashore by two additional
BLT's and a F-4 squadron and the progressive introduction of
I1AWPNPPP support forces were approved but that decision on
the several proposals for bringing in more U.S. combat forces and
their possible modes of employment was withheld in an offensive
counterinsurgency role. State was to explore with the Korean,
Australian and New Zealand govts the possibility of rapid deployment
of significant combat elements in parallel with the
Marine reinforcement.
Since arriving home, I have received the following instructions
and have taken the indicated actions with respect to third-country
combat forces.
April 6 and 8. Received GVN concurrence to introduction of
the Marine reinforcements and to an expanded mission for all
Marines in Danang-Phu Bai area.
April 8. Received Deptel 2229 directing approach to GVN,
suggesting request to Australian govt for an infantry battalion for
use in SVN. While awaiting a propitious moment to raise the
matter, I received Deptel 2237 directing approach be delayed
until further orders. Nothing further has been received since.
April 14. I learned by JCS 009012 to Cincpac of apparent
decision to deploy 173rd airborne brigade immediately to Bien
Hoa-Vung Tau. By Embtel 3373, delay in this deployment was
urgently recommended but no reply has been received. However,
Para 2 of Doc 152339 apparently makes reference to this project
in terms which suggest that is something less than as an approved
immediate action. In view of the uncertainty of its status, I have
not broached the matter with Quat.
April 15. Received Deptel 2314 directing that embassy Saigon
discuss with GVN introduction of Rok regimental combat team
and suggest GVN request such a force Asap. Because of Quat's
absence from Saigon, I have not been able to raise matter. As
matter of fact, it should not be raised until we have a clear concept
of employment.
April 16. I have just seen state-defense message Dod 152339
cited above which indicates a favorable attitude toward several
possible uses of U.S. combat forces beyond the NSC decisions of
April 2. I am told to discuss these and certain other non-military
matters urgently with Quat. The substance of this cable will be
addressed in a separate message. I can not raise these matters with
Quat without further guidance.
Faced with this rapidly changing picture of Washington desires
and intentions with regard to the introduction of third-country
454
T
(as well as U.S.) combat forces, I badly need a clarification of
our purposes and objectives. Before I can present our case to
GVN, I have to know what that case is and why. It is not going
to be easy to get ready concurrence for the large-scale introduction
of foreign troops unless the need is clear and explicit.
Let me suggest the kind of instruction to the AMB which it
would be most helpful to receive for use in presenting to GVN
what I take to be a new policy of third-country participation in
ground combat.
"The USG has completed a thorough review of the situation in
SVN both in its national and international aspects and has reached
certain important conclusions. It feels that in recent weeks there
has been a somewhat favorable change in the overall situation as
the result of the air attacks on DRV, the relatively small but
numerous successes in the field against the VC and the encouraging
progress of the Quat govt. However, it is becoming increasingly
clear that, in all probability, the primary objective of the
GVN and the USG of changing the will of the DRV to support
the VC insurgency can not be attained in an acceptable time-frame
by the methods presently employed. The air campaign in the
North must be supplemented by signal successes against the VC
on the South before we can hope to create that frame of mind
in Hanoi which will lead to the decisions we seek.
"The JCS have reviewed the military resources which will be
available in SVN by the end of 1965 and have concluded that
even with an attainment of the highest feasible mobilization goals,
ARVN will have insufficient forces to carry out the kind of successful
campaign against the VC which is considered essential for
the purposes discussed above. If the ground war is not to drag
into 1966 and even beyond, they consider it necessary to reinforce
GVN ground forces with about 23 battalion equivalents in addition
to the forces now being recruited in SVN. Since these reinforcements
can not be raised by the GVN, they must inevitably
come from third-country sources.
"The USG accepts the validity of this reasoning of the JCS
and offers its assistance to the GVN to raise these additional
forces for the purpose of bringing the VC insurgency to an end
in the shortest possible time. We are prepared to bring in additional
U.S. ground forces provided we can get a reasonable degree
of participation from other third countries. If the GVN will make
urgent representations to them, we believe it entirely possible to
~ obtain the following contributions; Korea, one regimental combat
team; Australia, one infantry battalion; New Zealand, one battery
and one company of tanks; PI, one battalion. If forces of the
foregoing magnitude are forthcoming, the USG is prepared to
provide the remainder of the combat reinforcements as well as
the necessary logistic personnel to support the third-country
contingents.
Also it will use its good offices as desired in assisting the
GVN approach to these govts.
"You (the Ambassador) will seek the concurrence of the GVN
455
to the foregoing program, recognizing that a large number of
questions such as command relationships, concepts of employment
and disposition of forces must be worked out subsequently."
Armed with an instruction such as the foregoing, I would feel
adequately equipped to initiate what may be a sharp debate with
the GVN. I need something like this before taking up the pending
troop matters with Quat.
# 100
Johnson's Message to Taylor on the
May 10 Halt in Bombing
Message from President Johnson to Ambassador Taylor,
May 10, 1965, as provided in the body of the Pentagon
study.
I have learned from Bob McNamara that nearly all ROLLING
THUNDER operations for this week can be completed by
Wednesday noon, Washington time. This fact and the days of
Buddha's birthday seem to me to provide an excellent opportunity
for a pause in air attacks which might go into next week
and which I could use to good effect with world opinion.
My plan is not to announce this brief pause but simply to call
it privately to the attention of Moscow and Hanoi as soon as
possible and tell them that we shall be watching closely to see
whether they respond in any way. My current plan is to report
publicly after the pause ends on what we have done.
Could you see Quat right away on Tuesday and see if you can
persuade him to concur in this plan. I would like to associate him
with me in this decision if possible, but I would accept a simple
concurrence or even willingness not to oppose my decision. In
general, I think it important that he and I should get together in
such matters, but I have no desire to embarrass him if it is politically
difficult for him to join actively in a pause over Buddha's
birthday.
[Words illegible] noted your [words illegible] but do not yet
have your appreciation of the political effect in Saigon of acting
around Buddha's birthday. From my point of view it is a great
advantage to use Buddha's birthday to mask the first days of the
pause here, if it is at all possible in political terms for Quat. I
assume we could undertake to enlist the Archbishop and the
Nuncio in calming the Catholics.
You should understand that my purpose in this plan is to begin
to clear a path either toward restoration of peace or toward
increased military action, depending upon the reaction of the
Communists. We have amply demonstrated our determination and
456
B
.,.
our commitment in the last two months, and I now wish to gain
some flexibility.
I know that this is a hard assignment on short notice, but there
is no one who can bring it off better.
I have kept this plan in the tightest possible circle here and
wish you to inform no one but Alexis Johnson. After I have
your report of Quat's reaction I will make a final decision and
it will be communicated promptly to senior officers concerned.
# 101
Rostow Memorandum on "Victory and
Defeat in Guerrilla Wars"
Memorandum from Walt W. Rostow, chairman of the
State Department's Policy Planning Council, for Secretary
of State Rusk, "Victory and Defeat in Guerilla Wars: The
Case of South Vietnam," May 20, 1965, as provided in the
body of the Pentagon's study.
In the press, at least, there is a certain fuzziness about the
possibility of clear-cut victory in South Viet-nam; and the President's
statement that a military victory is impossible is open to
misinterpretation.
1. Historically, guerrilla wars have generally been lost or won
cleanly: Greece, China mainland, North Viet-Nam, Malaya,
Philippines. Laos in 1954 was an exception, with two provinces
granted the Communists and a de facto split imposed on the
country.
2. In all the cases won by Free World forces, there was a phase
when the guerrillas commanded a good part of the countryside
and, indeed, placed Athens, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila under
something close to siege. They failed to win because all the possible
routes to guerrilla victory were closed and, in failing to win,
they lost. They finally gave up in discouragement. The routes to
victory are:
a) Mao Stage Three: going to all-out conventional war and
winning as in China in 1947-49;
b) Political collapse and takeover: North Viet-Nam;
c) Political collapse and a coalition government in which the
Communists get control over the security machinery; army and/or
police. This has been an evident Viet Cong objective in this [rest
illegible].
d) Converting the bargaining pressure generated by the guerrilla
forces into a partial victory by splitting the country: Laos.
Also, in a sense, North Viet-Narn in 1954 and the Irish Rebellion
after the First World War.
3. If we succeed in blocking these four routes to victory, discouraging
the Communist force in the South, and making the
continuance of the war sufficiently costly to the North there is no
reason we cannot win as clear a victory in South Viet-Nam as in
Greece, Malaya, and the Philippines. Unless political morale in
Saigon collapses and the ARVN tends to break up, case c), the
most realistic hope of the VC, should be avoidable. This danger
argues for more rather than less pressure on the North, while
continuing the battle in the South in such a way as to make VC
hopes of military and political progress wane.
4. The objective of the exercise is to convince Hanoi that its
bargaining position is being reduced with the passage of time; for,
even in the worst case for Hanoi, it wants some bargaining position
(rather than simply dropping the war) to get U.S. forces
radically reduced in South Viet-Nam and to get some minimum
face-saving formula for the VC.
5. I believe Hanoi understands its dilemma well. As of early
February it saw a good chance of a quiet clean victory via route
c). It now is staring at quite clear-cut defeat, with the rising U.S.
strength and GVN morale in the South and rising costs in the
North. That readjustment in prospects is painful; and they won't
in my view, accept its consequences unless they are convinced
time has ceased to be their friend, despite the full use of their
assets on the ground in South Viet-Nam, in political warfare
around the world, and in diplomacy.
6. Their last and best hope will be, of course, that if they end
the war and get us out, the political, social, and economic situation
in South Viet-Nam will deteriorate in such a way as to permit
Communist political takeover, with or without a revival of guerrilla
warfare. It is in this phase that we will have to consolidate,
with the South Vietnamese, a victory that is nearer our grasp than
we (but not Hanoi) may think.
# 102
Prime Minister Wilson's Warning to
Johnson on Petroleum Raids
Excerpts from cablegram to President Johnson from
Prime Minister Harold Wilson of Britain, June 3, 1965, as
provided in the body of the Pentagon's study.
I was most grateful to you for asking Bob McNamara to
arrange the very full briefing about the two oil targets near Hanoi
and Haiphong that Col. Rogers gave me yesterday ....
I know you will not feel that I am either unsympathetic or
uncomprehending of the dilemma that this problem presents for
you. In particular, I wholly understand the deep concern you must
feel at the need to do anything possible to reduce the losses of
458
young Americans in and over Vietnam; and Co!. Rogers made it
clear to us what care has been taken to plan this operation so as
to keep civilian casualties to the minimum.
However, ... I am bound to say that, as seen from here, the
possible military benefits that may result from this bombing do
not appear to outweigh the political disadvantages that would
secm the inevitable consequence. If you and the South Vietnamese
Government were conducting a declared war on the conventional
pattern . . . this operation would clearly be necessary and right.
But since you have made it abundantly clear-and you know how
much we have welcomed and supported this-that your purpose
is to achieve a negotiated settlement, and that you are not striving
for total military victory in the field, I remain convinced that the
bombing of these targets, without producing decisive military
advantage, may only increase the difficulty of reaching an eventual
settlement. ...
The last thing I wish is to add to your difficulties, but, as I
warned you in my previous message, if this action is taken we
shall have to dissociate ourselves from it, and in doing so I should
have to say that you had given me advance warning and that I
had made my position clear to you ....
Nevertheless I want to repeat . . . that our reservations about
this operation will not affect our continuing support for your
policy over Vietnam, as you and your people have made it clear
from your Baltimore speech onwards. But, while this will remain
the Government's position, I know that the effect on public opinion
in this country-and I believe throughout Western Europe-is
likely to be such as to reinforce the existing disquiet and criticism
that we have to deal with.
# 103
George Ball Memo for Johnson on
"A Compromise Solution"
Memorandum, "A Compromise Solution in South Vietnam,"
from Under Secretary of State George W. Ball for
President Johnson, July 1, 1965.
(1) A Losing War: The South Vietnamese are losing the war
to the Viet Congo No one can assure you that we can beat the
Viet Cong or even force them to the conference table on our
terms, no matter how many hundred thousand white, foreign
(U.S.) troops we deploy.
No one has demonstrated that a white ground force of whatever
size can win a guerrilla war-which is at the same time a civil
war between Asians-in jungle terrain in the midst of a population
that refuses cooperation to the white forces (and the South Vietnamese)
and thus provides a great intelligence advantage to the
other side. Three recent incidents vividly illustrate this point:
(a) the sneak attack on the Da Nang Air Base which involved
penetration of a defense perimeter guarded by 9,000 Marines.
This raid was possible only because of the cooperation of the local
inhabitants; (b) the B52 raid that failed to hit the Viet Cong who
had obviously been tipped off; (c) the search and destroy mission
of the 173rd Air Borne Brigade which spent three days looking
for the Viet Cong, suffered 23 casualties, and never made contact
with the enemy who had obviously gotten advance word of their
assignment.
(2) The Question to Decide: Should we limit our liabilities in
South Vietnam and try to find a way out with minimal long-term
costs?
The alternative-no matter what we may wish it to be-is
almost certainly a protracted war involving an open-ended commitment
of U.S. forces, mounting U.S. casualties, no assurance of
a satisfactory solution, and a serious danger of escalation at the
end of the road.
(3) Need for a Decision Now: So long as our forces are
restricted to advising and assisting the South Vietnamese, the
struggle will remain a civil war between Asian peoples. Once we
deploy substantial numbers of troops in combat it will become a
war between the U.S. and a large part of the population of South
Vietnam, organized and directed from North Vietnam and backed
by the resources of both Moscow and Peiping.
The decision you face now, therefore, is crucial. Once large
numbers of U.S. troops are committed to direct combat, they will
begin to take heavy casualties in a war they are ill-equipped to
fight in a non-cooperative if not downright hostile countryside.
Once we suffer large casualties, we will have started a well-nigh
irreversible process. Our involvement will be so great that we
cannot-without national humiliation-stop short of achieving our
complete objectives. Of the two possibilities I think humiliation
would be more likely than the achievement of our objectives even
after we have paid terrible costs.
(4) Compromise Solution: Should we commit U.S. manpower
and prestige to a terrain so unfavorable as to give a very large
advantage to the enemy-or should we seek a compromise settlement
which achieves less than our stated objectives and thus cut
our losses while we still have the freedom of maneuver to do so.
(5) Costs of a Compromise Solution: The answer involves a
judgment as to the cost to the U.S. of such a compromise settlement
in terms of our relations with the countries in the area of
South Vietnam, the credibility of our commitments, and our
prestige around the world. In my judgment, if we act before we
commit substantial U.S. troops to combat in South Vietnam we
can, by accepting some short-term costs, avoid what may well be
a long-term catastrophe. I believe we tended grossly to exaggerate
460
the costs involved in a compromise settlement. An appreciation of
probable costs is contained in the attached memorandum.
(6) With these considerations in mind, I strongly urge the
following program:
(a) Military Program
(1) Complete all deployments already announced-15 battalions-
but decide not to go beyond a total of 72,000 men represented
by this figure.
(2) Restrict the combat role of the American forces to the
June 19 announcement, making it clear to General Westmoreland
that this announcement is to be strictly construed.
(3) Continue bombing in the North but avoid the Hanoi-
Haiphong area and any targets nearer to the Chinese border than
those already struck.
(b) Political Program
(1) In any political approaches so far, we have been the
prisoners of whatever South Vietnamese government that was
momentarily in power. If we are ever to move toward a settlement,
it will probably be because the South Vietnamese government
pulls the rug out from under us and makes its own deal or
because we go forward quietly without advance prearrangement
with Saigon.
(2) So far we have not given the other side a reason to believe
there is any flexibility in our negotiating approach. And the other
side has been unwilling to accept what in their terms is complete
capitulation.
(3) Now is the time to start some serious diplomatic feelers
looking towards a solution based on some application of a
self-determination
principle.
(4) I would recommend approaching Hanoi rather than any of
the other probable parties, the NLF-or Peiping. Hanoi is the
only one that has given any signs of interest in discussion. Peiping
has been rigidly opposed. Moscow has recommended that we
negotiate with Hanoi. The NLF has been silent.
(5) There are several channels to the North Vietnamese but
I think the best one is through their representative in Paris, Mai
Van Bo. Initial feelers of Bo should be directed toward a discussion
both of the four points we have put forward and the four
points put forward by Hanoi as a basis for negotiation. We can
accept all but one of Hanoi's four points, and hopefully we should
be able to agree on some ground rules for serious negotiation including
no preconditions.
(6) If the initial feelers lead to further secret, exploratory talks,
we can inject the concept of self-determination that would permit
the Viet Cong some hope of achieving some of their political
objectives through local elections or some other device.
(7) The contact on our side should be handled through a nongovernmental
cut-out (possibly a reliable newspaper man who can
be repudiated).
(8) If progress can be made at this level a basis can be laid
461
for a multinational conference. At some point, obviously, the
government of South Vietnam will have to be brought on board,
but I would postpone this step until after a substantial feeling out
of Hanoi.
(7) Before moving to any formal conference we should be
prepared to agree once the conference is started:
(a) The U.S. will stand down its bombing of the North
(b) The South Vietnamese will initiate no offensive operations
in the South, and
(c) the DRV will stop terrorism and other aggressive action
against the South.
(8) The negotiations at the conference should aim at incorporating
our understanding with Hanoi in the form of a multinational
agreement guaranteed by the U.S., the Soviet Union and
possibly other parties, and providing for an international mechanism
to supervise its execution.
Probable Reactions to the Cutting of Our Losses in South Vietnam
We have tended to exaggerate the losses involved in a complete
settlement in South Vietnam. There are three aspects to the problem
that should be considered. First, the local effect of our action
on nations in or near Southeast Asia. Second, the effect of our
action on the credibility of our commitments around the world.
Third, the effect on our position of world leadership.
A. Free Asian Reactions to a Compromise Settlement in South
Vietnam Would Be Highly Parochial.
With each country interpreting the event primarily in terms of
(a) its own immediate interest, (b) its sense of vulnerability to
Communist invasion or insurgency, and (c) its confidence in the
integrity of our commitment to its own security based on evidence
other than that provided by our actions in South Vietnam.
Within this framework the following groupings emerge:
(1) The Republic of China and Thailand: staunch allies whose
preference for extreme U.S. actions including a risk of war with
Communist China sets them apart from all other Asian nations;
(2) The Republic of Korea and the Philippines: equally staunch
allies whose support for strong U.S. action short of a war with
Communist China would make post-settlement reassurance a pressing
U.S. need;
(3) Japan: it would prefer wisdom to valor in an area remote
from its own interests where escalation could involve its Chinese
or Eurasian neighbors or both;
(4) Laos: a friendly neutral dependent on a strong Thai-U.S.
guarantee of support in the face of increased Vietnamese and Laos
pressures.
(5) Burma and Cambodia: suspicious neutrals whose fear of
antagonizing Communist China would increase their leaning
toward Peiping in a conviction that the U.S. presence is not long
for Southeast Asia; and
(6) Indonesia: whose opportunistic marriage of convenience of
462
both Hanoi and Peiping would carry it further in its overt aggression
against Malaysia, convinced that foreign imperialism is a
fast fading entity in the region.
Japan
Government cooperation [words illegible] essential in making
the following points to the Japanese people:
(1) U.S. support was given in full measure as shown by our
casualties, our expenditures and our risk taking;
(2) The U.S. record in Korea shows the credibility of our
commitment so far as Japan is concerned.
The government as such supports our strong posture in Vietnam
but stops short of the idea of a war between the U.S. and China.
Thailand
Thai commitments to the struggle within Laos and South Vietnam
are based upon a careful evaluation of the regional threat to
Thailand's security. The Thais are confident they can contain any
threats from Indochina alone. They know, however, they cannot
withstand the massive power of Communist China without foreign
assistance. Unfortunately, the Thai view of the war has seriously
erred in fundamental respects. They believe American power can
do anything, both militarily and in terms of shoring up the Saigon
regime. They now assume that we really could take over in Saigon
and win the war if we felt we had to. If we should fail to do so,
the Thais would initially see it as a failure of U.S. will. Yet time
is on our side, providing we employ it effectively. Thailand is an
independent nation with a long national history, and unlike South
Vietnam, an acute national consciousness. It has few domestic
Communists and none of the instability that plague its neighbors,
Burma and Malaysia. Its one danger area" in the northeast is well
in hand so far as preventive measures against insurgency are concerned.
Securing the Mekong Valley will be critical in any long-run
solution, whether by the partition of Laos with Thai-U.S.
forces occupying the western half or by some [word illegible]
arrangement. Providing we are willing to make the effort, Thailand
can be a foundation of rock and not a bed of sand in which
to base our political/military commitment to Southeast Asia.
-With the exception of the nations in Southeast Asia, a compromise
settlement in South Vietnam should not have a major
impact on the credibility of our commitments around the world
. . . Chancellor Erhard has told us privately that the people of
Berlin would be concerned by a compromise settlement of South
Vietnam. But this was hardly an original thought, and I suspect
he was telling us what he believed we would like to hear. After
all, the confidence of the West Berliners will depend more on
what they see on the spot than on [word illegible] news or events
halfway around the world. In my observation, the principal anxiety
of our NATO Allies is that we have become too preoccupied with
an area which seems to them an irrelevance and may be tempted
in neglect to our NATO responsibilities. Moreover, they have a
463
vested interest in an easier relationship between Washington and
Moscow. By and large, therefore, they will be inclined to regard a
compromise solution in South Vietnam more as new evidence of
American maturity and judgment than of American loss of face
... On balance, I believe we would more seriously undermine the
effectiveness of our world leadership by continuing the war and
deepening our involvement than by pursuing a carefully plotted
course toward a compromise solution. In spite of the number of
powers that have-in response to our pleading-given verbal support
from feeling of loyalty and dependence, we cannot ignore the
fact that the war is vastly unpopular and that our role in it is
perceptively eroding the respect and confidence with which other
nations regard us. We have not persuaded either our friends or
allies that our further involvement is essential to the defense of
freedom in the cold war. Moreover, the men we deploy in the
jungles of South Vietnam, the more we contribute to a growing
world anxiety and mistrust.
[Words illegible] the short run, of course, we could expect some
catcalls from the sidelines and some vindictive pleasure on the
part of Europeans jealous of American power. But that would, in
my view, be a transient phenomenon with which we could live
without sustained anguish. Elsewhere around the world I would
see few unhappy implications for the credibility of our commitments.
No doubt the Communists will to gain propaganda value
in Africa, but I cannot seriously believe that the Africans care
too much about what happens in Southeast Asia. Australia and
New Zealand are, of course, special cases since they feel lonely in
the far reaches of the Pacific. Yet even their concern is far greater
with Malaysia than with South Vietnam, and the degree of their
anxiety would be conditioned largely by expressions of our support
for Malaysia.
[Words illegible] Quite possibly President de Gaulle will make
propaganda about perfidious Washington, yet even he will be
inhibited by his much-heralded disapproval of our activities in
South Vietnam.
South Korea-As for the rest of the Far East the only serious
point of concern might be South Korea. But if we stop pressing
the Koreans for more troops to Vietnam (the Vietnamese show
no desire for additional Asian forces since it affronts their sense
of pride) we may be able to cushion Korean reactions to a compromise
in South Vietnam by the provision of greater military and
economic assistance. In this regard, Japan can playa pivotal role
now that it has achieved normal relations with South Korea.
464
# 104
McNaughton Memo to Goodpaster on
"Forces Required to Win"
Excerpts from memorandum from Assistant Secretary
McNaughton to Lieut. Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster, assistant
to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, July 2,
1965, "Forces Required to Win in South Vietnam," as provided
in the body of the Pentagon's study.
Secretary McNamara this morning suggested that General
Wheeler form a small group to address the question, "If we do
everything we can, can we have assurance of winning in South
Vietnam?" General Wheeler suggested that he would have you
head up the group and that the group would be fairly small.
Secretary McNamara indicated that he wanted your group to work
with me and that I should send down a memorandum suggesting
some of the questions that occurred to us. Here are our suggestions:
1. I do not think the question is whether the 44-battalion program
(including 3d-country forces) is sufficient to do the job
although the answer to that question should fall out of the study.
Rather, I think we should think in terms of the 44-battalion buildup
by the end of 1965, with added forces-as required and as our
capabilities permit-in 1966. Furthermore, the study surely should
look into the need for forces other than ground forces, such as air
to be used one way or another in-country. I would hope that the
study could produce a clear articulation of what our strategy is
for winning the war in South Vietnam, tough as that articulation
will be in view of the nature of the problem.
2. I would assume that the questions of calling up reserves and
extending tours of duty are outside the scope of this study.
3. We must make some assumptions with respect to the number
of VC. Also, we must make some assumptions with respect to
what the infiltration of men and material will be especially if there
is a build-up of U.S. forces in South Vietnam. I am quite concerned
about the increasing probability that there are regular
PA VN forces either in the II Corps area or in Laos directly across
the border from II Corps. Furthermore, I am fearful that especially
with the kind of build-up here envisioned, infiltration of
even greater numbers of regular forces may occur. As a part of
this general problem of enemy build-up, we must of course ask
how much assistance the USSR and China can be expected to give
to the VC. I suspect that the increased strength levels of the VC
and the more "conventional" nature of the operations implied by
larger force levels may imply that the often-repeated ratio of "10
to I" may no longer apply. I sense that this may be the case in
the future, but I have no reason to be sure. For example, if the
465
VC, even with larger forces engaged in more "conventional" type
actions, are able to overrun towns and disappear into the jungles
before we can bring the action troops to bear, we may still be
faced with the old "ratio" problem.
4. I think we might avoid some spinning of wheels if we simply
assumed that the GVN will not be able to increase its forces in
the relevant time period. Indeed, from what Westy has reported
about the battalions being chewed up and about their showing
some signs of reluctance to engage in offensive operations, we
might even have to ask the question whether we can expect them
to maintain present levels of men-or more accurately, present
levels of effectiveness.
5. With respect to 3d-country forces, Westy has equated the 9
ROK battalions with 9 V.S. battalions, saying that, if he did not
get the former, he must have the latter. I do not know enough
about ROK forces to know whether they are in all respects "equal
to" V.S. forces (they may be better in some respects and not as
good in others). For purposes of the study, it might save us time
if we assumed that we would get no meaningful forces from anyone
other than the ROKs during the relative time frame. (If the
Australians decide to send another battalion or two, this should not
alter the conclusions of the study significantly.) ...
9. At the moment, I do not see how the study can avoid
addressing the question as to how long our forces will have to
remain in order to achieve a "win" and the extent to which the
presence of those forces over a long period of time might, by
itself, nullify the "win." If it turns out that the study cannot go
into this matter without first getting heavily into the political side
of the question, I think the study at least should note the problem
in some meaningful way.
10. I believe that the study should go into specifics-e.g., the
numbers and effectiveness and uses of the South Vietnamese
forces, exactly where we would deploy ours and exactly what we
would expect their mission to be, how we would go about opening
up the roads and providing security for the towns as well as protecting
our own assets there, the time frames in which things would
be done, command relationships, etc. Also, I think we should find
a way to indicate how badly the conclusions might be thrown off
if we are wrong with respect to key assumptions or judgments ....
# 105
McNamara's Memo on July 20, 1965, on
Increasing Allied Ground Force
Excerpts from memorandum from Secretary McNamara
for President Johnson, drafted on July 1, 1965, and revised
on July 20, as provided in the body of the Pentagon's study.
466
Paragraphs in italics are the study's paraphrase or explanation.
In a memorandum to the President drafted on 1July and then
revised on 20 July, immediately following his return from a weeklong
visit to Vietnam, he recommended an immediate decision to
increase the U.S.-Third Country presence from the current 16
maneuver battalions (15 U.S., one Australian), and a change in the
mission of these forces from one of providing support and reinforcement
for the ARVN to one which soon became known as
"search and destroy"-as McNamara put it, they were "by aggressive
exploitation of superior military forces ... to gain and hold
the initiative ... pressing the fight against VC-DRV main force
units in South Vietnam to run them to ground and destroy
them." ...
His specific recommendations, he noted, were concurred in by
General Wheeler and Ambassador-designate Lodge, who accompanied
him on his trip to Vietnam, and by Ambassador Taylor,
Ambassador Johnson, Admiral Sharp and General Westmoreland,
with whom he conferred there. The rationale for his decisions was
supplied by the CIA, whose assessment he quoted with approval in
concluding that 1July version of his memorandum. It stated:
Over the longer term we doubt if the Communists are likely to
change their basic strategy in Vietnam (i.e., aggressive and steadily
mounting insurgency) unless and until two conditions prevail:
( 1) they are forced to accept a situation in the war in the South
which offers them no prospect of an early victory and no grounds
for hope that they can simply outlast the U.S. and (2) North
Vietnam itself is under continuing and increasingly damaging
punitive attack. So long as the Communists think they scent the
possibility of an early victory (which is probably now the case),
we believe that they will persevere and accept extremely severe
damage to the North. Conversely, if North Vietnam itself is not
hurting, Hanoi's doctrinaire leaders will probably be ready to carry
on the Southern struggle almost indefinitely. If, however, both of
the conditions outlined above should be brought to pass, we believe
Hanoi probably would, at least for a period of time, alter its
basic strategy and course of action in South Vietnam.
McNamara's memorandum of 20 July did not include this quotation,
although many of these points were made elsewhere in the
paper. Instead, it concluded with an optimistic forecast:
The overall evaluation is that the course of action recommended
in this memorandum-if the military and political moves are
properly integrated and executed with continuing vigor and visible
determination-stands a good chance of achieving an acceptable
outcome within a reasonable time in Vietnam.
Never again while he was Secretary of Defense would McNamara make so
optimistic a statement about Vietnam-except in
public.
This concluding paragraph of McNamara's memorandum spoke
467
of political, as well as military, "vigor" and "determination."
Earlier in the paper, under the heading "Expanded political
moves," he had elaborated on this point, writing:
Together with the above military moves, we should take political
initiatives in order to lay a groundwork for a favorable political
settlement by clarifying our objectives and establishing channels
of communications. At the same time as we are taking steps to
turn the tide in South Vietnam, we would make quiet moves
through diplomatic channels (a) to open a dialogue with Moscow
and Hanoi, and perhaps the VC, looking first toward disabusing
them of any misconceptions as to our goals and second toward
laying the groundwork for a settlement when the time is ripe;
(b) to keep the Soviet Union from deepening its military [sic]
in the world until the time when settlement can be achieved; and
(c) to cement support for U.S. policy by the U.S, public, allies
and friends, and to keep international opposition at a manageable
level. Our efforts may be unproductive until the tide begins to
turn, but nevertheless they should be made.
Here was scarcely a program for drastic political action. Mc-
Namara's essentially procedural (as opposed to substantive)
recommendations
amounted to little more than saying that the United
States should provide channels for the enemy's discreet and relatively
face-saving surrender when he decided that the game had
grown too costly. This was, in fact, what official Washington
(again with the exception of Ball) meant in mid-1965 when it
spoke of a "political settlement." (As McNamara noted in a footnote,
even this went too far for Ambassador-designate Lodge,
whose view was that "any further initiative by us now [before we
are strong] would simply harden the Communist resolve not to
stop fighting." In this view Ambassadors Taylor and Johnson concurred,
except that they would maintain "discreet contacts with
the Soviets,")
McNamara's concluding paragraph spoke of "an acceptable outcome."
Previously in his paper he had listed "nine fundamental
elements" of a favorable outcome. These were:
(a) VC stop attacks and drastically reduce incidents of terror
and sabotage.
(b) DRV reduces infiltration to a trickle, with some reasonably
reliable method of our obtaining confirmation of this fact.
(c) U.S,/GVN stop bombing of North Vietnam.
(d) GVN stays independent (hopefully pro-U.S., but possibly
genuinely neutral).
(e) GVN exercises governmental functions over substantially
all of South Vietnam.
(f) Communists remain quiescent in Laos and Thailand.
(g) DRV withdraws PAVN forces and other North Vietnamese
infiltrators (not regroupees) from South Vietnam.
(h) VC/NLF transform from a military to a purely political
organization.
(i) U.S. combat forces (not advisors or AID) withdraw.
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