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Chapter 9:
Secretary McNamara's Disenchantment: October, 1966 - May, 1967
Highlights of
the Period: October, 1966-May, 1967
Starting late in
1966, the Pentagon study recounts, doubts about
the effectiveness of American policy in Vietnam began to shred the
unity of the Johnson Administration, with Secretary of Defense
McNamara emerging as the leader of a group of "disillusioned
doves."
Here are highlights of the months of doubt and debate:
OCTOBER 1966
Mr. McNamara, returning from South Vietnam, told the President
in a memorandum that "pacification has if anything gone backward"
and the air war had not "either significantly affected infiltration
or cracked the morale of Hanoi." He recommended a limit on
the increase of forces and the consideration of a halt in the bombing,
or of shifting targets from the Hanoi-Haiphong areas to infiltration
routes, to "increase the credibility of our peace gestures."
The Joint Chiefs, in their memorandum to the President, opposed
any cutback in the bombing; they proposed a "sharp knock," including
strikes at locks, dams and rail yards. They said that the military
situation had "improved substantially over the past year" and called
the bombing "a trump card."
NOVEMBER 1966
Mr. McNamara gave the Joint Chiefs a new troop authorization
for 469,000 men by the end of June, 1968, below the military request.
The study comments that from then on "the judgment of the
military ... would be subject to question."
Mr. McNamara told the President there was "no evidence" that
additional troops "would substantially change the situation," and
that the bombing was yielding very small marginal returns" with
"no significant impact" on the war in the South.
JANUARY 1967
The Central Intelligence Agency, in a study, estimated 1965-1966
air-war casualties in North to be 36,000-"about 80 per cent civilians"-
making the civilian casualty toll about 29,000.
FEBRUARY 1967
The President approved a "spring air offensive," including attacks
on power plants, the mining of rivers, and the relaxation of
restrictions
on air raids near Hanoi and Haiphong.
MARCH 1967
General Westmoreland asked for 200,000 more troops, for a total
U.S. force in Vietnam of 671,616.
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APRIL 1967
The Joint Chiefs transmitted the Westmoreland troop request,
and called for the mobilization of reserves, proposing "an extension
of the war" into Laos and Cambodia and possibly North Vietnam.
The President asked Gen. Westmoreland if the enemy could not
increase troop strength also and added: "If so, where does it all end?"
MAY 1967
Assistant Secretary of State William P. Bundy opposed ground
operations against North Vietnam as likely to provoke China; he
also warned-as did the C.I.A.-of the possibility of a Soviet reaction
to the mining of Haiphong harbor.
Walt W. Rostow, in a memo to the President, urged a cutback in
the bombing.
A McNamara-McNaughton memo to the President recommended
a bombing cutback to the 20th parallel, a troop increase of only
30,000 and what the study calls basically "a recommendation that
we accept a compromise outcome" and "scaled-down goals." Study
says these were "radical positions" under the circumstances.
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Chapter 9
Secretary McNamara's Disenchantment:
October, 1966-May, 1967
-BY HEDRICK SMITH
The Pentagon's secret study of the Vietnam war discloses
that Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara sought in
October, 1966, to persuade President Lyndon B. Johnson to
cut back the bombing of North Vietnam to seek a political
settlement-17 months before Mr. Johnson made that move
on March 31, 1968.
In May, 1967, the study reveals, Mr. McNamara went a
step further and advocated that the Johnson Administration
stop trying to guarantee a non-Communist South Vietnam and
be willing to accept a coalition government in Saigon that
included elements of the Vietcong.
What the study terms his "radical" proposal for scaling
down American objectives in the war called for Saigon to
negotiate with elements of the guerrilla movement not only
for a political compromise but also for a cease-fire.
Mr. McNamara's disillusionment with the war has been
reported previously, but the depth of his dissent from established
policy is fully documented for the first time in the
Pentagon study, which he commissioned on June 17, 1967.
The study details how this turnabout by Mr. McNamara -- originally
a leading advocate of the bombing policy and, in
1965, a confident believer that American intervention would
bring the Vietcong insurgency under control-opened a deep
policy rift in the Johnson Administration.
The study does not specifically say, however, that his break
with established policy led President Johnson to nominate him
on Nov. 28, 1967, as president of the World Bank and to
replace him as Secretary of Defense.
But Mr. McNamara has previously revealed that in both
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May and August of 1967 the subject of his possible departure
from the Administration came up in talks with President
Johnson, and the Pentagon study depicts both periods as
critical points in the internal maneuvering on military strategy.
In May Mr. McNamara was pressing his proposals to scale
down the war, and in August President Johnson decided to
expand the air war against the Secretary's advice.
The account of the Johnson Administration from late
1966 onward is that of a government wrestling with itself as
the views of some senior policymakers changed under the
pressures of protracted war.
Three identifiable camps are described: the McNamara
group-the "disillusioned doves," as the analysts put it -- trying
to set limits on the war and then reduce it; the military
faction, led by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Gen. William C.
Westmoreland, the commander in Vietnam, pressing for wider
war; and President Johnson, as well as senior civilian officials
at the White House and State Department, taking a middle
position.
At each stage, the primary issues of debate were much
the same: the size of American troop commitments; the
effectiveness of the bombing of North Vietnam, which began
on a sustained basis in March, 1965, and the proposed expansion
of the air war and of the ground war in the South.
Beginning in late 1966, the study relates, President Johnson
was being urged by the military leaders to step up the air
war sharply and to consider allied invasions of Laos, Cambodia
and even North Vietnam. Repeatedly the President
was pressed to mobilize reserves to provide the manpower
for a larger war.
The military leaders reacted to Secretary McNamara's
proposals for a reduction of the air war with what the study
calls "the stiffest kind of condemnation" and they "bombarded"
him with rebuttals.
According to the study, Gen. Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned on May 24, 1967, that
halting the bombing north of the 20th Parallel would be "an
aerial Dienbienphu"-a reference to the disastrous French
military defeat in May, 1954, just before the negotiations
that ended the French Indochina war.
The Joint Chiefs, the study relates, saw an "alarming pattern"
in Mr. McNamara's over-all strategy--one, they declared,
that would undermine the entire American war effort.
Their most vehement criticism was directed against the
Secretary's memorandum to President Johnson on May 19,
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1967. That paper gave a discouraging picture of the military
situation and a pessimistic view of the American public's
impatience with the war, and said:
"The time has come for us to eliminate the ambiguities
from our minimum objectives-our commitments-in Vietnam.
Specifically, two principles must be articulated, and
policies and actions brought in line with them: (1) Our
commitment is only to see that the people of South Vietnam
are permitted to determine their own future. (2) This commitment
ceases if the country ceases to help itself.
"It follows that no matter how much we might hope for
some things, our commitment is not:
" ... To ensure that a particular person or group remains
in power, nor that the power runs to every corner of the
land (though we prefer certain types and we hope their writ
will run throughout South Vietnam),
"To guarantee that the self-chosen government is non-
Communist (though we believe and strongly hope it will be)
and
"To insist that the independent South Vietnam remain
separate from North Vietnam (though in the short-run, we
would prefer it that way)." The material in italics and in
parentheses is in the McNamara memorandum.
Specifically, the Secretary urged that in September, 1967,
after the South Vietnamese presidential elections, the United
States "move" the Saigon Government "to seek a political
settlement with the non-Communist members of the NLF
[National Liberation Front, or Vietcong]-to explore a ceasefire
and to reach an accommodation with the non-Communist
South Vietnamese who are under the VC banner; to accept
them as members of an opposition political party, and if
necessary, to accept their individual participation in the national
government-in sum, a settlement to transform the
members of the VC from military opponents to political opponents."
Mr. McNamara acknowledged that one obvious drawback
would be "the alleged impact on the reputation of the United
States and of its President," but argued that "the difficulties
of this strategy are fewer and smaller than the difficulties of
any other approach."
President Johnson, the study recounts, preferred the middle
ground of piecemeal escalation-what the study calls "the
slow squeeze"-to either the "sharp knock" advocated by
the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the shift toward political and
military accommodation favored by Mr. McNamara.
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It is "not surprising," the Pentagon analysts remark, that
the President did not adopt the McNamara approach in view
of his need to keep "the military 'on board' in any new
direction for the U.S. effort in Southeast Asia." This is evidently
an allusion to reports at the time that some high-ranking
officers were in the mood to threaten resignation if
the McNamara policy was adopted.
Satisfying neither extreme, President Johnson "was in the
uncomfortable position of being able to please neither his
hawkish nor his dovish critics with his carefully modulated
middle course," the study asserts.
During the prolonged internal debate, the Pentagon account
discloses, such issues as stalemate in the ground war and
civilian casualties of the air war were of much more concern
to some policy makers than the Administration publicly acknowledged.
Press dispatches from Hanoi in late 1966 stimulated what
the analysts call an "explosive debate" in public about civilian
casualties. Privately, the analysts add, the Central Intelligence
Agency produced a summary of the bombing in 1965 and
1966 that estimated that there had been nearly 29,000 civilian
casualties in North Vietnam-a figure far higher than Hanoi
itself had ever used.
The Pentagon study also discloses that early in 1967 the
growing stalemate on the ground became a concern of high
civilian officials-even, at times, of President Johnson himself.
On April 27, the study notes, the President met with
General Westmoreland and General Wheeler, who urged him
to grant General Westmoreland's request for 200,000 more
troops-a request the two officers repeated nearly a year
later-but Mr. Johnson was wary.
Their discussion was recorded in notes, found in Pentagon
files and quoted in the study. [See Document # 125.]
"When we add divisions, can't the enemy add divisions?"
the President asked. "If so, where does it all end?"
When General Westmoreland conceded that the enemy
was likely to match American reinforcements, President Johnson
turned to the worry that Hanoi might ask Communist
China for help.
"At what point," he asked, "does the enemy ask for volunteers?"
The only recorded reply from General Westmoreland was,
"That is a good question."
The real ceiling on the American commitment, the analysts
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suggest several times, was imposed primarily by President
Johnson's refusal to be pushed by the military leaders into
asking Congress to mobilize reserve forces-both former
servicemen on inactive status and organized units of these
servicemen.
Mobilization, the analysts assert, became the "political
sound barrier" that President Johnson would not break.
A Pessimistic Report
For Mr. McNamara and his influential aide John T. Me-
Naughton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International
Security Affairs, the first frontal challenge to the basic trend
of policy came in October, 1966, and grew out of doubts
that had been mounting for nearly a year.
As early as November, 1965~ight months after the
American decision to intervene with ground forces-the
Secretary of Defense warned President Johnson that the
major new reinforcements he was approving could "not
guarantee success." And in January, 1966, Mr. McNaughton,
the third-ranking official in the Pentagon, voiced fear that
the United States had become caught in "an escalating military
stalemate."
In mid-October, Secretary McNamara returned disturbed
from a trip to South Vietnam. He had been the intended
target of a Vietcong assassination squad that was discovered
only a few hours before his arrival in Saigon-a point to
which he seemed to allude in his report to the President.
"Full security exists nowhere," he said, "not even behind
the U.S. Marines' lines and in Saigon [and] in the countryside,
the enemy almost completely controls the night." [See Document
#118.]
The Pentagon study notes that in this Oct. 14 memorandum,
Mr. McNamara for the first time recommended cutting back
sharply on military requests for reinforcements. Such requests
had previously been given almost routine approval in Washington.
In September, 1966, Adm. U. S. Grant Sharp, commander
in chief of forces in the Pacific, had pressed on behalf of
General Westmoreland for an increase in the projected
strength of American forces in South Vietnam from 445,000
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to 570,000 by the end of 1967. Actual strength was 325,000
men, and still rising.
On Oct. 7, the Joint Chiefs of Staff urged what the Pentagon
study calls "full-blown" mobilization of 688,500 Army, Navy,
Air Force and Marine reservists to help provide more troops
for Vietnam and also to build up the armed forces around
the world.
In his Oct. 14 memorandum, Mr. McNamara told President
Johnson that he was "a little less pessimistic" than he
had been a year earlier because the allied military campaign
had "blunted the Communist military initiative" and prevented
a total collapse in Saigon. But he went on to say
that this had not produced results in what he called "the
'end products'-broken enemy morale and political achievements"
by the South Vietnamese Government.
Discussing Saigon's struggle to win the people's allegiance,
Mr. McNamara showed none of the confidence of high American
officials in the early sixties that the mere introduction of
Americans would revitalize the South Vietnamese civilian
and military leadership.
"The discouraging truth," he said, "is that, as was the case
in 1961 and 1963 and 1965, we have not found the formula,
the catalyst, for training and inspiring them into effective
action."
Summing up the crucial drive to extend Government control
in the countryside, he said:
"Pacification has if anything gone backward. As compared
with two, or four, years ago, enemy full-time regional forces
and part-time guerrilla forces are larger; attacks, terrorism
and sabotage have increased in scope and intensity; more
railroads are closed and highways cut; the rice crop expected
to come to market is smaller; we control little, if any, more
of the population. . . . In essence, we find ourselves . . .
no better, and if anything worse off."
"Nor," he said, turning to the air war, "has the Rolling
Thunder program of bombing the North either significantly
affected the infiltration or cracked the morale of Hanoi."
The essence of Mr. McNamara's recommendations was
that the United States should be "girding, openly, for a longer
war" rather than pursuing what the Pentagon study terms
General Westmoreland's "meatgrinder" strategy of trying to
kill enemy troops more rapidly than they could be replaced
either by new recruits or by infiltration from North Vietnam.
In his memorandum, the Secretary put forward his program:
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• "Limit the increase in U.S. forces" in 1967 to a total of
470,000 men-25,000 more than planned, and 100,000 fewer
than requested by the military.
• "Install a barrier" to infiltration just south of the demilitarized
zone astride the two Vietnams' border and jutting
across the Ho Chi Minh Trail complex of enemy supply lines
in the mountainous panhandle of Laos. The electronic barrier
would cost roughly $ I-billion.
• "Stabilize the Rolling Thunder program against the
North" at the current monthly level of 12,000 sorties-individual
flights by planes-because "to bomb the North sufficiently
to make a radical impact upon Hanoi's political, economic
and social structure, would require an effort which we could
make but which would not be stomached either by our own
people or by world opinion; and it would involve a serious
risk of drawing us into open war with China."
• "Pursue a vigorous pacification program" that would require
"drastic reform" in the approach of South Vietnamese
civilian, police and military officials to insure that they "will
'stay' in the [contested] area, ... behave themselves decently
and ... show some respect for the people."
• "Take steps to increase the credibility of our peace
gestures in the minds of the enemy" through both political
and military moves.
Among these moves, he proposed that "we should consider"
a decision to "stop bombing all of North Vietnam" or, alternatively,
to "shift the weight-of-effort away from 'zones
6A and 6B'-zones including Hanoi and Haiphong and areas
north of those two cities to the Chinese border" and concentrate
the air war instead "on the infiltration routes in Zones
1 and 2 (the southern end of North Vietnam, including the
Mugia Pass), in Laos and in South Vietnam." The parenthetical
material is Mr. McNamara's.
Politically, he suggested consideration of efforts to "try to
split the VC off from Hanoi" and to "develop a realistic plan
providing a role for the VC in negotiations, postwar life and
government of the nation."
Joint Chiefs Demur
The public position of the Johnson Administration opposed
negotiating with the Vietcong or recognizing them. A pro-
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posal for political compromise from Senator Robert F. Kennedy
on Feb. 19, 1966-that the Vietcong should be admitted
"to a share of power and responsibility" in Saigon-had been
quickly denounced by Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey.
That, Mr. Humphrey said, would be like putting "a fox in a
chicken coop; soon there wouldn't be any chickens left."
Mr. McNamara was skeptical that any approach would
work rapidly. "The prognosis is bad that the war can be
brought to a satisfactory conclusion within the next two
years," he told President Johnson in his memorandum. "The
large-unit operations probably will not do it; negotiations
probably will not do it."
There are no indications that other agencies of government
were called upon to comment formally, although the Mc-
Namara report did receive general endorsement from Under
Secretary of State Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, who had gone
with the Secretary of Defense to Saigon. A note at the end
of Mr. McNamara's paper stated: "Mr. Katzenbach and I
have discussed many of its main conclusions and recommendations-
in general, but not in particulars, it expresses
his views as well as my own."
The reaction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Mr. Mc-
Namara's proposals of Oct. 14, the Pentagon study reports,
was "predictably rapid-and violent." Obviously forewarned,
the Joint Chiefs had their own memorandum ready on the
same day for Mr. McNamara and the President. [See Document
#119.]
Their paper, quoted at length in the Pentagon study, agreed
that a long war was likely but took issue with Mr. McNamara's
guarded assessment of the military situation, which, in their
eyes, had "improved substantially over the past year." They
were especially concerned that the McNamara paper did not
take into account what they called the "adverse impact over
time of continued bloody defeats on the morale of VC/
N.V.A. [Vietcong/North Vietnamese Army] forces and the
determination of their political and military leaders."
The Joint Chiefs objected to Mr. McNamara's suggestion
of a halt or a cutback in bombing to stimulate negotiations.
The bombing, they argued, was a "trump card" that should
not be surrendered without an equivalent return, such as "an
end to the NVN aggression in SVN." Rather than cutting
back or leveling off, they advocated a "sharp knock" against
North Vietnamese military assets and war-supporting facilities.
Whatever the "political merits" of slowly increasing the
pressure, they said:
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"We deprived ourselves of the military effects of early
weight of effort and shock, and gave to the enemy time to
adjust to our slow quantitative and qualitative increase of
pressure. This is not to say that it is now too late to derive
military benefits from more effective and extensive use of our
air and naval superiority."
What the Joint Chiefs recommended in their Oct. 14
memorandum-and what they largely succeeded in getting
President Johnson to approve, though only step by step-was
a bombing program that would have these effects:
"Decrease the Hanoi and Haiphong sanctuary areas, authorize
attacks against the steel plant [at Thainguyen], the
Hanoi rail yards, the thermal power plants, selected areas
within Haiphong port and other ports, selected locks and
dams controlling water LOCs [lines of communications -- canals
and rivers] SAM [surface-to-air missile] support facilities
within residual Hanoi and Haiphong sanctuaries, and
P.O.L. [petroleum-oil-lubricants storage] at Haiphong, Hagia
(Phucyen) and Canthon (Kep)."
The Joint Chiefs commented that Mr. McNamara's proposal
for total American troop strength of 470,000 men was
"substantially less" than the earlier recommendations of General
Westmoreland and Admiral Sharp. On Nov. 4, the study
recounts, they recommended a build-up to 493,969 men by
the end of 1967 and eventually to 555,741. They also discussed
their preferred strategy, which involved the lifting of
political restraints:
"The concept describes preparation for operations that
have not as yet been authorized, such as mining ports, naval
quarantine, spoiling attacks and raids against the enemy in
Cambodia and Laos, and certain special operations."
But at a conference of the allied powers in Manila on
Oct. 23 to 25 came an indication that General Westmoreland
had sensed that, as the Pentagon study puts it, "McNamara
and Johnson were not politically and militarily enchanted
with a costly major force increase at that time, nor with cross-border
and air operations which ran grave political risks."
The general's talks with President Johnson on these issues
"remain a mystery," the Pentagon study says. But twice the
general sought out Assistant Secretary McNaughton, who reported
to Mr. McNamara on Oct. 26 that General Westmoreland
had trimmed his requests to 480,000 men by the end of
1967 and 500,000 by the end of 1968.
According to Mr. McNaughton's report, cited in the study,
General Westmoreland said that those forces would be enough
532
"even if infiltration went on at a high level" but that he
wanted a contingency force of roughly two divisions on reserve
in the Pacific. This could range between 50,000 and 75,000
men.
The time for decision came virtually on the eve of the
Nov. 8 Congressional election. Although the war was not a
central issue in most districts, the Pentagon account says,
President Johnson had obtained at the Manila meeting a statement
on ultimate allied withdrawal that would favorably impress
American voters.
The final Manila communique, issued on Oct. 25, pledged
that allied forces would be withdrawn from Vietnam "not
later than six months after" the other side "withdraws its
forces to the North, and ceases infiltration, and as the level
of violence thus subsides."
According to Mr. McNaughton's notes, "the President was
determined to get the language in, including the reference to
'six months' (opposed by State, supported by me)."
Three days before the election, Secretary McNamara said
at a news conference at Johnson City, Tex., that the American
troop commitment to South Vietnam would grow in
1967 at a rate "substantially less" than the 200,000 men added
in 1966.
The Pentagon study says that the troop decision had been
made in a meeting with the President that morning after
weeks of detailed studies and arguments, but Mr. McNamara
would give no figure to reporters. When they questioned him,
he replied: "I couldn't give you an estimate. We don't have
detailed plans."
Nor did the Secretary give any indication of the discouragement
with the war that had characterized his confidential report
to the President on Oct. 14. Instead, he dwelt upon allied
success in preventing the Communist take-over that had been
expected a year before. Whereas in private Mr. McNamara
had talked about the build-up of enemy forces and the American
inability to energize the Saigon Government, in public he
cited prisoner interrogations that suggested that enemy morale
was sagging.
The troop build-up decision was formally communicated
to the Joint Chiefs on Nov. 11. Mr. McNamara told them,
the Pentagon study recounts, that the new goal would be
469,000 men in the field by June 30, 1968-not only fewer
men than General Westmoreland's revised figures at Manila
but an even slower build-up than Mr. McNamara himself
had foreseen in mid-October.
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The Pentagon study asserts that the significance of the
1966 troop debate was that for the first time the President
essentially said "no" to General Westmoreland. Moreover,
Secretary McNamara, in his October memorandum, had
generated alternative strategies to those put forward by the
military commander. "From this time on," the Pentagon study
comments, "the judgment of the military as to how the war
should be fought and what was needed would be subject to
question."
On Nov. 17, Mr. McNamara went a step further and challenged
General Westmoreland's strategy of attrition. In a
paper to the President, Mr. McNamara reported Pentagon
calculations that previous American reinforcements had not
brought sharp enough increases in enemy casualties to justify
further heavy reinforcements. [See Document # 120.]
Pentagon efficiency specialists showed, Mr. McNamara
said, that from 1965 to 1966 "enemy losses increased by 115
per week during a period in which friendly strength increased
by 166,000, an increase of about 70 losses per 100,000 of
friendly strength .... We have no evidence that more troops
than the 470,000 I am recommending would substantially
change the situation."
"Moreover," he went on, ,.it is possible that our attrition
estimates substantially overstate actual VC/NVA losses. For
example, the VC/NVA apparently lose only about one-sixth
as many weapons as people, suggesting the possibility that
many of the killed are unarmed porters or bystanders."
He made a similar report on the air war. "At the scale we
are now operating, I believe our bombing is yielding very
small marginal returns, not worth the cost in pilot lives and
aircraft," Mr. McNamara said. "In spite of an interdiction
campaign costing at least $250-million per month at current
levels, no significant impact on the war in South Vietnam is
evident."
But President Johnson did not accept Mr. McNamara's
earlier suggestions for a cutback in the bombing. The study
reveals that the Secretary's pessimism about the war was not
shared by such White House officials as Walt W. Rostow and
Robert W. Komer, both special assistants to the President.
The one change in the air war that the President approved,
the study shows, was an increase in B-52 sorties from 60 to
800 monthly, effective in February, 1967, as urged by
Admiral Sharp and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
By the turn of the year, the air war had become the main
point of controversy. Public dissent over the bombing was
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rising. Dispatches from Hanoi by Harrison E. Salisbury, assistant
managing editor of The New York Times, generated
an "explosive debate about the bombing," the Pentagon study
adds.
"His dispatches carried added sting," the study explains,
because he was in North Vietnam as the bombing moved in
close to Hanoi. On Dec. 25, 1966, Mr. Salisbury reported
from Namdinh that the air campaign had killed 89 persons
and wounded 405 others. Press reports from Washington
quoted officials as expressing irritation and contending that
Mr. Salisbury was exaggerating the damage to civilian areas.
But soon, the Government's own intelligence specialists
were privately estimating that civilian casualties in North
Vietnam were far more numerous than indicated in the dispatches
of Mr. Salisbury or of William C. Baggs, editor of
The Miami News, who went later to Hanoi.
In January, 1967, the Pentagon account discloses, the
Central Intelligence Agency produced a study estimating that
military and civilian casualties of the air war in North Vietnam
had risen from 13,000 in 1965 to 23,000 or 24,000 in
1966-"about 80 per cent civilians." In all, that meant nearly
29,000 civilian casualties in an air war that was to expand
in the next 15 months.
The study reports that the total number of individual flights
against North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder rose
from 55,000 in 1965 to 148,000 in 1966, total bomb tonnage
rose from 33,000 to 128,000, the number of aircraft lost rose
from 171 to 318, and direct operational costs rose from $460-
million to $1.2-billion. But, paraphrasing the C.I.A. analysis,
the Pentagon study comments that the bombing in 1966 "accomplished
little more than in 1965."
According to the account, the major result of the raids
close to Hanoi on Dec. 2,4, 13 and 14-all inside a previously
established 30-mile sanctuary around the capital-"was to
undercut what appeared to be a peace feeler from Hanoi."
The Pentagon version of this diplomatic maneuver, codenamed
Marigold by the State Department, is reportedly included
in the diplomatic section of the study, the one part
not obtained by The New York Times. The authors of other
sections relied on press accounts and on the book "The
Secret Search for Peace" by David Kraslow and Stuart H.
Loory of The Los Angeles Times.
The study recounts that the Polish member of the International
Control Commission for Vietnam tried to arrange
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for talks between American and North Vietnamese representatives
in early December, 1966, in Warsaw.
"When the attacks were launched inadvertently against
Hanoi in December," the Pentagon study comments, "the
attempt to start talks ran into difficulty. A belated attempt
to mollify North Vietnam's bruised ego failed and formal talks
did not materialize." This is an allusion to President Johnson's
decision to restore part of the bomb-free sanctuary
around Hanoi. The analyst does not explain why he considered
the raids inadvertent.
Recapitulating the public furor over the bombing, the study
comments that 1966 "drew to a close on a sour note for the
President." _
"He had just two months before resisted pressure from the
military for a major escalation of the war in the North and
adopted the restrained approach of the Secretary of Defense,"
the study continues, "only to have a few inadvertent raids
within the Hanoi periphery mushroom into a significant loss
of world opinion support."
Pressure for Wider War
As 1967 began, the study asserts, the stage was set for "a
running battle" inside the Johnson Administration " between
the advocates of a greatly expanded air campaign against
North Vietnam, one that might genuinely be called 'strategic,'
and the disillusioned doves who urged relaxation, if not complete
suspension, of the bombing in the interests of greater
effectiveness and the possibilities for peace."
"The 'hawks,' of course, were primarily the military," the
study continues, "but in wartime their power and influence
with an incumbent administration is disproportionate. Mc-
Namara, supported quantitatively by John McNaughton ...
led the attempt to deescalate the bombing. Treading the uncertain
middle ground at different times in the debate were
William P. Bundy (Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern
Affairs], Air Force Secretary Harold Brown and, most importantly,
the President himself. Buffeted from right to left,
he determinedly tried to pursue the temperate course, escalating
gradually in the late spring but leveling off again in the
summer."
With the exception of a diplomatic interlude during the
536
holiday truce at Tet, the Lunar New Year celebration in
early February, the pressures for widening the war were unrelenting,
according to the Pentagon account.
Mr. Rostow, the President's special assistant for national
security, said in a memorandum on Dec. 12, for example,
that he found the allied military position "greatly improved"
in 1966 and pictured a dominant-even potentially victorious-
position by the end of 1967.
In Congress, the study also notes, the military received support
from Senator John C. Stennis, chairman of the influential
Senate Preparedness Subcommittee. On Jan. 18, the Mississippi
Democrat declared that General Westmoreland's troop
requests should be met, "even if it should require mobilization
or partial mobilization."
In Saigon, General Westmoreland was pressing Washington
to speed the troop shipments already promised. In support
of his requests, the study notes, General Westmoreland
described the growth of enemy forces as of Jan. 2:
". . . 9 division headquarters, 34 regimental headquarters,
152 combat battalions, 34 combat support battalions, 196
separate companies, and 70 separate platoons totaling some
128,600, plus at least 112,800 militia and at least 39,175
political cadre ... (a) strength increase of some 42,000
during 1966 despite known losses."
For the allies, he explained, this posed the danger that in
any of the three military regions north of Saigon, "the enemy
can attack at any time selected targets . . . in up to division
strength" of roughly 10,000 men.
Diplomatic activity reached a peak during Tet, Feb. 8 to
12, as the United States halted the bombing. In London,
Prime Minister Harold Wilson, acting on President Johnson's
behalf, met with the Soviet Premier, Aleksei N. Kosygin, in
an effort to get the bombing stopped permanently and peace
talks started.
Then, on Feb. 13, after a pause of nearly six days, the
bombing of North Vietnam was resumed. Mr. Johnson said
he had based his decision on what he termed the unparalleled
magnitude of the North Vietnamese supply effort.
Excerpts from Mr. Wilson's memoirs, "The Labor Government,
1964-70: A Personal Record," published in April,
1971, in The Sunday Times of London and Life magazine,
blamed President Johnson for the collapse of the talks, charging
that at the last moment he had changed his terms for a
bombing halt by demanding a cessation of enemy infiltration
as a precondition.
537
By Mr. Wilson's account, this was a "total reversal" of the
offer Washington first authorized him to pass through Mr.
Kosygin to Hanoi: a secret agreement under which the bombing
would be stopped first, infiltration second and the American
troop build-up third.
The sections of the Pentagon study available to The New
York Times provide no insight into why Mr. Johnson's
position changed suddenly.
The study makes it clear, however, that the collapse of the
diplomatic efforts was a turning point, for shortly afterward
President Johnson began approving additional targets in
North Vietnam for attack.
"The President perceived the [air] strikes as necessary in
the psychological test of wills between the two sides to punish
the North," the study adds, "in spite of the near consensus
opinion of his [civilian] advisers that no level of damage or
destruction that we were willing to inflict was likely to destroy
Hanoi's determination to continue to struggle."
President Johnson approved what the Pentagon account
calls the "spring air offensive" in the following phases:
• On Feb. 22, for attacks on five urban thermal power
plants, excluding those in Hanoi and Haiphong, and on the
Thainguyen steel plant; for mining of rivers and estuaries and
conducting naval barrages against the coastline up to the 20th
Parallel.
• On March 22, the two Haiphong thermal power plants.
• On April 8, by relaxing the previous restrictions on raids
around Hanoi and Haiphong, for raids against Kep airfield,
the power transformer near the center of the city; for attacks
on petroleum storage facilities, an ammunition dump and
cement plant in Haiphong.
• On May 2, for a raid on the thermal power plant a mile
north of the center of Hanoi.
By early May these raids, the Pentagon study relates, had
become a focus of controversy among Presidential advisers.
General Wheeler sent the President a memorandum on May
5, justifying the raids on such targets as power plants with
this assertion:
"The objective of our attacks on the thermal electric
power system in North Vietnam was not ... to turn the
lights off in major population centres, but . . . to deprive the
enemy of a basic power source needed to operate certain war-supporting
facilities and industries."
In rebuttal to this was the position of McGeorge Bundy.
As President Johnson's assistant for national security until
538
he left the government on Feb, 28, 1966, Mr. Bundy had
been one of the foremost original advocates of the air war
against North Vietnam. But in a personal letter to President
Johnson, evidently received by the White House on May 4,
Mr. Bundy termed the "strategic bombing" of North Vietnam
"both unproductive and unwise," especially the raids on the
power plants. [See Document # 126.]
"The lights have not stayed off in Haiphong," he said, "and
even if they had, electric lights are in no sense essential to
the Communist war effort."
Mr. Bundy emphasized that he was "very far indeed from
suggesting that it would make sense now to stop the bombing
of the North altogether" because that would be "to give the
Communists something for nothing." But as for the power
plants, he commented: "We are attacking them, I fear,
mainly because we have 'run out' of other targets. Is it a
very good reason?"
The 200,000 Request
The main catalyst for the sharp debate in the Johnson
Administration in the spring of 1967, however, was not the
air war but General Westmoreland's request for 200,000
more troops.
According to the Pentagon account, General Westmoreland
first notified the Joint Chiefs of Staff on March 18 of his
additional troop needs and then, at their suggestion, submitted
a more detailed request on March 26. He spoke with concern
about the large enemy build-ups in sanctuaries in Laos, Cambodia
and parts of South Vietnam as well as about the threat
posed by large North Vietnamese forces just north of the
DMZ.
"The minimum essential force" needed to contain the
enemy threat and maintain the "tactical initiative," as he put
it in his March 18 message, was two and one-third divisions
-roughly 100,000 men-"as soon as possible but not later
than 1 July 1968." For an "optimum force," he said he
needed four and two-thirds divisions in all-201,250 more
troops-to boost the ultimate strength of American forces in
Vietnam to 671,616 men. [See Document #122.]
The reinforcements, General Westmoreland asserted, would
enable him to destroy or neutralize enemy main forces
539
"more quickly" and deny the enemy long established "safe
havens" in South Vietnam.
In some regions, however, his picture sounded less hopeful.
In the northernmost portion of South Vietnam, and in
the Central Highlands along the Laotian border, he wanted
more troops largely "to contain the infiltration" of North
Vietnamese forces from Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam.
One point that quickly aroused controversy in Washington,
the Pentagon study notes, was General Westmoreland's argument
that the American build-up would "obviate the requirement
for a major expansion" of South Vietnamese forces.
This, the authors report, "prompted many who disagreed
with the basic increases to ask why the U.S. should meet
such expanded troop requirements when the Government of
South Vietnam would neither mobilize its manpower nor
effectively employ it according to U.S. wishes."
The Joint Chiefs transmitted General Westmoreland's main
troop requests to Secretary McNamara on April 20 with
their endorsement. "Once again," the Pentagon analyst notes,
the Joint Chiefs "confronted the Johnson Administration
with a difficult decision on whether to escalate or level off the
U.S. effort."
"What they proposed," the study says, paraphrasing their
April 29 memorandum to Secretary McNamara, "was the
mobilization of the reserves, a major new troop commitment
in the South, an extension of the war into the VCI NVA
sanctuaries (Laos, Cambodia and possibly North Vietnam),
the mining of North Vietnamese ports and a solid commitment
in manpower and resources to a military victory. The
recommendation not unsurprisingly touched off a searching
reappraisal of the course of U.S. strategy in the war."
The Joint Chiefs spoke for mobilization despite President
Johnson's previous opposition to such a move.
Without a reserve call-up, the Joint Chiefs told Mr. Mc-
Namara, the Army could provide only one and one-third of
the four and two-thirds divisions that General Westmoreland
wanted by July, 1968, and a second division could probably
not be provided until late in 1969. "A reserve call-up and
collateral actions," they asserted, "would enable the services
to provide the major combat forces required."
General Westmoreland and General Wheeler put the military
case before President Johnson on April 27 when, according
to the Pentagon account, ostensibly to deliver a speech,
General Westmoreland returned to the United States.
According to unsigned "Notes on Discussions With the
540
President," which the writers of the Pentagon study found in
the files of Assistant Secretary of Defense McNaughton and
attributed to him, General Westmoreland told President Johnson
that if he did not get the first 100,000 men, "it will be
nip and tuck to oppose the reinforcements the enemy is capable
of providing," though he acknowledged this would not
risk defeat. The second 100,000 troops, he said, were needed
to push the allied strategy to success. [See Document # 125.]
That was the point at which President Johnson, worried
about enemy infiltration, asked, "When we add divisions,
can't the enemy add divisions? If so, where does it all end?"
General Westmoreland replied that the Vietcong and North
Vietnamese now had 285,000 troops, or roughly eight divisions,
in South Vietnam and had "the capability of deploying
12 divisions .... If we add 21/2 divisions, it is likely the
enemy will react by adding troops."
Later, according to the notes, the general warned of prolonged
fighting. He predicted that "unless the will of the enemy
is broken or unless there was an unraveling of the VC infrastructure
the war could go on for five years." Reinforcements
would shorten the time-"with a force level of
565,000, the war could well go on for three years," General
Westmoreland said. "With a second increment of 2 1/3 divisions
leading to a total of 665,000 men, it could go on for
two years."
General Wheeler, presumably citing other reasons for a
reserve call-up, voiced his concern that the United States
might face military threats elsewhere-in South Korea or in
the form of Soviet pressure on Berlin.
In Indochina, he went on, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were
deeply concerned about the North Vietnamese build-up in
Cambodia and Laos and felt that American troops "may be
forced to move against these units." Beyond that, he was
quoted as putting forward the idea of possible invasion of
North Vietnam: "We may wish to take offensive action
against the D.R.V. with ground troops."
Picking up that theme, General Westmoreland told the
President that he had an operational plan that "envisioned an
elite South Vietnamese division conducting ground operations
in Laos against D.R.V. bases and routes under cover of U.S.
artillery and air support." In time, he foresaw "the eventual
development of Laos as a major battlefield," as the analysts
put it.
According to the Pentagon account, General Westmoreland
also told President Johnson "that he possessed contingency
541
plans to move into Cambodia in the Chu Pong area, again
using South Vietnamese forces but this time accompanied by
U.S. advisers."
Turning to the air war, General Wheeler argued that it was
time to consider action "to deny the North Vietnamese use
of the ports" because otherwise the American air strategy
was "about to reach the point of target saturation-when all
worthwhile fixed targets except the ports had been struck."
The Pentagon study says that President Johnson concluded
this discussion by asking: "What if we do not add the 2-1/ 3
divisions?" General Wheeler was quoted as replying that the
allied military momentum would die and in some areas the
enemy would recapture the initiative, meaning a longer war
but not that the allies would lose. General Westmoreland's
reply, if any, was not recorded.
The President then reportedly urged his commanders to
"make certain we are getting value received from the South
Vietnamese troops."
The cleavage between the military and civilian views in the
Johnson Administration emerged at once.
On April 24 Under Secretary of State Katzenbach, acting
in Secretary Rusk's absence, ordered an interagency review
of two major options that in effect set out the two opposing
views:
• Course A-providing General Westmoreland with 200,-
000 more troops and, as the analysts put it, "possible . . .
intensification
of military actions outside South Vietnam including
invasion of North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia."
• Course B-confining troop increases, in Mr. Katzenbach's
words, to "those that could be generated without calling
up the reserves." Coupled with this, the various agencies
should consider "a cessation ... of bombing North Vietnamese
areas north of 20 degrees (or, if it looked sufficiently
important to maximize an attractive settlement opportunity,
cessation of bombing in all of North Vietnam.)"
The resistance of high civilian officials to the military proposals
was virtually unanimous, according to the Pentagon
study, though the position of Secretary of State Dean Rusk
is not described. The three most sensitive issues were the
reserve call-up, attacks on the port of Haiphong, and allied
ground offensives into Laos, Cambodia or North Vietnam.
At the State Department, Assistant Secretary Bundy, in a
memorandum on May 1 to Under Secretary Katzenbach,
came out "totally against" ground operations against North
Vietnam, asserting that the odds were 75 to 25 that it would
542
provoke Chinese Communist intervention. He was also
"strongly opposed" to sending a South Vietnamese division
into Laos.
Except for allowing attacks on the Hanoi power station,
Mr. Bundy was against further expansion of the air war,
especially the mining of Haiphong so long as the Soviet Union
refrained from sending combat weapons through the port.
Both Mr. Bundy and the C.I.A., in a special intelligence estimate
in early May, warned of the dangers of Soviet counteraction
if the port was attacked, according to the Pentagon
account.
The mobilization required to provide large troop reinforcements
for the ground war, Mr. Bundy contended, would entail
"a truly major debate in Congress." With signs of rising domestic
dissent over the war, he advised that "we should not
get into such a debate this summer."
The Assistant Secretary felt the "real key factors" were the
political development in the South leading up to presidential
elections in September. The internal political turmoil in Communist
China, he suggested, was an important and potentially
helpful factor because of the worry it caused in Hanoi.
In the Pentagon, resistance to the Westmoreland-Wheeler
strategy came from another angle. The systems-analysis section,
headed by Assistant Secretary of Defense Alain C.
Enthoven, produced a series of papers late in April and early
in May arguing that, contrary to General Westmoreland's
expectations, American troop increases did not produce correspondingly
sharp increases in enemy losses.
"On the most optimistic basis, 200,000 more Americans
would raise [the enemy's] weekly losses to about 3,700, or
about 400 a week more than they could stand," Dr. Enthoven
told Secretary McNamara in a memoradum on May 4. "In
theory we'd then wipe them out in 10 years." [See Document
#127.]
A major effort to oppose the military strategy and to limit
the air war was building in Secretary McNamara's office. The
moving force, the Pentagon study shows, was Assistant Secretary
McNaughton, who eventually wrote key portions of Mr.
McNamara's controversial May 19 memorandum.
Roughly two years before, Mr. McNaughton had been an
advocate of the "progressive squeeze" on Hanoi through air
power. But by October, 1966, he was so doubtful of its effectiveness
that he helped Secretary McNamara draft the first
suggestion for a cutback in the air war and for political
compromise.
543
Now, in May, 1967, the Pentagon account relates, both he
and the Secretary of Defense were preparing for a more vigorous
argument. First, on May 5, Mr. McNaughton sent Mr.
McNamara a paper intended for inclusion in a memorandum
from the Secretary to President Johnson, known as a Draft
Presidential Memorandum-D.P.M.-because it not only
stated the Secretary's views but also was intended to become
a policy document for the President's signature.
The core of Mr. McNaughton's paper was a recommendation
that "all of the sorties allocated to the Rolling Thunder
program be concentrated on the lines of communications-the
funnel' through which men and supplies to the south must
flow-between 17-20 degrees, reserving the option and intention
to strike (in the 20-23 degree area) as necessary to keep
the enemy's investment in defense and in repair crews high
throughout the country."
The proposed cutback of the air war, he said, was to
reduce American pilot and aircraft losses over heavily defended
Hanoi and Haiphong and not primarily to get North
Vietnam to negotiate. No favorable response should be
expected, Mr. McNaughton said, but "to optimize the
chances" for such a response he proposed this scenario:
"To inform the Soviets quietly (on May 15) that within a
few (5) days the policy would be implemented, stating no
time limits and making no promise not to return to the Red
River Basin to attack targets . . . and then to make an unhuckstered
shift as predicted on May 20."
Without what he called "an ultimatum-like time limit," Mr.
McNaughton suggested that North Vietnam "might be in a
better posture to react favorably than has been the case in
the past." The American public should be told, he said, that
the bombing was being concentrated on the southern infiltration
routes to "increase the efficiency of our interdiction effort"
and because "major northern military targets have been destroyed."
According to the Pentagon account, the McNaughton paper,
combined with other Defense Department proposals on the
ground war, was read by Secretary McNamara at a White
House meeting on May 8, although it is not clear whether Mr.
McNamara also signed it and sent it to President Johnson.
Its significance, the Pentagon study reveals, is that for the
first time a specific recommendation was put before President
Johnson urging a cutback on the bombing to the 20th Parallel.
That went a step further than the McNamara memorandum of
Oct. 14, 1966 which urged the President "to consider" narrowing the
bombing campaign as a possible step toward negotiations.
Several other papers went before President Johnson on May
8, according to the Pentagon account. They included one,
recommending a bombing cutback, by Mr. Rostow, described
in the study as a "strong bombing advocate" long in favor of
attacks on the "North Vietnamese industrial target system."
Mr. Rostow's memorandum, quoted at length in the Pentagon
study, rejected proposals for mining North Vietnamese
harbors and bombing port facilities lest these steps lead to a
"radical increase in Hanoi's dependence on Communist China"
and increase United States tensions with the Soviet Union and
China. [See Document # 128.]
He was considerably more positive than Mr. McNaughton
on the results of the strategic bombing campaign, but urged
that the bombing be concentrated on the supply routes in
southern North Vietnam supplemented by "the most economical
and careful attack on the Hanoi power station" and
by "keeping open the . . . option" of bombing the Hanoi-
Haiphong area in the future.
A more equivocal position, the Pentagon study discloses,
was taken by Assistant Secretary of State Bundy. His paper,
completed on May 8, favored tactics that would "concentrate
heavily on the supply routes" but would also "include a
significant number of restrikes" north of the 20th Parallel.
Without restrikes, he argued, "it would almost certainly be
asked why we had ever hit the targets in the first place." Moreover,
it would keep Hanoi and Moscow "at least a little bit
on edge."
But he was opposed to hitting such new and "sensitive targets"
as the Hanoi power station, the Red River bridge at
Hanoi and Phucyen airfield, 13 miles outside the city.
The Pentagon study comments that "this significant convergence
of opinion on bombing strategy in the next phase
among key Presidential advisers could not have gone unnoticed
in the May 8 meeting." The account notes that a new effort
began after the session to combine the various views in one
paper largely drafted by Mr. McNaughton for Secretary McNamara and
finally submitted to the President on May 19.
Even before the White House meeting, Mr. McNaughton
was uneasy about the over-all Pentagon position, especially
the willingness to provide General Westmoreland with considerable
reinforcements. The Pentagon study does not say
who drafted the portions of the May 5 memorandum on the
ground war or precisely what was proposed, although it reports
545
that Secretary McNamara had been told that 66,000 more
soldiers could be provided without calling up the reserves.
Later the figure rose to 84,000.
In a note to Secretary McNamara on May 6, Mr. Mc-
Naughton indicated that the May 5 memorandum proposed
giving General Westmoreland 80,000 more men. Excerpts
from that note vividly portray Mr. McNaughton's unhappiness
about this course of action:
"I am afraid there is a fatal flaw in the strategy in the
[May 5] draft. It is that the strategy falls into the trap that
has ensnared us for the past three years. It actually gives the
troops while only praying for their proper use and for constructive
diplomatic action." (The emphasis was Mr. Mc-
Naughton's. )
"Limiting the present decision to an 80,000 add-on," he
continued, "does the very important business of postponing
the issue of a reserve call-up (and all of its horrible baggage),
but postpone is all that it does-probably to a worse time,
1968. Providing the 80,000 troops is tantamount to acceding
to the whole Westmoreland-Sharp request. This being the case,
they will 'accept' the 80,000. But six months from now, in
will come messages like the '470,000-570,000' messages, saying
that the requirement remains at 201,000 (or more). Since no
pressure will have been put on anyone, the military war will
have gone on as before and no diplomatic progress will have
been made.
"It follows that the 'philosophy' of the war should be fought
out now so everyone will not be proceeding on their own
major premises, and getting us in deeper and deeper; at the
very least, the President should give General Westmoreland
his limit (as President Truman did to General MacArthur).
That is, if General Westmoreland is to get 550,000 men, he
should be told, 'That will be all, and we mean it.''' (The
parentheses were Mr. McNaughton's.)
The note to Secretary McNamara, the study reveals, expressed
uneasiness about the breadth and intensity of public
unrest and dissatisfaction with the war. As a man whose 18-
year-old son was about to enter college, the study notes, Mr.
McNaughton was especially sensitive to the unpopularity of
the war among the young.
"A feeling is widely and strongly held that 'the Establishment'
is out of its mind," he wrote. "The feeling is that we
are trying to impose some U.S. image on distant peoples we
cannot understand (any more than we can the younger generation here at
home), and we are carrying the thing to absurd
lengths.
"Related to this feeling is the increased polarization that is
taking place in the United States with seeds of the worst
split in our people in more than a century .... "
A major assault on Administration policy drew near. In
early May, the Pentagon study recounts, there were three
C.I.A. intelligence papers "to reinforce the views" of civilian
opponents of the bombing.
One report concluded that 27 months of American bombing
"have had remarkably little effect on Hanoi's over-all strategy
in prosecuting the war, on its confident view of long-term
Communist prospects, and on its political tactics regarding
negotiations." A second, issued on May 12, characterized the
mood in North Vietnam after prolonged bombing as one of
"resolute stoicism with a considerable reservoir of endurance
still untapped."
The third said that as of April, the American air campaign
had "significantly eroded the capacities of North Vietnam's
industrial and military bases. These losses, however, have not
meaningfully degraded North Vietnam's material ability to
continue the war in South Vietnam."
New Trend of Policy
The climax for what the study calls the "disillusioned doves"
came in Secretary McNamara's May 19 memorandum to
President Johnson, which marshaled the arguments against
the strategy of widening the war and sharpened the case for
curtailing the air war.
What gave the May 19 "draft Presidential memorandum"
a new and radical thrust, the analysts observe, were its
political recommendations, reflecting Mr. McNaughton's
earlier point about the need to argue out "the philosophy of
the war."
The May 19 paper not only recommended a cutback of the
bombing to the 20th Parallel and only 30,000 more troops for
General Westmoreland, but also advocated a considerably
more limited over-all American objective in Vietnam that,
in the words of the Pentagon study, "amounted to . . . a
recommendation that we accept a compromise outcome."
[See Document #129.]
547
As Mr. McNamara and Mr. McNaughton put it in the
memorandum. "Our commitment is only to see that the people
of South Vietnam are permitted to determine their own
future .... This commitment ceases if the country ceases
to help itself."
However much the United States might "strongly hope"
for a non-Communist government that would remain separate
from North Vietnam, they said, "our commitment is not" to
guarantee and insist on those conditions.
"Nor do we have an obligation to pour in effort out of
proportion to the effort contributed by the people of South
Vietnam or in the face of coups, corruption, apathy or other
indications of Saigon's failure to cooperate satisfactorily with
us," the writers declared.
The United States was committed, they went on, "to stopping
or offsetting the effect of North Vietnam's application of
force in the South, which denies the people of the South the
ability to determine their own future."
The Pentagon study underscores the significance of Mr.
McNamara's break with policy. The paper, it says, "pointedly
rejected the high blown formulations of U.S. objectives in
NSAM 288 ('an independent non-Communist South Vietnam,'
'defeat the Vietcong,' etc.), and came forcefully to grips with
the old dilemma of the U.S. involvement dating from the
Kennedy era: only limited means to achieve excessive ends."
The reference was to National Security Action Memorandum
288, issued on March 17, 1964, which had since provided
the basic doctrine for Johnson Administration policy.
The emphasis in the "scaled-down" set of goals put
forward by the McNamara-McNaughton memorandum, the
analysts observed, was on South Vietnamese self-determination,
which envisioned an eventual "full-spectrum government."
At several points the Pentagon study emphasizes the sharp
departure that this represented from established policy. "Let
there be no mistake," the study comments, "these were
radical positions for a senior U.S. policy official within the
Johnson Administration to take. They would bring the bitter
condemnation of the [Joint] Chiefs and were scarcely designed
to flatter the President on the success of his efforts to
date."
In addition to advancing its own views, the McNamara-
McNaughton paper developed the counterarguments against
the military option of large reinforcements and a wider war,
548
emphasizing the increasing popular discontent with the war
among the American public.
The memorandum acknowledged that a cutback on the
bombing "will cause psychological problems" for allied officers
and troops "who will not be able to understand why we should
withhold punishment from the enemy."
However, the paper added: "We should not bomb for
punitive reasons if it serves no other purpose. . . . It costs
American lives; it creates a backfire of revulsion and opposition
by killing civilians; it creates serious risks; it may harden
the enemy."
The paper also pointed out that the bombing in the Hanoi
and Haiphong regions took an extremely high toll in American
pilots' lives. On May 5, Mr. McNaughton commented that the
loss rate over Hanoi-Haiphong was six times as great as over
the rest of North Vietnam. Now, on May 19, the McNamara-
McNaughton paper noted that the campaign against these
heavily defended areas lost "one pilot in every 40 sorties."
It predicted that if the bombing was held below the 20th
Parallel, these losses would be cut "by more than 50 per
cent."
Their arguments against granting General Westmoreland
the scale of reinforcements that he had requested were centered
on what the Pentagon analysts refer to as the growing
fear that such forces would engender "irresistible pressures"
for carrying the battle beyond the borders of South Vietnam.
The mobilization of reserves to provide the necessary manpower,
according to the McNamara-McNaughton paper,
would almost certainly stimulate a "bitter Congressional debate."
"Cries would go up-much louder than they have already to
'take the wraps off the men in the field,' " their memorandum
asserted. It foresaw pressures not only for ground operations
against Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam, but also,
at some point, for proposals to use tactical nuclear arms and
bacteriological and chemical weapons if the Chinese entered
the war "or if U.S. losses were running high."
"Dilemma of President"
Secretary McNamara showed his paper to President Johnson
on May 19, the day it was completed, the study says. Although
549
the analyst provides no documentary record of Mr. Johnson's
reaction, he comments that it was "not surprising" that the
President "did not promptly endorse the McNamara recommendations
as he had on occasions in the past."
"This time," the study continues, "he faced a situation where
the Chiefs were in ardent opposition to anything other than
a significant escalation of the war with a call-up of reserves.
This put them in direct opposition to McNamara and his aides
and created a genuine policy dilemma for the President."
In any event, the study says, Secretary McNamara quickly
got the message intended by the President's inaction. On
May 20, Mr. McNamara-"perhaps reflecting a cool Presidential
reaction,"-ordered a new study of bombing alternatives.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff needed no spur. Within four days,
they had submitted three memorandums, renewing earlier
recommendations for more than 200,000 new troops and for
air attacks to "shoulder out" foreign shipping from Haiphong
and to mine the harbors and approaches, as well as raids on
eight major airfields and on roads and railways leading to
China. "It may ultimately become necessary," they said, to
send American troops into Cambodia and Laos and take
"limited ground action in North Vietnam."
Their sharpest rebuttal to Mr. McNamara, however, came
on May 31 in a paper contending that the "drastic changes"
in American policy advocated by the Secretary "would undermine
and no longer provide a complete rationale for our
presence in South Vietnam or much of our efforts over the
past two years."
Moreover, the parts of this paper quoted in the Pentagon
narrative asserted that the McNamara-McNaughton memorandum
"fails to appreciate the full implications for the free
world of failure" in Vietnam.
On the issue of public support for the war, the Joint Chiefs
said they were "unable to find due cause for the degree of
pessimism expressed" in the McNamara paper. They asserted
their belief "that the American people, when well informed
about the issues at stake, expect their Government to uphold
its commitments."
Addressing the specific proposal for a bombing cutback, the
Joint Chiefs were doubtful that such a step would induce
Hanoi to move toward negotiations. They contended it would
"most likely have the opposite effect" and "only result in
the strengthening of the enemy's resolve to continue the war."
In conclusion, the military leaders urged that the McNamara proposals
"not be forwarded to the President" because
they represented such a divergence from past policy
that they were not worthy of consideration. The Chiefs were
unaware that Mr. Johnson had seen the paper 12 days before.
In other agencies, the Pentagon study relates, official viewpoints
fell between the two extremes and the debate floundered
toward a compromise on the issues of tactics, without any shift
in war aims.
Under Secretary of State Katzenbach, for example, proposed
on June 8, according to the study, that the United States add
30,000 ground troops "in small increments over the next 18
months" and "concentrate bombing on lines of communication
throughout" North Vietnam but shifting away from strategic
targets around Hanoi and Haiphong. The American political
objective, he said, should be to leave behind a stable democratic
government in Saigon by persuading Hanoi to end
the war and by neutralizing the Vietcong threat internally.
In the Pentagon, Mr. McNaughton found mixed views on
the air war and summarized them for Mr. McNamara in
another memorandum on June 12. The findings, cited in the
study, were that Cyrus R. Vance, Deputy Secretary of Defense;
Paul H. Nitze, Secretary of the Navy; and Mr. McNaughton
favored the cutback in bombing; the Joint Chiefs renewed
their case for escalation; and Secretary Brown of the Air Force
recommended adding a few targets to the present list.
The Pentagon study says it is unclear whether this paper
was formally presented to President Johnson who, in any
case, was preoccupied in June, 1967, with the six-day Arab-
Israeli war and with preparations for his meeting with Premier
Kosygin at Glassboro, N.J.
Secretary McNamara's primary attention remained on the
unresolved troop issue. According to the Pentagon account, he
went to Saigon from July 7 to July 12 under President Johnson's
instructions "to review the matter with General Westmoreland
and reach an agreement on a figure well below the
200,000 [Westmoreland] had requested in March."
On Mr. McNamara's final evening in Saigon, the Pentagon
account says, the two men agreed on a 55,000-man increase,
to a total of 525,000 troops. President Johnson approved the
compromise, far closer to Mr. McNamara's position than
General Westmoreland's, and announced it in a tax message
on Aug. 4.
But in a series of decisions on the air war during July and
August, the President adopted a course that differed markedly
551
from the strategy of de-escalation that Secretary McNamara
had urged on him.
His first decision, in mid-July, added only a few fixed
targets, but in the next two months he approved all but about
a dozen of the 57 targets the Chiefs of Staff wanted. On
July 20, the Pentagon study reports, he added 16 targets,
including a previously forbidden airfield, a rail yard, two
bridges and 12 barracks and supply areas, all within the
restricted circles around Hanoi and Haiphong.
The day before the authorization of Rolling Thunder 57-
each number signaling an extension of the air war-8ecretary
McNamara lost perhaps his closest adviser and staunchest ally.
On July 19, Mr. McNaughton and his wife, Sarah, and their
11-year-old son Theodore were killed in a plane collision over
North Carolina.
By late July, the study continues, the frustrations of the
military commanders over the restraints imposed upon them
had prompted the Senate Preparedness Subcommittee to
schedule hearings on the conduct of the air war. Although
conducted in secret, the hearings gave the public its first real
knowledge of the policy division between Secretary Mc"The subcommittee
unquestionably set out to defeat Mr.
McNamara," the analyst comments. "Its members, Senators
Stennis, Symington, Jackson, Cannon, Byrd, Smith, Thurmond
and Miller, were known for their hard-line views and military
sympathies. . . . They viewed the restraints on bombing as
irrational, the shackling of a major instrument which could
help win victory."
Such powerful Congressional backing for the air war, the
study observes, "must have forced a recalculation on the
President."
The study finds it "surely no coincidence" that on Aug. 9,
the day the Stennis hearings opened, President Johnson
authorized "an additional 16 fixed targets and an expansion
of armed reconnaissance."
"Significantly," the study continues, "six of the targets were
within the sacred 1a-mile Hanoi inner circle .... Nine targets
were located in the northeast rail line in the China buffer zone
[formerly a proscribed zone], the closest one eight miles from
the border .... The tenth was a naval base, also within the
China buffer zone."
The raids began promptly, the study recounts, and more
targets were approved shortly afterward. The prohibited zone
around Hanoi was restored from Aug. 24 to Sept. 4 to permit
552
a follow-up to what the study calls "a particularly delicate set
of contacts with North Vietnam." The military sections of the
Pentagon study give no details, but published reports have
identified this as a secret effort to test Hanoi on what became
known later as the San Antonio formula.
It was made public by President Johnson in a speech on
Sept. 29 at San Antonio, Tex., when he offered to halt the
bombing provided that action would lead to prompt and
productive negotiations, on the assumption that the North
Vietnamese would "not take advantage" of the halt militarily.
Hanoi rejected these terms as imposing conditions on a halt in
bombing.
For months the secret diplomatic probing went on fruitlessly
while the air war widened slowly-although still short
of the desires of the Joint Chiefs. Not until March, 1968-
a few days after Secretary McNamara had left the Government-
did his proposal for a reduction of the bombing to the
20th Parallel re-emerge and open the way toward negotiations
in Paris in May.
553
KEY DOCUMENTS
Following are texts of key documents accompanying the Pentagon's
study of the Vietnam war, covering the period late 1966 to
mid-1967, in which Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara
began to express disillusionment with the effectiveness of the war
effort. Except where excerpting is specified, the documents are
printed verbatim, with only unmistakable typographical errors
corrected.
# 118
McNamara Memo of Oct. 14, 1966,
Opposing Increase in War Effort
Draft memorandum for President Lyndon B. Johnson,
"Actions Recommended for Vietnam," from Secretary of
Defense Robert S. McNamara, Oct. 14, 1966.
1. Evaluation of the situation. In the report of my last trip
to Vietnam almost a year ago, I stated that the odds were about
even that, even with the then-recommended deployments, we would
be faced in early 1967 with a military stand-off at a much higher
level of conflict and with "pacification" still stalled. I am a little
less pessimistic now in one respect. We have done somewhat
better militarily than I anticipated. We have by and large blunted
the communist military initiative-any military victory in South
Vietnam the Viet Cong may have had in mind 18 months ago has
been thwarted by our emergency deployments and actions. And our
program of bombing the North has exacted a price.
My concern continues, however, in other respects. This is because
I see no reasonable way to bring the war to an end soon.
Enemy morale has not broken-he apparently has adjusted to our
stopping his drive for military victory and has adopted a strategy
of keeping us busy and waiting us out (a strategy of attriting our
national will). He knows that we have not been, and he believes
we probably will not be, able to translate our military successes
into the "end products"-broken enemy morale and political
achievements by the GVN.
The one thing demonstrably going for us in Vietnam over the
554
past year has been the large number of enemy killed-in-action resulting
from the big military operations. Allowing for possible
exaggeration in reports, the enemy must be taking losses-deaths
in and after battle-at the rate of more than 60,000 a year. The
infiltration routes would seem to be one-way trails to death for the
North Vietnamese. Yet there is no sign of an impending break in
enemy morale and it appears that he can more than replace his
losses by infiltration from North Vietnam and recruitment in
South Vietnam.
Pacification is a bad disappointment. We have good grounds to
be pleased by the recent elections, by Ky's 16 months in power,
and by the faint signs of development of national political institutions
and of a legitimate civil government. But none of this
has translated itself into political achievements at Province level
or below. Pacification has if anything gone backward. As compared
with two, or four, years ago, enemy full-time regional forces
and part-time guerrilla forces are larger; attacks, terrorism and
sabotage have increased in scope and intensity; more railroads are
closed and highways cut; the rice crop expected to come to market
is smaller; we control little, if any, more of the population; the
VC political infrastructure thrives in most of the country, continuing
to give the enemy his enormous intelligence advantage; full
security exists nowhere (now even behind the U.S. Marines' lines
and in Saigon); in the countryside, the enemy almost completely
controls the night.
Nor has the ROLLING THUNDER program of bombing the
North either significantly affected infiltration or cracked the morale
of Hanoi. There is agreement in the intelligence community on
these facts (see the attached Appendix).
In essence, we find ourselves-from the point of view of the
important war (for the complicity of the people )-no better, and
if anything worse off. This important war must be fought and
won by the Vietnamese themselves. We have known this from the
beginning. But the discouraging truth is that, as was the case in
1961 and 1963 and 1965, we have not found the formula, the
catalyst, for training and inspiring them into effective action.
2. Recommended actions. In such an unpromising state of
affairs, what should we do? We must continue to press the enemy
militarily; we must make demonstrable progress in pacification;
at the same time, we must add a new ingredient forced on us by
the facts. Specifically, we must improve our position by getting
ourselves into a military posture that we credibly would maintain
indefinitely-a posture that makes trying to "wait us out" less
attractive.
I recommend a five-pronged course of action to achieve
those ends.
a. Stabilize U.S. force-levels in Vietnam. It is my judgment that,
barring a dramatic change in the war, we should limit the increase
in U.S. forces in SVN in 1967 to 70,000 men and we should
level off at the total of 470.000 which such an increase would
555
provide. * It is my view that this is enough to punish the enemy
at the large-unit operations level and to keep the enemy's main
forces from interrupting pacification. I believe also that even many
more than 470,000 would not kill the enemy off in such numbers
as to break their morale so long as they think they can wait us
out. It is possible that such a 40 percent increase over our present
level of 325,000 will break the enemy's morale in the short term;
but if it does not, we must, I believe, be prepared for and have
underway a long-term program premised on more than breaking
the morale of main force units. A stabilized V.S. force level would
be part of such a long-term program. It would put us in a position
where negotiations would be more likely to be productive, but
if they were not we could pursue the all-important pacification task
with proper attention and resources and without the spectre of
apparently endless escalation of V.S. deployments.
b. (nstall a barrier. A portion of the 470,000 troops-perhaps
10,000 to 20,OOO-should be devoted to the construction and
maintenance of an infiltration barrier. Such a barrier would lie
near the 17th parallel-would run from the sea, across the neck
of South Vietnam (choking off the new infiltration routes through
the DMZ) and across the trails in Laos. This interdiction system
(at an approximate cost of $1 billion) would comprise to the
east a ground barrier of fences, wire, sensors, artillery, aircraft
and mobile troops; and to the west-mainly in Laos-an interdiction
zone covered by air-laid mines and bombing attacks pinpointed
by air-laid acoustic sensors.
The barrier may not be fully effective at first, but I believe that
it can be effective in time and that even the threat of its becoming
effective can substantially change to our advantage the character
of the war. It would hinder enemy efforts, would permit more
efficient use of the limited number of friendly troops, and would
be persuasive evidence both that our sole aim is to protect the
South from the North and that we intend to see the job through.
c. Stabilize the ROLLING THUNDER program against the
North. Attack sorties in North Vietnam have risen from about
4,000 per month at the end of last year to 6,000 per month in the
first quarter of this year and 12,000 per month at present. Most
of our 50 percent increase of deployed attack-capable aircraft has
been absorbed in the attacks on North Vietnam. In North Vietnam,
almost 84,000 attack sorties have been flown (about 25 percent
against fixed targets), 45 percent during the past seven
months.
Despite these efforts, it now appears that the North Vietnamese-
Laotian road network will remain adequate to meet the requirements
of the Communist forces in South Vietnam-this is so even
*Admiral Sharp has recommended a 12/ 31/67 strength of 570,000. However,
I believe both he and General Westmoreland recognize that the danger
of inflation will probably force an end 1967 deployment limit of about
470,000.
556
if its capacity could be reduced by one-third and if combat activities
were to be doubled. North Vietnam's serious need for
trucks, spare parts and petroleum probably can, despite air attacks,
be met by imports. The petroleum requirement for trucks involved
in the infiltration movement, for example, has not been enough
to present significant supply problems, and the effects of the attacks
on the petroleum distribution system, while they have not yet
been fully assessed, are not expected to cripple the flow of essential
supplies. Furthermore, it is clear that, to bomb the North
sufficiently to make a radical impact upon Hanoi's political,
economic and social structure, would require an effort which we
could make but which would not be stomached either by our own
people or by world opinion; and it would involve a serious risk
of drawing us into open war with China.
The North Vietnamese are paying a price. They have been
forced to assign some 300,000 personnel to the lines of communication
in order to maintain the critical flow of personnel
and material to the South. Now that the lines of communication
have been manned, however, it is doubtful that either a large
increase or decrease in our interdiction sorties would substantially
change the cost to the enemy of maintaining the roads, railroads,
and waterways or affect whether they are operational. It follows
that the marginal sorties-probably the marginal 1,000 or even
5,000 sorties-per month against the lines of communication no
longer have a significant impact on the war. (See the attached excerpts
from intelligence estimates.)
When this marginal inutility of added sorties against North
Vietnam and Laos is compared with the crew and aircraft losses
implicit in the activity (four men and aircraft and $20 million
per 1,000 sorties), I recommend, as a minimum, against increasing
the level of bombing of North Vietnam and against increasing the
intensity of operations by changing the areas or kinds of targets
struck.
Under these conditions, the bombing program would continue
the pressure and would remain available as a bargaining counter
to get talks started (or to trade off in talks). But, as in the case
of a stabilized level of U.S. ground forces, the stabilization of
ROLLING THUNDER would remove the prospect of ever
escalating bombing as a factor complicating our political posture
and distracting from the main job of pacification in South Vietnam.
At the proper time, as discussed on pages 6-7 below, I believe we
should consider terminating bombing in all of North Vietnam, or
at least in the Northeast zones, for an indefinite period in connection
with covert moves toward peace.
d. Pursue a vigorous pacification program. As mentioned above,
the pacification (Revolutionary Development) program has been
and is thoroughly stalled. The large-unit operations war, which
we know best how to fight and where we have had our successes,
is largely irrelevant to pacification as long as we do not lose it.
557
By and large, the people in rural areas believe that the GVN
when it comes will not stay but that the VC will; that cooperations
with the GVN will be punished by the VC; that the GVN
is really indifferent to the people's welfare; that the low-level GVN
are tools of the local rich; and that the GVN is ridden with corruption.
Success in pacification depends on the interrelated functions of
providing physical security, destroying the VC apparatus, motivating
the people to cooperate and establishing responsive local
government. An obviously necessary but not sufficient requirement
for success of the Revolutionary Development cadre and police is
vigorously conducted and adequately prolonged clearing operations
by military troops, who will "stay" in the area, who behave themselves
decently and who show some respect for the people.
This elemental requirement of pacification has been missing.
In almost no contested area designated for pacification in recent
years have ARVN forces actually "cleared and stayed" to a point
where cadre teams, if available, could have stayed overnight in
hamlets and survived, let alone accomplish their mission. VC
units of company and even battalion size remain in operation, and
they are more than large enough to overrun anything the local
security forces can put up.
Now that the threat of a Communist main-force military victory
has been thwarted by our emergency efforts, we must allocate far
more attention and a portion of the regular military forces (at
least half of the ARVN and perhaps a portion of the U.S. forces)
to the task of providing an active and permanent security screen
behind which the Revolutionary Development teams and police
can operate and behind which the political struggle with the VC
infrastructure can take place.
The U.S. cannot do this pacification security job for the Vietnamese.
All we can do is "Massage the heart." For one reason,
it is known that we do not intend to stay; if our efforts worked
at all, it would merely postpone the eventual confrontation of the
VC and GVN infrastructures. The GVN must do the job; and
I am convinced that drastic reform is needed if the GVN is going
to be able to do it.
The first essential reform is in the attitude of GVN officials.
They are generally apathetic, and there is corruption high and
low. Often appointments, promotions, and draft deferments must
be bought; and kickbacks on salaries are common. Cadre at the
bottom can be no better than the system above them.
The second needed reform is in the attitude and conduct of the
ARVN. The image of the government cannot improve unless
and until the ARVN improves markedly. They do not understand
the importance (or respectability) of pacification nor the importance
to pacification of proper, disciplined conduct. Promotions,
assignments and awards are often not made on merit, but rather
on the basis of having a diploma, friends or relatives, or because
558
of bribery. The ARVN is weak in dedication, direction and discipline.
Not enough ARVN are devoted to area and population security,
and when the ARVN does attempt to support pacification, their
actions do not last long enough; their tactics are bad despite
U.S. prodding (no aggressive small-unit saturation patrolling,
hamlet searches, quick-reaction contact, or offensive night ambushes);
they do not make good use of intelligence; and their
leadership and discipline are bad.
Furthermore, it is my conviction that a part of the problem
undoubtedly lies in bad management on the American as well as
the GVN side. Here split responsibility-{)r "no responsibility"-
has resulted in too little hard pressure on the GVN to do its job
and no really solid or realistic planning with respect to the whole
effort. We must deal with this management problem and deal
with it effectively.
One solution would be to consolidate all U.S. activities which
are primarily part of the civilian pacification program and all
persons engaged in such activities, providing a clear assignment
of responsibility and a unified command under a civilian relieved
of all other duties. * * Under this approach, there would be a carefully
delineated division of responsibility between the civilian-in-
charge and an element of COMUSMACV under a senior officer,
who would give the subject of planning for and providing
hamlet security the highest priority in attention and resources.
Success will depend on the men selected for the jobs on both sides
(they must be among the highest rank and most competent administrators
in the U.S. Government), on complete cooperation
among the U.S. elements, and on the extent to which the South
Vietnamese can be shocked out of their present pattern of behavior.
The first work of this reorganized U.S. pacification organization
should be to produce within 60 days a realistic and detailed
plan for the coming year.
From the political and public-relations viewpoint, this solution
is preferable-if it works. But we cannot tolerate continued failure.
If it fails after a fair trial, the only alternative in my view is to
place the entire pacification program-civilian and military under
General Westmoreland. This alternative would result in the
establishment of a Deputy COMUSMACV for Pacification who
would be in command of all pacification staffs in Saigon and of all
pacification staffs and activities in the field; one person in each
corps,
province and district would be responsible for the U.S. effort.
(It should be noted that progress in pacification, more than
anything else, will persuade the enemy to negotiate or withdraw.)
c. Press for Negotiations. I am not optimistic that Hanoi or the
VC will respond to peace overtures now (explaining my recommendations
above that we get into a level-off posture for the long
**If this task is assigned to Ambassador Porter, another individual must
be sent immediately to Saigon to serve as Ambassador Lodge's deputy.
559
pull). The ends sought by the two sides appear to be irreconcilable
and the relative power balance is not in their view unfavorable to
them. But three things can be done, I believe, to increase the
prospects:
( 1) Take steps to increase the credibility of our peace gestures
in the minds of the enemy. There is considerable evidence both in
private statements by the Communists and in the reports of competent
Western officials who have talked with them that charges
of U.S. bad faith are not solely propagandistic, but reflect deeply
held beliefs. Analyses of Communists' statements and actions indicate
that they firmly believe that American leadership really does
not want the fighting to stop, and, that we are intent on winning
a military victory in Vietnam and on maintaining our presence
there through a puppet regime supported by U.S. military bases.
As a way of projective U.S. bona fides, I believe that we should
consider two possibilities with respect to our bombing program
against the North, to be undertaken, if at all, at a time very
carefully selected with a view to maximizing the chances of influencing
the enemy and world opinion and to minimizing the
chances that failure would strengthen the hand of the "hawks" at
home: First, without fanfare, conditions, or avowal, whether the
stand-down was permanent or temporary, stop bombing all of
North Vietnam. It is generally thought that Hanoi will not agree
to negotiations until they can claim that the bombing has stopped
unconditionally. We should see what develops, retaining freedom
to resume the bombing if nothing useful was forthcoming.
Alternatively, we could shift the weight-of-effort away from
"Zones 6A and 6B"-zones including Hanoi and Haiphong and
areas north of those two cities to the Chinese border. This alternative
has some attraction in that it provides the North Vietnamese
a "face saver" if only problems of "face" are holding up
Hanoi peace gestures; it would narrow the bombing down directly
to the objectionable infiltration (supporting the logic of a stop
infiltration/
full-pause deal); and it would reduce the international
heat on the U.S. Here, too, bombing of the Northeast could be
resumed at any time, or "spot" attacks could be made there from
time to time to keep North Vietnam off balance and to require
her to pay almost the full cost by maintaining her repair crews in
place. The sorties diverted from Zones 6A and 6B could be concentrated
on infiltration routes in Zones 1 and 2 (the southern
end of North Vietnam, including the Mu Gia Pass), in Laos and
in South Vietnam.***
••• Any limitation on the bombing of North Vietnam will cause serious
psychological problems among the men who are risking their lives to help
achieve our political objectives; among their commanders up to and
including
the JCS; and among those of our people who cannot understand why we
should withhold punishment from the enemy. General Westmoreland, as do
the JCS, strongly believes in the military value of the bombing program.
Further, Westmoreland reports that the morale of his Air Force personnel
may already be showing signs of erosion-an erosion resulting from
current
operational restrictions.
560
To the same end of improving our credibility, we should seek
ways-through words and deeds--to make believable our intention
to withdraw our forces once the North Vietnamese aggression
against the South stops. In particular, we should avoid any implication
that we will stay in South Vietnam with bases or to guarantee
any particular outcome to a solely South Vietnamese struggle.
(2) Try to split the VC off from Hanoi. The intelligence estimate
is that evidence is overwhelming that the North Vietnamese
dominate and control the National Front and the Viet Congo
Nevertheless, I think we should continue and enlarge efforts to
contact the VC/NLF and to probe ways to split members or sections
off the VC/NLF organization.
(3) Press contacts with North Vietnam, the Soviet Union and
other parties who might contribute toward a settlement.
(4) Develop a realistic plan providing a role for the VC in
negotiations, postwar life, and government of the nation. An
amnesty offer and proposals for national reconciliation would be
steps in the right direction and should be parts of the plan. It is
important that this plan be one which will appear reasonable, if
not at first to Hanoi and the VC, at least to world opinion.
3. The prognosis. The prognosis is bad that the war can be
brought to a satisfactory conclusion within the next two years. The
large-unit operations probably will not do it; negotiations probably
will not do it. While we should continue to pursue both of these
routes in trying for a solution in the short run, we should recognize
that success from them is a mere possibility, not a probability.
The solution lies in girding, openly, for a longer war and in
taking actions immediately which will in 12 to 18 months give
clear evidence that the continuing costs and risks to the American
people are acceptably limited, that the formula for success has
been found, and that the end of the war is merely a matter of
time. All of my recommendations will contribute to this strategy,
but the one most difficult to implement is perhaps the most important
one--enlivening the pacification program. The odds are
less than even for this task, if only because we have failed
consistently
since 1961 to make a dent in the problem. But, because
the 1967 trend of pacification will, I believe, be the main talisman
of ultimate U.S. success or failure in Vietnam, extraordinary
imagination and effort should go into changing the stripes of that
problem.
President Thieu and Prime Minister Ky are thinking along
similar lines. They told me that they do not expect the Enemy to
negotiate or to modify his program in less than two years. Rather,
they expect that enemy to continue to expand and to increase his
activity. They expressed agreement with us that the key to success
is pacification and that so far pacification has failed. They agree
that we need clarification of GVN and U.S. roles and that the
bulk of the AR VN should be shifted to pacification. Ky will, between
January and July 1967, shift all ARVN infantry divisions to
561
that role. And he is giving Thang, a good Revolutionary Development
director, added powers. Thieu and Ky see this as part of a
two-year (1967-68) schedule, in which offensive operations
against enemy main force units are continued, carried on primarily
by the U.S. and other Free-World forces. At the end of the two-year
period, they believe the enemy may be willing to negotiate
or to retreat from his current course of action.
Note: Neither the Secretary of State nor the JCS have yet had
an opportunity to express their views on this report. Mr. Katzenbach
and I have discussed many of its main conclusions and
recommendations-in general, but not in all particulars, it expresses
his views as well as my own.
APPENDIX
Extracts from CIA/DIA Report "An Appraisal of the Bombing
of North Vietnam through 12 September 1966."
1. There is no evidence yet of any shortage of POL in North
Vietnam and stocks on hand, with recent imports, have been
adequate to sustain necessary operations.
2. Air strikes against all modes of transportation in North Vietnam
and during the past month, but there is no evidence of serious
transport problems in the movement of supplies to or within
North Vietnam.
3. There is no evidence yet that the air strikes have significantly
weakened popular morale.
4. Air strikes continue to depress economic growth and have
been responsible for the abandonment of some plans for economic
development, but essential economic activities continue.
Extracts from a March 16, 1966 CIA Report "An Analysis of the
ROLLING THUNDER Air Offensive against North Vietnam."
1. Although the movement of men and supplies in North Vietnam
has been hampered and made somewhat more costly (by our
bombing), the Communists have been able to increase the flow
of supplies and manpower to South Vietnam.
2. Hanoi's determination (despite our bombing) to continue its
policy of supporting the insurgency in the South appears as firm as
ever.
3. Air attacks almost certainly cannot bring about a meaningful
reduction in the current level at which essential supplies and men
flow into South Vietnam.
Bomb Damage Assessment in the North by the Institute for Defense
Analyses' "Summer Study Group."
What surprised us (in our assessment of the effect of bombing
North Vietnam) was the extent of agreement among various
intelligence agencies on the effects of past operations and probable
effects of continued and expanded Rolling Thunder. The conclusions
of our group, to which we all subscribe, are therefore merely
sharpened conclusions of numerous Intelligence summaries. They
are that Rolling Thunder does not limit the present logistic flow
562
into SVN because NVN is neither the source of supplies nor the
choke-point on the supply routes from China and USSR. Although
an expansion of Rolling Thunder by closing Haiphong harbor,
eliminating electric power plants and totally destroying railroads,
will at least indirectly impose further privations on the populace
of NVN and make the logistic support of VC costlier to maintain,
such expansion will not really change the basic assessment. This
follows because NVN has demonstrated excellent ability to improvise
transportation, and because the primitive nature of their
economy is such that Rolling Thunder can affect directly only
a small fraction of the population. There is very little hope that
the Ho Chi Minh Government will lose control of population
because of Rolling Thunder. The lessons of the Korean War are
very relevant in these respects. Moreover, foreign economic aid
to NVN is large compared to the damage we inflict, and growing.
Probably the government of NVN has assurances that the USSR
and/or China will assist the rebuilding of its economy after the
war, and hence its concern about the damage being inflicted may
be moderated by long-range favorable expectations.
Specifically:
1. As of July 1966 the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam had had
no measurable direct affect on Hanoi's ability to mount and support
military operations in the South at the current level.
2. Since the initiation of the Rolling Thunder program the damage
to facilities and equipment in North Vietnam has been more
than offset by the increased flow of military and economic aid,
largely from the USSR and Communist China.
3. The aspects of the basic situation that have enabled Hanoi
to continue its support of military operations in the South and to
neutralize the impact of U.S. bombing by passing the economic
costs to other Communist countries are not likely to be altered
by reducing the present geographic constraints, mining Haiphong
and the principal harbors in North Vietnam, increasing the number
of armed reconnaissance sorties and otherwise expanding the
U.S. air offensive along the lines now contemplated in military
recommendations and planning studies.
4. While conceptually it is reasonable to assume that some limit
may be imposed on the scale of military activity that Hanoi can
maintain in the South by continuing the Rolling Thunder program
at the present, or some higher level of effort, there appears to be
no basis for defining that limit in concrete terms, or for concluding
that the present scale of VC/NVN activities in the field have
approached that limit.
5. The indirect effects of the bombing on the will of the North
Vietnamese to continue fighting and on their leaders' appraisal of
the prospective gains and costs of maintaining the present policy
have not shown themselves in any tangible way. Furthermore, we
have not discovered any basis for concluding that the indirect
punitive effects of bombing will prove decisive in these respects.
563
# 119
Joint Chiefs' Memo Disputing McNamara
View on Bombing
Excerpts from Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum, signed
by Gen. Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman, to Secretary of
Defense McNamara, Oct. 14, 1966, as provided in the body
of the Pentagon study.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff do not concur in your recommendation
that there should be no increase in level of bombing effort
and no modification in areas and targets subject to air attack.
They believe our air campaign against NVN to be an integral and
indispensable part of over all war effort. To be effective, the air
campaign should be conducted with only those minimum constraints
necessary to avoid indiscriminate killing of population ....
The Joint Chiefs of Staff do not concur with your proposal that,
as a carrot to induce negotiations, we should suspend or reduce
our bombing campaign against NVN. Our experiences with pauses
in bombing and resumption have not been happy ones. Additionally,
the Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that the likelihood of the
war being settled by negotiation is small, and that, far from inducing
negotiations, another bombing pause will be regarded by
North Vietnamese leaders, and our Allies, as renewed evidence of
lack of U.S. determination to press the war to a successful conclusion.
The bombing campaign is one of the two trump cards
in the hands of the President (the other being the presence of U.S.
troops in SVN). It should not be given up without an end to the
NVN aggression in SVN ....
The Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that the war has reached a
stage at which decisions taken over the next sixty days can determine
the outcome of the war and, consequently, can affect the
overall security interests of the United States for years to come.
Therefore, they wish to provide to you and to the President their
unequivocal views on two salient aspects of the war situation: the
search for peace and military pressures on NVN.
a. The frequent, broadly-based public offers made by the President
to settle the war by peaceful means on a generous basis,
which would take from NVN nothing it now has, have been
admirable. Certainly, no one-American or foreigner-except
those who are determined not to be convinced, can doubt the
sincerity, the generosity, the altruism of U.S. actions and objectives.
In the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the time has
come when further overt actions and offers on our part are not
only nonproductive, they are counter-productive. A logical case
can be made that the American people, our Allies, and our enemies
alike are increasingly uncertain as to our resolution to pursue the
war to a successful conclusion. The Joint Chiefs of Staff advocate
the following:
564
(1) A statement by the President during the Manila Conference
of his unswerving determination to carryon the war until NVN
aggression against SVN shall cease;
(2) Continued covert exploration of all avenues leading to a
peaceful settlement of the war; and
(3) Continued alertness to detect and react appropriately to
withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops from SVN and cessation
of support to the VC.
B. In JCSM-955-64, dated 14 November 1964, and in JCSM-
962-64, dated 23 November 1964, the Joint Chiefs of Staff provided
their views as to the military pressures which should be
brought to bear on NVN. In summary, they recommended a
"sharp knock" on NVN military assets and war-supporting facilities
rather than the campaign of slowly increasing pressure which
was adopted. Whatever the political merits of the latter course,
we deprived ourselves of the military effects of early weight of
effort and shock, and gave to the enemy time to adjust to our slow
quantitative and qualitative increase of pressure. This is not to say
that it is now too late to derive military benefits from more
effective and extensive use of our air and naval superiority. The
Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend:
(1) Approval of their ROLLING THUNDER 52 program,
which is a step toward meeting the requirement for improved
target systems. This program would decrease the Hanoi and
Haiphong sanctuary areas, authorize attacks against the steel plant,
the Hanoi rail yards, the thermal power plants, selected areas
within Haiphong port and other ports, selected locks and dams
controlling water LaC's, SAM support facilities within the residual
Hanoi and Haiphong sanctuaries, and POL at Haiphong, Hai Gia
(Phuc Yen) and Can Thon (Kep).
(2) Use of naval surface forces to interdict North Vietnamese
coastal waterborne traffic and appropriate land LaCs and to attack
other coastal military targets such as radar and AAA sites .
. . . The Joint Chiefs of Staff request that their views as set
forth above be provided to the President.
# 120
McNamara Draft Memorandum for
Johnson in November, '66
Excerpts from draft memorandum for President Johnson
from Secretary McNamara, dated Nov. 17, 1966, and
headed "Recommended FY67 Southeast Asia Supplemental
Appropriation," as provided in the body of the Pentagon
study.
A substantial air interdiction campaign is clearly necessary and
worthwhile. In addition to putting a ceiling on the size of the
565
force that can be supported, it yields three significant military
effects. First, it effectively harasses and delays truck movements
down through the southern panhandles of NVN and Laos, though
it has no effect on troops infiltrating on foot over trails that are
virtually invisible from the air. Our experience shows that daytime
armed reconnaissance above some minimum sortie rate
makes it prohibitively expensive to the enemy to attempt daylight
movement of vehicles, and so forces him to night movement.
Second, destruction of bridges and cratering of roads forces the
enemy to deploy repair crews, equipment, and porters to repair
or bypass the damage. Third, attacks on vehicles, parks, and
rest camps destroy some vehicles with their cargoes and inflict
casualties. Moreover, our bombing campaign may produce a
beneficial effect on U.S. and SVN morale by making NVN pay a
price for its enemy [sic]. But at the scale we are now operating, I
believe our bombing is yielding very small marginal returns, not
worth the cost in pilot lives and aircraft.
The first effect, that of forcing the enemy into a system of night
movement, occurs at a lower frequency of armed reconnaissance
sorties than the level of the past several months. The enemy was
already moving at night in 1965, before the sorties rate had
reached half the current level; further sorties have no further
effect on the enemy's overall operating system. The second effect,
that of forcing the enemy to deploy repair crews, equipment, and
porters, is also largely brought about by a comparatively low
interdiction effort. Our interdiction campaign in 1965 and early
this year forced NVN to assign roughly 300,000 additional personnel
to LaCs; there is no indication that recent sortie increases
have caused further increases in the number of these personnel.
Once the enemy system can repair road cuts and damaged bridges
in a few hours, as it has demonstrated it can, additional sorties
may work this system harder but are unlikely to cause a significant
increase in its costs. Only the third effect, the destruction of
vehicles and their cargoes, continues to increase in about the same
proportion as the number of armed reconnaissance sorties, but
without noticeable impact on VC/NV A operations. The overall
capability of the NVN transport system to move supplies within
NVN apparently improved in September in spite of 12,200 attack
sorties.
In a summary paragraph, the draft memo made the entire case
against the bombings:
The increased damage to targets is not producing noticeable
results. No serious shortage of POL in North Vietnam is evident,
and stocks on hand, with recent imports, have been adequate to
sustain necessary operations. No serious transport problem in the
movement of supplies to or within North Vietnam is evident; most
transportation routes appear to be open, and there has recently
been a major logistical build-up in the area of the DMZ. The
raids have disrupted the civil populace and caused isolated food
shortages, but have not significantly weakened popular morale.
566
Air strikes continue to depress economic growth and have been
responsible for abandonment of some plans for economic development,
but essential economic activities continue. The increasing
amounts of physical damage sustained by North Vietnamese are
in large measure compensated by aid received from other Communist
countries. Thus, in spite of an interdiction campaign costing
at least $250 million per month at current levels, no significant
impact on the war in South Vietnam is evident. The monetary
value of damage to NVN since the start of bombing in February
1965 is estimated at about $140 million through October 10, 1966.
# 121
Komer Report to Johnson after February
Trip to Vietnam
Excerpts from memorandum to President Johnson from
Robert W. Komer, his special assistant, Feb. 28, 1967, as
provided in the body of the Pentagon study. Paragraphs in
italics are the study's paraphrase or explanation.
After almost a year full-time in Vietnam, and six trips there,
I felt able to learn a good deal more from my 11 days in-country,
13-23 February. I return more optimistic than ever before. The
cumulative change since my first visit last April is dramatic, if
not yet visibly demonstrable in all respects. Indeed, I'll reaffirm
even more vigorously my prognosis of last November which would
be achieved in 1967 on almost every front in Vietnam.
He firmly believed that in time we would just overwhelm the
VC in SVN:
Wastefully, expensively, but nonetheless indisputably, we are
winning the war in the South. Few of our programs-civil or
military-are very efficient, but we are grinding the enemy down
by sheer weight and mass. And the cumulative impact of all we
have set in motion is beginning to tell. Pacification still lags the
most, yet even it is moving forward.
Finally, and contrary to all military reports, he saw same let-up
in the pressures far additional resources:
Indeed my broad feeling, with due allowance for over-simplification,
is that our side now has in presently programmed levels all
the men, money and other resources needed to achieve success ....
567
# 122
Westmoreland's March 18 Memo on
Increase in Forces
Excerpts from cablegram from Gen. William C. Westmoreland,
commander of United States forces in Vietnam,
to Pacific command, March 18, 1967, as provided in the
body of the Pentagon study. Paragraphs in italics are the
study's paraphrase or explanation.
On 18 March, General Westmoreland submitted his analysis of
current MACV force requirements projected through FY 68. This
request was to furnish the base line for all further force deployment
calculations during the Program 5 period. In preface to his
specific request, COMUSMACV reviewed his earlier CY 67 requirement
which asked for 124 maneuver battalions with their
necessary combat and combat service support, a total strength of
555,741. This figure was the maximum figure requested during
the Program 4 deliberations. The approved Program 4 package
included only 470,336 and was considerably below the MACV
request, a fact which led to the series of reclamas described in
Section II. Westmoreland related that MACVCINCPAC had not
strongly objected earlier to the 470,000 man ceiling because of
adverse piaster impact and the realities of service capabilities, but,
subsequent reassessment of the situation had indicated clearly to
him that the Program 4 force, although enabling U.S. force to
gain the initiative did not "permit sustained operations of the scope
and intensity required to avoid an unreasonably protracted war."
As the cable continued, the American commander in Vietnam
briefly restated his earlier assessment of enemy trends: That the
enemy had increased his force structure appreciably and was now
confronting Free World Military Forces with large bodies of
troops in and above the DMZ, in the Laotian and Cambodian
sanctuaries and certain areas within SVN. In light of this new
appraisal, he had established an early requirement for an additional
21/.3 divisions which he proposed be accommodated by restructuring
the original 555,741-man force package proposed during Program
4. This force was required "as soon as possible but not later
than 1 July 1968." Part of the reasoning was that this in effect
constituted no more than a 6-month "extension" of the CY 67
program and as such would permit shifting force programming
from a Calendar Year to a Fiscal Year basis, a shift long needed
in COMUSMACV's estimation to make force programming for
Vietnam compatible with other programs and to provide essential
lead time in the procurement of hardware. Westmoreland then
looked further ahead, noting:
. . . It is entirely possible that additional forces, over and above
the immediate requirement for 21/:3 Divisions, will materialize.
Present planning, which will undergo continued refinement, suggests an
additional 2113 division equivalents whose availability is
seen as extending beyond FY 68.
Then as if to take the edge off his request, COMuSMACV
turned attention to two programs which were becoming increasingly
attractive to American decision-makers. These were development
of an improved RVNAF and an increase in the other Free
World Military Forces committed to the war in Vietnam. He
commented that despite the force ceiling on RVNAF currently in
effect some selective increase in Vietnamese capabilities was required,
such as creation of a suitable base for establishing a constabulary,
an organization vital to the success of the Revolutionary
Development program. Westmoreland stated that it was the position
of his headquarters that provision for any and all Free World
Military Forces was welcomed as "additive reinforcements," but
they would be treated as additions only, thereby having no effect
upon U.S. force computations.
The concept of operations under which the new forces he requested
were to be employed varied little in its essential aspects
from that outlined in MACV's February "Assessment of the
Military Situation and Concept of Operations," which had reached
Washington but a week earlier. However, the new cable integrated
the new forces as part of the MACV operational forces. Westmoreland
reviewed the period just past then turned to the future:
. . . our operations were primarily holding actions characterized
by border surveillance, reconnaissance to locate enemy forces, and
spoiling attacks to disrupt the enemy offensive. As a result of our
buildup and successes, we were able to plan and initiate a general
offensive. We now have gained the tactical initiative, and are
conducting
continuous small and occasional large-scale offensive
operations to decimate the enemy forces; to destroy enemy base
areas and disrupt his infrastructure; to interdict his land and water
LOC's and to convince him, through the vigor of our offensive
and accompanying psychological operations, that he faces inevitable
defeat.
Military success alone will not achieve the U.S. objectives in
Vietnam. Political, economic and psychological victory is equally
important, and support of Revolutionary Development program is
mandatory. The basic precept for the role of the military in support
of Revolutionary Development is to provide a secure environment
for the population so that the civil aspects of RD can
progress.
He then detailed corps by corps the two troop request requirements
labeling them the "optimum force" [42/3 Divs] and the
"minimum essential force" [21/3 Divs]:
B. FORCE REQUIREMENTS FY 68
(l) The MACV objectives for 1967 were based on the assumption
that the CY 67 force requirements would be approved and
provided expeditiously within the capabilities of the services. How-
569
ever, with the implementation of Program Four, it was recognized
that our accomplishments might fall short of our objectives. With
the additional forces cited above, we would have had the capability
to extend offensive operations into an exploitation phase
designed to take advantage of our successes.
(2) With requisite forces, we shall be able to complete more
quickly the destruction or neutralization of the enemy main forces
and bases and, by continued presence, deny to him those areas in
RVN long considered safe havens. As the enemy main forces are
destroyed or broken up, increasingly greater efforts can be devoted
to rooting out and destroying the VC guerrilla and communist
infrastructure. Moreover, increased assistance can be provided the
RVNAF in support of its effort to provide the required level of
security for the expanding areas undergoing Revolutionary Development.
(3) Optimum Force. The optimum force required implement
the concept of operations and to exploit success is considered 4%
divisions or the equivalent; 10 tactical fighter squadrons with one
additional base; and the full mobile riverine force. The order of
magnitude estimate is 201,250 spaces in addition to the 1967
ceiling of 470,366 for a total of 671,616.
(A) In I Corps, the situation is the most critical with respect
to existing and potential force ratios. As a minimum, a division
plus a regiment is required for Quang Tri Province as a containment
force. The latter has been justified previously in another
plan. Employment of this force in the containment role would
release the units now engaged there for expansion of the DaNang,
Hue-Phu Bai and Chu Lai TAOR's as well as increase security
and control along the corps northern coastal areas. One of the
most critical areas in RVN today is Quang Ngai Province even if
a major operation were conducted in this area during 1967, the
relief would be no more than temporary. A force is needed in the
province to maintain continuous pressure on the enemy to eliminate
his forces and numerous base areas, and to remove his
control over the large population and food reserves. The sustained
employment of a division of 10 battalions is mandatory in Quang
Ngai Province if desired results are to be realized. Employment
of this force would provide security for the vital coastal areas,
facilitate opening and securing Route 1 and the railroad and, perhaps
equally important, relieve pressure on northern Binh Dinh
Province.
(b) In II Corps, the task is two fold: destroy the enemy main
and guerrilla forces in the coastal areas; and contain the infiltration
of NV A forces from Cambodia and Laos. Continual expansion
both north and south of the present capital coastal TAOR's
opening and securing Route 1 and the railroad, securing Route 20
from Dalat south to the III Corps boundary, destruction of enemy
forces in Pleiku and Kontum Provinces, and containment of enemy
forces in the Cambodian and Laotian sanctuaries are all tasks to
be accomplished given the large area in II Corps and the continuous
enemy threat, an optimum force augmentation of four
separate brigades is required to execute effectively an exploitation
of our successes. An infantry brigade is needed in northern Binh
Dinh Province to expand security along the coastal area and to
facilitate operations in Quang Ngai Province to the north. A
mechanized brigade in the western highlands will assist in offensive
and containment operations in the Pleiku-Kontum area. An infantry
brigade in the region of N am Me Thout is needed to conduct
operations against enemy forces and bases there and to add
security to this portion of II Corps now manned with limited
ARVN forces, and finally, a mechanized brigade is needed in Binh
Thuan Province to neutralize the enemy forces and bases in the
southern coastal area, and to open and secure highway 1 and the
national railroad to the III Corps boundary.
(c) In III Corps, operations to destroy VC/NV A forces and
bases in the northwestern & central parts of the corps area and
to intensify the campaign against the enemy's infrastructure are
being conducted. These operations are to be completed by intensive
efforts to open and secure the principal land and water LOC's
throughout the Corps Zone. However, deployment of the U.S. 9th
Div to IV Corps will create a gap in the forces available in III
Corps to operate against seen significant base areas in Phuoc Tuy,
Bin Tuy, and Long Lhanh Provinces. These areas constitute the
home base of the still formidable 5th VC Division. This unit must
be destroyed, its bases neutralized and Route 1 and the national
railroad opened and secured. Other critical locales that will require
considerable effort are War Zone D and Phuoc Long area in which
the VC 7th Division is believed to be located. With the forces
operating currently in III Corps, substantial progress can be made,
but to exploit effectively our successes an addition of one division,
preferably air mobile is required. By basing this division in Bien
Hoa province just north of the RSSZ, it would be in position to
conduct operations against the 5th Div, and War Zone D, as well
as to reinforce the U.S. 9th Div in Delta operations as required.
(d) In IV Corps, with deployment of the U.S. 9th Div to the
Corps area and with increasing success of AR VN operations there,
the situation will be greatly improved. Primary emphasis will
be given to destroying VC main and guerrilla units and their
bases, to intensifying operations to extend GVN control, to stopping
the flow of food stuffs and materials to the enemy through
Cambodia, and to assisting in the flow of goods to GVN outlets
in Saigon. In addition emphasis will be accorded the opening and
securing of principal water and land LOC's which are the key to
all operations in the Delta. It is noteworthy on this score, that
effectiveness of forces available is hampered severely by an inadequate
mobile riverine force. In IV Corps, the essential requirement
is to flesh out the mobile riverine force with three APB's
(Barracks Ships) one ARL (repair ship), and two RAS (river
assault squadrons).
(4) The Minimum Essential Force necessary to exploit success
571
of the current offensive and to retain effective control of expanding
areas being cleaned of enemy influence is 2V:3 divisions with a
total of 21 maneuver battalions. One division, with nine infantry
battalions-each with 4 rifle companies-and an ACR of three
squadrons are required. The other division of nine maneuver battalions,
each battalion organized with four rifle companies is
required in Quang Ngai Province. Four tactical fighter squadrons,
each generating 113 sorties per month per identified maneuver
battalion, are required. Two squadrons will be stationed at Phu
Cat and two at Tuy Hoa. One C-l30 or equivalent type squadron
can provide adequate airlift and is justified on the basis of current
planning factors: This SQD would be based at Cam Ranh Bay. A
minimum essential logistic base can be provided by selective
augmentation
of NSA Danang, and by provision for lift capability
equivalent to eight LST's in addition to two LST's identified previously
for the containment force in Quang Tri Province. Two
nondivisional Army combat engineer battalions and four Army
construction battalions will be required to support divisional
engineering
effort to augment two navy construction battalions that
previously have been identified with the containment force in
Quang Tri Province.
(b) Effectiveness of the U.S. 9th Division's operations in IV
Corps will be degraded unacceptably without adequate mobility on
the waterways. For this reason, addition of two river assault
squadrons with their associated support is deemed essential. The
Mekong Delta Mobile Riverine Force originally was tailored and
justified as a four RAS level. This requirement still is valid. The
primary media of transport in the Delta are air and water. Air
mobility is recognized as critical to success of operations in the
area, but the size of offensive operations that can be mounted is
limited by the inherent physical limitations of airborne vehicles.
Accordingly, any sizeable offensive operation such as those visualized
for the U.S. 9th Division must utilize the 300km of waterways
in the Delta to exploit tactical mobility. Maintenance of
LOC's and population control in the areas secured by the division's
operations, along with extension of the interdiction effort,
necessitates
expansion of the game warden operation. Fifty PBR's can
provide this capability based on experience factors accrued thus
far ....
# 123
March 28 Westmoreland Cable to Joint
Chiefs on Troop Needs
Excerpts from cablegram from General Westmoreland to
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "MACV FY-68 Force Requirements,"
March 28, 1967, as provided in the body of the
572
Pentagon study. Paragraphs in italics are the study's paraphrase
or explanation.
On 26 March COMUSMACV submitted to the CINCPAC Requirements
Task Group a detailed troop listing for the 21/.3 division
"minimum essential force." Other than providing a detailed list
of TO&E's and unit small strengths, the document provides little
of interest. It did stipulate that the northern portion of the minimum
essential force would be directed toward an expanded infiltration
interdiction mission and that the southern portion of the
force would pursue "presently prescribed operations."
In a follow-up message to the Task Requirements Group on the
28th of March COMUSMACV again commented on the restrictive
aspects of Program 4. This in turn was picked up and amplified
by CINCPAC in a message to the JCS on the same day. CINCPAC
pointed out that as of 9 March 1967 Program 4 was 38,241
spaces short of full implementation and that this figure included
spaces for five battalions or their equivalents which could not be
considered for trade-off purposes. All of these spaces, especially
the battalion equivalents, were significant elements when considered
within the perspective of MACV's operational requirements
and could not be deleted without seriously impairing MACV
capability to achieve its objectives. In light of this shortfall in
Program 4 CINCPAC requested that the JCS reconsider its earlier
proposal that a 4th rifle company be added to all U.S. Army
infantry battalions in Vietnam. The logic behind such a raise in
program ceiling which would increase materially the combat power
and effectiveness of the infantry without increasing unit overhead
was irrefutable in CINCPAC's eyes. CINCPAC proposed that the
addition of the rifle companies, a total of 8,821 men, be added to
the Program 4 ceiling for a total of 479,231 of all services. The
space requirements for the 21/.3 division minimum essential force
reflected in the COMUSMACV request would then be added on
to the adjusted Program 4 total of 479,000. However, in the event
that any or all of the spaces reflected in that 479,000 were not
approved or that the package itself would be reduced, the Pacific
Commander predicted grave curtailment in MACV operations and
a danger that the operational objectives set for the force requirements
initially would not be achieved.
By 28 March the JCS through the CINCPAC group had the
detailed justification and planning calculations for the COMUSMACV
67 force requirements in hand. MACV had added little
that was new in the way of strategic concept other than to reaffirm
their intention to concentrate on certain priority areas in
each corps tactical zone. Priority areas themselves were selected
because they seemed best suited to achieve destruction or neutralization
of enemy main forces and bases-persistently prime MACV
goals. Despite this strong declaration of intent MACV hedged by
noting that "the enemy will be struck wherever he presents a
lucrative target." Forces would also be maintained by MACV
573
outside the priority areas to contain the enemy in his out of
country sanctuaries. In this connection, the planners anticipated
that there would be large scale offensive operations continuously
conducted during FY 68 to detect and destroy infiltration or invasion
forces in the DMZ-Highland Border regions.
If the forces outlined under the optimum force request were
granted priority was to be accorded to the expansion of secure
areas. The RVN AF would be given the primary responsibility of
providing military support of Revolutionary Development activities
and Revolutionary Development operations would be intensified
throughout the country as the pacified areas were expanded,
MACV explained that such increased demands on the RVNAF
would establish a concomitant demand for additional u.s. force
resources to fill the operational void resulting from the intensified
Revolutionary Development orientation of the RVNAF. The long
message also broke out the minimum essential and optimum package
forces by service and by total troop's as shown in the table
below.
STRENGTH STRENGTH STRENGTH
(2¥3 Div Min (2¥3 Div Addi- (TotaIOptiessential
Force) tion for optimum mum Force)
force package)
Army 69,359 100,527* 169,886
Navy 5,739 8,023 13,762
Air Force 5,368 9,891 15,259
Marines 110 0 110
TOTAL 80,576 118,441 199,017
The total optimum force end strength was 678,248 arrived at by
adding the approved Program 4 strength of 470,000 to the earlier
MACV reclama of 8,821 (see page 68 this section) and the "optimum
force" additive of 199,017. The justification for additional
forces broken out by corps tactical zones were essentially the
same as those presented in the original MACV request on 18
March. However, the later document prepared at PACOM Hqs
on the 28th reflected the increased concern with the enemy threat
developing in the I Corps tactical zone. Concerning this threat,
COMUSMACV wrote:
. . In I Corps tactical zone, the bulk of the population and
the food producing regions are within 15 miles of the coast. In
the northern part of the zone, multiple NV A Divisions possess
the capability to move south of the DMZ. Additionally, there is
constant enemy activity in much of the coastal area. The topography
of I Corps lends itself to the establishment and maintenance
of enemy base areas in the remote, sparsely populated regions.
The enemy has operated for years virtually unmolested throughout
*Includes 5,547 spaces required to incorporate MACV Study
recommendations.
574
most of Quang Ngai Province because friendly forces could not
be diverted from other important tasks.
There are several important tasks which must be performed in
I Corps. Security of bases and key population centers must be
maintained. The area under GVN control must be extended by
expanding existing TAOR's, and by opening and securing major
LOC's, particularly Route 1. The enemy must be contained in his
sanctuaries, and denied use of infiltration and invasion routes.
Enemy main forces and bases must be sought out and destroyed.
Surveillance and reconnaissance in force throughout the CTZ must
complement the tasks discussed above.
The deployment of a division and an armored cavalry regiment
to Quang Tri Province, south of the DMZ, would make it possible
for Marine Corps units now conducting containment operations to
secure and expand tactical areas of responsibility (T AOR's).
The RVNAF and U.S./FWMAF will intensify operations
against organized enemy forces and base areas in and near the
populated and food producing areas of the coastal plains thus
denying them access to population and food resources.
Clearing and securing operations will be pursued to facilitate
the expansion of the secured areas, the ultimate goal being to connect
the Hue-Phu Bai, Danang, and Chu Lai TAOR's. The following
major LOC's will be opened and secured: Route 9, from
Route 1 to Thon San Lam; and Route 1 and the railroad throughout
the entire length of I CTZ, including the spur to the An Hoa
industrial complex.
One of the most critical areas in the RVN today is Quang Ngai
Province. A division is required there to maintain continuous
pressure on the enemy, to eliminate his forces and numerous base
areas, and to remove his control over large population and food
resources.
Sustained employment of a division in Quang N gai would
obviate the necessity to use other forces to meet a critical
requirement.
The division would provide security for the coastal area,
facilitate opening and securing Route I and the railroad, and
relieve some of the pressure on northern Binh Dinh Province. Of
particular significance is the support which would be provided to
the RVNAF in securing the important Mo Due Area with its
dense population and three annual rice crops. Additionally, deployment
of the division as discussed above would allow III MAF
to expand its clearing and securing operations into the heavily
populated Tam Ky area north of the Chu Lai TAOR. Long term
security must be provided for both of these areas so that Revolutionary
Development can progress.
Failure to provide two and one-third divisions for I CTZ would
result in the diversion of existing forces from other tasks to deny
and defeat infiltration or invasion. Security in support of
Revolutionary
Development could not be increased to the desired degree
in the coastal area, the major LOC's could not be opened through-
575
out the CTZ, and the enemy would be able to continue operating
virtually unmolested throughout the key Quang Ngai Province.
It is emphasized that the relationship of the two and one-third
division force requirement for I Corps to that of Practice Nine is
coincidental. This force is the minimum essential required to support
operations planned for FY 68 without reference to Practice
Nine.
The next most dangerous situation appeared to be that in II
Corps, a diverse geographical area which included major population
centers along the coastal plains as well as sizeable population
centers and military bases on the western plateau such as Binh
Dinh, Anke, Kontum, and Pleiku. Here the enemy, orienting himself
on the population, presented a different problem which, in the
words of General Westmoreland, required "a high degree of
mobility and flexibility in U.S./FWMAF/RVNAF." As he analyzed
the corps tactical situation, Westmoreland re-emphasized
what he had already said about containing the large enemy military
forces at the boundaries of the sanctuaries:
Enemy forces in the Pleiku and Kontum areas must be destroyed,
and infiltration from Cambodia and Laos must be contained.
Forces in-country will continue to make progress in areas
of current deployment. Those programmed for deployment will
augment this effort. However, there are gaps, as discussed below,
that must be filled before success can be exploited and minimum
essential security can be provided within the II Corps area.
Large enemy forces remaining in heavily populated Binh Dinh
Province must be destroyed. Security must be established and
maintained in the northern portion of the province, particularly
along the coastal area, so that Revolutionary Development can
progress. These security forces also will facilitate the conduct of
operations in Quang N gai Province.
Inadequacy of forces in the border areas is a significant weakness
in II Corps. Reinforcement of units in the western highlands
is needed to assist in the conduct of offensive and containment
operations. With the large enemy forces located in border sanctuaries,
II Corps is faced constantly with the possible requirement
to divert critical resources from priority tasks to counter large
scale intrusion.
The most pressing military objective in III Corps area was to
expand security radically from the Saigon-Cholon area. MACV
planned to accomplish this primarily by standard clearing and
security operations featuring an intensified campaign conducted to.
root out the VC infrastructure. In conjunction with this, continuous
pressure presumably in the form of search and destroy operations
would be applied to the enemy in War Zones C and D, the
Iron Triangle, and the base area clusters in the Phuoc Long area.
Denial of these areas to the enemy would provide a pratective
shield behind which the Revolutionary Development programs
could operate. However, deployment of the u.s. 9th Division to
the 4th Corps area would create a gap in the farces available in
576
III Corps and seriously degrade the capability to provide this
shield. The possible repositioning of the assets existing within III
Corps to either I CTZ in the north or the 9th Division relocation
just to the south just mentioned could also seriously Limit the
offensive capabilities in the northern and central portion of III
Corps. Accordingly, COMUSMACV expressed an urgent requirement
for an additional division for III Corps. This unit would be
positioned just north of the Rung Sat operation zone and would
assist in maintaining the protective shield around Saigon-Cholon.
Revolutionary Development operations would then be able to proceed
unhindered and operations against the VC 5th Division could
be reinforced if required.
Throughout the force requirement justifications, one is immediately
struck by the implicit ordering of the priorities for assignment
of forces and missions. It is quite clear that the "minimum
essential force" which COMUSMACV requested was intended to
be employed against VC INV A main force units in a containment
role in the border areas and a destruction-disruption mode in
I CTZ as well as the base areas within the country itself. Those
forces over and above the "minimum essential," so labeled the
"optimum force," were those intended to take up the slack in the
RD "shield" role. MACV, probably rightly, calculated that not
even minimal gains such as were forthcoming in the under-manned
RD program would be possible unless the VCINV A main force
operations could be stymied and kept from directly assaulting the
"shields."
# 124
Joint Chiefs' April 20 Report to
McNamara on Troop Needs
Excerpts from Joint Chiefs of Staff Memorandum 218-67
to Secretary of Defense McNamara, Ap.,il 20, 1967, as provided
in the body of the Pentagon study. Paragraphs in
italics are the study's paraphrase or explanation.
On 20 April, the JCS, in JCSM-218-67, formally reported to
the Secretary of Defense that MACV required additional forces
to achieve the objectives they considered the U.S. was pursuing
in Vietnam. The JCS announcement came as Little surprise to the
Secretary of Defense since as early as 23 March he had seen the
original message in which COMUSMACV had outlined the minimum
essential and optimum force requirements.
JCSM 218-67 reaffirmed the basic objectives and strategic concepts
contained in JCSM 702-66 dated 4 November 1966. Briefly,
these entailed a national objective of attaining a stable and
independent non-communist government in South Vietnam and a fourfold
military contribution toward achieving the objectives of:
(a) Making it as difficult and costly as possible for the NVA
to continue effective support of the VC and to cause North Vietnam
to cease direction of the VC insurgency.
(b) To defeat the VC/NV A and force the withdrawal of NVA
forces.
(c) Extend government dominion, direction and control.
(d) To deter Chinese Communists from direct intervention In
SEA.
The JCS listed three general areas of military effort that they
felt should be pursued in the war:
(I) Operations against the Viet Cong/North Vietnamese Army
(VC/NV A) forces in SVN while concurrently assisting the South
Vietnamese Government in their nation-building efforts.
(2) Operations to obstruct and reduce the flow of men and
materials from North Vietnam (NV) to SVN.
(3) Operations to obstruct and reduce imports of war-sustaining
materials into NVN.
They continued by assessing the achievements of the U.S. and
allies in these three areas:
In the first area, the United States and its allies have achieved
considerable success in operations against VC/NV A forces. However,
sufficient friendly forces have not been made available to
bring that degree of pressure to bear on the enemy throughout
SVN which would be beyond his ability to accommodate and
which would provide the secure environment essential to sustained
progress in Revolutionary Development. The current reinforcement
of I crz by diversion of forces from II to III crZs reduces
the existing pressure in those areas and inevitably will cause a loss
of momentum that must be restored at the earliest practicable
date.
In the second area, U.S. efforts have achieved appreciable
success. Greater success could be realized if an expanded system
of targets were made available.
In the third area, relatively little effort has been permitted. This
failure to obstruct and reduce imports of war-sustaining materials
into NVN has affected unfavorably the desired degree of success
of operations in the other areas.
The Joint Chiefs strongly recommended not only the approval
of additional forces to provide an increased level of effort in SVN
but that action be taken to reduce and obstruct the enemy capability
to import the material support required to sustain the war
effort. They argued that the cumulative effect of all these operations,
in South Vietnam, in North Vietnam and against the enemy's
strategic lines of communication would hasten the successful conclusion
of the war and would most likely reduce the overall
ultimate force requirements. Their rationale for the 1968 forces
was summarized as follows:
The FY 1968 force for SVN is primarily needed to offset the
578
enemy's increased posture in the vicinity of the DMZ and to improve
the environment for Revolutionary Development in I and
IV crZs. To achieve the secure environment for lasting progress
in SVN, additional military forces must be provided in order to
(l) destroy the enemy main force, (2) locate and destroy district
and provincial guerrilla forces, and (3) provide security for the
population. The increased effort required to offset VC/NV A main
forces' pressure is diminishing the military capability to provide a
secure environment to villages and hamlets. Diversion of forces
from within SVN and the employment of elements of CINCPAC's
reserve are temporary measures at the expense of high-priority
programs in other parts of SVN. Thus, if sufficient units are to
be available to provide both direct and indirect support to
Revolutionary
Development throughout SVN, added forces must be
deployed.
The three-TFS force for Thailand and the additional Navy
forces in the South China Sea and the Gulf of Tonkin are required
to bring increased pressures to bear on NVN.
# 125
Notes on Johnson Discussion with
Wheeler and Westmoreland
Excerpts from the Pentagon study describing a conversation
on April 27, 1967, between President Johnson and
Generals Wheeler and Westmoreland. The narrative says
the conversation was reported in notes by John T. Mc-
Naughton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International
Security Affairs. Italicized emphasis and words in parentheses
are those of the Pentagon study.
Westmoreland was quoted as saying that without the 2Y3 additional
divisions which he had requested "we will not be in danger
of being defeated but it will be nip and tuck to oppose the
reinforcements
the enemy is capable of providing. In the final analysis
we are fighting a war of attrition in Southeast Asia."
Westmoreland predicted that the next step if we were to pursue
our present strategy to fruition would probably be the second
addition of 2Y3 divisions or approximately another 100,000 men.
Throughout the conversations he repeated his assessment that the
war would not be lost but that progress would certainly be slowed
down. To him this was "not an encouraging outlook but a realistic
one." When asked about the influence of increased infiltration
upon his operations the general replied that as he saw it "this war
is action and counteraction. Anytime we take an action we expect
a reaction." The President replied: "When we add divisions can't
the enemy add divisions? If so, where does it all end?" Westmoreland
answered: "The VC and DRV strength in SVN now totals
285,000 men. It appears that last month we reached the crossover
point in areas excluding the two northern provinces." (Emphasis
added.) "Attritions will be greater than additions to the force ....
The enemy has 8 divisions in South Vietnam. He has the capability
of deploying 12 divisions although he would have difficulty
supporting all of these. He would be hard pressed to support more
than 12 divisions. If we add 21/2 divisions, it is likely the enemy
will react by adding troops." The President then asked "At what
point does the enemy ask for volunteers?" Westmoreland's only
reply was, "That is a good question."
COMUSMACV briefly analyzed the strategy under the present
program of 470,000 men for the President. He explained his concept
of a "meatgrinder" where we would kill large numbers of
the enemy but in the end do little better than hold our own, with
the shortage of troops still restricting MACV to a fire brigade
technique-chasing after enemy main force units when and where
it could find them. He then predicted that "unless the will of the
enemy is broken or unless there was an unraveling of the VC
infrastructure the war could go on for 5 years. If our forces were
increased that period could be reduced although not necessarily
in proportion to increases in strength, since factors other than
increase in strength had to be considered. For instance, a
nonprofessional
force, such as that which would result from fulfilling
the requirement for 100,000 additional men by calling reserves,
would cause some degradation of normal leadership and effectiveness.
Westmoreland concluded by estimating that with a force
level of 565,000 men, the war could well go on for three years.
With a second increment of 2.1;3 divisions leading to a total of
665,000 men, it could go on for two years.
General Wheeler . . . listed three matters . . . which were
bothering the JCS. These were:
(a) DRV troop activity in Cambodia. U.S. troops may be
forced to move against these units in Cambodia.
(b) DRV troop activity in Laos. U.S. troops may be forced to
move against these units.
(c) Possible invasion of North Vietnam. We may wish to take
offensive action against the DRV with ground troops.
The bombing which had always attracted considerable JCS
attention was in Wheeler's estimation about to reach the point of
target saturation-when all worthwhile fixed targets except the
ports had been struck. Once this saturation level was reached the
decision-makers would be impelled to address the requirement to
deny to the North Vietnamese use of the ports. He summarized
the JCS position saying that the JCS firmly believed that the President
must review the contingencies which they faced, the troops
required to meet them and additional punitive action against
DRV. Westmoreland parenthetically added that he was "frankly
dismayed at even the thought of stopping the bombing program." ...
The President closed the meeting by asking: "What if we do
580
not add the 21/3 divisions?" General Wheeler replied first, observing
that the momentum would die; in some areas the enemy
would recapture the initiative, an important but hardly disastrous
development, meaning that we wouldn't lose the war but it would
be a longer one. He added that:
"Of the 2Y3 divisions, I would add one division on the DMZ to
relieve the Marines to work with ARVN on pacification; and I
would put one division east of Saigon to relieve the 9th Division
to deploy to the Delta to increase the effectiveness of the three
good ARVN divisions now there; the brigade I would send to
Quang Ngai to make there the progress in the next year that we
have made in Binh Dinh in the past year."
The President reacted by saying:
"We should make certain we are getting value received from the
South Vietnamese troops. Check the dischargees to determine
whether we could make use of them by forming additional units,
by mating them with US troops, as is done in Korea, or in other
ways."
There is no record of General Westmoreland's reply, if any ....
# 126
McGeorge Bundy's Memorandum to
Johnson in May on Bombing
Excerpts from memorandum for President Johnson from
McGeorge Bundy, headed "Memorandum on Vietnam
Policy," as provided in the body of the Pentagon study.
According to the study, the document bore no date but a
copy was marked in pencil "rec'd 5-4-67 12n." Paragraphs
in italics are the study's paraphrase or explanation.
Since the Communist turndown of our latest offers in February,
there has been an intensification of bombing in the North, and
press reports suggest that there will be further pressure for more
attacks on targets heretofore immune. There is also obvious pressure
from the military for further reinforcements in the South,
although General Westmoreland has been a model of discipline in
his public pronouncements. One may guess, therefore, that the
President will soon be confronted with requests for 100,000-
200,000 more troops and for authority to close the harbor in
Haiphong. Such recommendations are inevitable, in the framework
of strictly military analysis. It is the thesis of this paper that in
the main they should be rejected, and that as a matter of high
national policy there should be a publicly stated ceiling to the
level of American participation in Vietnam, as long as there is no
further marked escalation on the enemy side.
There are two major reasons for this recommendation: the
581
situation in Vietnam and the situation in the United States. As to
Vietnam, it seems very doubtful that further intensifications of
bombing in the North or major increases in U.S. troops in the
South are really a good way of bringing the war to a satisfactory
conclusion. As to the United States, it seems clear that uncertainty
about the future size of the war is now having destructive effects
on the national will.
Unlike the vocal critics of the Administrations, Mac Bundy was
not opposed 10 the bombing per se, merely to any further extension
of it since he felt such action would be counter-productive. Because
his views carry such weight, his arguments against extending
the bombing are reproduced below in full:
On the ineffectiveness of the bombing as a means to end the
war, I think the evidence is plain-though I would defer to expert
estimators. Ho Chi Minh and his colleagues simply are not going
to change their policy on the basis of losses from the air in North
Vietnam. No intelligence estimate that I have seen in the last two
years has ever claimed that the bombing would have this effect.
The President never claimed that it would. The notion that this
was its purpose has been limited to one school of thought and has
never been the official Government position, whatever critics may
assert.
I am very far indeed from suggesting that it would make sense
now to stop the bombing of the North altogether. The argument
for that course seems to me wholly unpersuasive at the present.
To stop the bombing today would be to give the Communists
something for nothing, and in a very short time all the doves in
this country and around the world would be asking for some
further unilateral concessions. (Doves and hawks are alike in their
insatiable appetites; we can't really keep the hawks happy by small
increases in effort-they come right back for more.)
The real justification for the bombing, from the start, has been
double-its value for Southern morale at a moment of great
danger, and its relation to Northern infiltration. The first reason
has disappeared but the second remains entirely legitimate. Tactical
bombing of communications and of troop concentrations and
of airfields as necessary-seems to me sensible and practical.
It is strategic bombing that seems both unproductive and unwise.
It is true, of course, that all careful bombing does some damage
to the enemy. But the net effect of this damage upon the military
capability of a primitive country is almost sure to be slight. (The
lights have not stayed off in Haiphong, and even if they had, electric
lights are in no sense essential to the Communist war effort.)
And against this distinctly marginal impact we have to weigh the
fact that strategic bombing does tend to divide the U.S., to distract
us all from the real struggle in the South, and to accentuate
the unease and distemper which surround the war in Vietnam,
both at home and abroad. It is true that careful polls show majority
support for the bombing, but I believe this support rests
upon an erroneous belief in its effectiveness as a means to end the
582
war. Moreover, I think those against extension of the bombing
are more passionate on balance than those who favor it. Finally,
there is certainly a point at which such bombing does increase the
risk of conflict with China or the Soviet Union, and I am sure
there is no majority for that. In particular, I think it clear that the
case against going after Haiphong Harbor is so strong that a
majority would back the Government in rejecting that course.
So I think that with careful explanation there would be more
approval than disapproval of an announced policy restricting the
bombing closely to activities that support the war in the South.
General Westmoreland's speech to the Congress made this tie-in,
but attacks on power plants really do not fit the picture very well.
We are attacking them, I fear, mainly because we have "run out"
of other targets. Is it a very good reason? Can anyone demonstrate
that such targets have been rewarding? Remembering the
claims made for attacks on [rest illegible].
In a similar fashion Bundy developed his arguments against a
major increase in U.S. troop strength in the South and urged the
President not to take any new initiatives for the present. But the
appeal of Bundy's analysis for the President must surely have
been its finale in which Bundy, acutely aware of the President's
political sensitivities, cast his arguments in the context of the
forthcoming
1968 Presidential elections. Here is how he presented the
case:
There is one further argument against major escalation in 1967
and 1968 which is worth stating separately, because on the surface
it seems cynically political. It is that Hanoi is going to do everything
it possibly can to keep its position intact until after our
1968 elections. Given their history, they are bound to hold out for
a possible U.S. shift in 1969-that's what they did against the
French, and they got most of what they wanted when Mendes
took power. Having held on so long this time, and having nothing
much left to lose--compared to the chance of victory-they are
bound to keep on fighting. Since only atomic bombs could really
knock them out (an invasion of North Vietnam would not do it
in two years, and is of course ruled out on other grounds), they
have it in their power to "prove" that military escalation does not
bring peace-at least over the next two years. They will surely do
just that. However much they may be hurting, they are not going
to do us any favors before November 1968. (And since this was
drafted, they have been publicly advised by Walter Lippmann to
wait for the Republicans-as if they needed the advice and as if
it was his place to give it!)
It follows that escalation will not bring visible victory over
Hanoi before the election. Therefore the election will have to be
fought by the Administration on other grounds. I think those
other grounds are clear and important, and that they will be
obscured if our policy is thought to be one of increasing-and
ineffective-military pressure.
If we assume that the war will still be going on in November
583
1968, and that Hanoi will not give us the pleasure of consenting
to negotiations sometime before then what we must plan to offer
as a defense of Administration policy is not victory over Hanoi,
but growing success-and self reliance-in the South. This we can
do, with luck, and on this side of the parallel, the Vietnamese
authorities should be prepared to help us out (though of course
the VC will do their damndest against us.) Large parts of Westy's
speech (if not quite all of it) were wholly consistent with this line
of argument. ...
If we can avoid escalation-that-does-not-seem-to-work, we can
focus attention on the great and central achievement of these last
two years: on the defeat we have prevented. The fact that South
Vietnam has not been lost and is not going to be lost is a fact
of truly massive importance in the history of Asia, the Pacific,
and the U.S. An articulate minority of "Eastern intellectuals" (like
Bill Fulbright) may not believe in what they call the domino
theory, but most Americans (along with nearly all Asians) know
better. Under this administration the United States has already
saved the hope of freedom for hundreds of millions--in this sense,
the largest part of the job is done. This critically important
achievement is obscured by seeming to act as if we have to do
much more lest we fail.
# 127
May 4 Memo on Force Levels by
Systems-Analysis Chief
Memorandum for Secretary McNamara, "Force Levels
and Enemy Attrition," from Alain C. Enthoven, Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Systems Analysis, May 4, 1967,
as provided in the body of the Pentagon study.
Although MACV has admitted to you that the VC/NV A forces
can refuse to fight when they want to, this fact has played no
role in MACV's analysis of strategy and force requirements. (For
example, in his October 1965 briefing, General DePuy said, "The
more often we succeed at (search and destroy operations) the
less often will the VC stand and fight.") Because enemy attrition
plays such a central role in MACV's thinking, and because the
enemy's degree of control over the pace of the action determines
how well he can control his attrition, we have taken a hard look
at the facts on the enemy's tactical initiative. From reliable, detailed
accounts of 56 platoon-sized and larger fire-fights in 1966
we have classified these fights according to how they developed.
The first four categories in the table all represent cases in which
the enemy willingly and knowingly stood and fought in a pitched
battle; these categories include 47 (84%) of the 56 battles. The
584
first three categories, enemy ambushes and assaults on our forces,
have 66% of the cases; these three plus category 4a, comprising
the cases where the enemy has the advantage of surprise, have
78% of the cases.
The results are independently confirmed from two sources.
First, the ARCOV study, which analyzed a different set of battles
in late 1965 and early 1966, found that 46% of the fights begin
as enemy ambushes and that the enemy starts the fight in 88%
of the cases; moreover, it found that 63% of the infantry targets
encountered were personnel in trenches or bunkers. Second, we
have analyzed the After-Action Reports submitted to MACV by
the line commanders in the field; although generally vague and
incomplete in their descriptions of what happened, they broadly
confirm the drift of the above numbers.
These results imply that the size of the force we deploy has
little effect on the rate of attrition of enemy forces. This conclusion
should scarcely surprise you in view of the trend of enemy
losses in 1966 and in view of the obvious sensitivity of mouth-to-mouth
enemy losses to his known strategic initiatives. What is
surprising to me is that MACV has ignored this type of information
in discussing force levels. I recommend that you inject this
factor into the discussion.
# 128
Rostow Memorandum of May 6 on
the Bombing Program
Excerpts from a memorandum by Walt W. Rostow,
Presidential assistant for national security, to Secretary of
State Dean Rusk, Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus
Vance, Under Secretary of State Nicholas deB. Katzenbach,
Assistant Secretary of Defense John T. McNaughton,
Assistant Secretary of State William P. Bundy and
Richard Helms, Director of Central Intelligence, dated
May 6, 1967, and headed "U.S. Strategy in Vietnam," as
provided in the body of the Pentagon study. Paragraphs
in italics are the study's paraphrase or explanation.
Rostow's paper began by reviewing what the U.S. was attempting
to do in the war: frustrate a Communist take-over "by defeating
their main force units; attacking the guerrilla infrastructure;
and building a South Vietnamese governmental and security structure
.... " The purpose of the air war in the North was defined
as "To hasten the decision in Hanoi to abandon the aggression
.. ," for which we specifically sought:
(i) to limit and harass infiltration; and
(ii) to impose on the North sufficient military and civil cost
585
to make them decide to get out of the war earlier rather than
later.
Sensitive to the criticisms of the bombing, Rostow tried to
dispose of certain of their arguments:
We have never held the view that bombing could stop infiltration.
We have never held the view that bombing of the Hanoi-
Haiphong area alone would lead them to abandon the effort in
the South. We have never held the view that bombing Hanoi-
Haiphong would directly cut back infiltration. We have held the
view that the degree of military and civilian cost felt in the
North and the diversion of resources to deal with our bombing
could contribute marginally-and perhaps significantly-to the
timing of a decision to end the war. But it was no substitute for
making progress in the South.
Rostow argued that while there were policy decisions to be
made about the war in the South, particularly with respect to
new force levels, there existed no real disagreement with the
Administration as to our general strategy on the ground. Where
contention did exist was in the matter of the air war. Here there
were three broad strategies that could be pursued. Rostow offered
a lengthy analysis of the three options . . .
A. CLOSING THE TOP OF THE FUNNEL
Under this strategy we would mine the major harbors and,
perhaps, bomb port facilities and even consider blockade. In
addition, we would attack systematically the rail lines between
Hanoi and mainland China. At the moment the total import
capacity into North Viet Nam is about 17,200 tons per day.
Even with expanded import requirement due to the food shortage,
imports are, in fact, coming in at about 5700 tons per day. It
is possible with a concerted and determined effort that we could
cut back import capacity somewhat below the level of requirements;
but this is not sure. On the other hand, it would require
a difficult and sustained effort by North Viet Nam and its allies
to prevent a reduction in total imports below requirements if we
did all these things.
The costs would be these:
-The Soviet Union would have to permit a radical increase
in Hanoi's dependence upon Communist China, or introduce
minesweepers, etc., to keep its supplies coming into Hanoi by
sea;
-The Chinese Communists would probably introduce many
more engineering and anti-aircraft forces along the roads and
rail lines between Hanoi and China in order to keep the supplies
moving;
-To maintain its prestige, in case it could not or would not
open up Hanoi-Haiphong in the face of mines, the Soviet Union
might contemplate creating a Berlin crisis. With respect to a
Berlin crisis, they would have to weigh the possible split between
586
the U.S. and its Western European allies under this pressure
against damage to the atmosphere of detente in Europe which
is working in favor of the French Communist Party and providing
the Soviet Union with generally enlarged influence in Western
Europe.
I myself do not believe that the Soviet Union would go to war
with us over Viet Nam unless we sought to occupy North Viet
Nam; and, even then, a military response from Moscow would
not be certain.
With respect to Communist China, it always has the option
of invading Laos and Thailand; but this would not be a rational
response to naval and air operations designed to strangle Hanoi.
A war throughout Southeast Asia would not help Hanoi; although
I do believe Communist China would fight us if we invaded the
northern part of North Viet Nam.
One can always take the view that, given the turmoil inside
Communist China, an irrational act by Peiping is possible. And
such irrationality cannot be ruled out.
I conclude that if we try to close the top of the funnel, tension
between ourselves and the Soviet Union and Communist China
would increase; if we were very determined, we could impose
additional burdens on Hanoi and its allies; we might cut capacity
below requirements; and the outcome is less likely to be a general
war than more likely.
B. ATTACKING WHAT IS INSIDE THE FUNNEL
This is what we have been doing in the Hanoi-Haiphong area
for some weeks. I do not agree with the view that the attacks
on Hanoi-Haiphong have no bearing on the war in the South.
They divert massive amounts of resources, energies, and attention
to keeping the civil and military establishment going. They impose
general economic, political, and psychological difficulties on
the North which have been complicated this year by a bad harvest
and food shortages. I do not believe that they "harden the will
of the North." In my judgment, up to this point, our bombing
of the North has been a painful additional cost they have thus
far been willing to bear to pursue their efforts in the South.
On the other hand:
-There is no direct, immediate connection between bombing
the Hanoi-Haiphong area and the battle in the South;
-If we complete the attack on electric power by taking out
the Hanoi station-which constitutes about 80% of the electric
power supply of the country now operating-we will have hit
most of the targets whose destruction imposes serious military civil
costs on the North.
-With respect to risk, it is unclear whether Soviet warnings
about our bombing Hanoi-Haiphong represent decisions already
taken or decisions which might be taken if we persist in banging
away in that area.
587
It is my judgment that the Soviet reaction will continue to be
addressed to the problem imposed on Hanoi by us; that is, they
might introduce Soviet pilots as they did in the Korean War; they
might bring ground-to-ground missiles into North Viet Nam
with the object of attacking our vessels at sea and our airfields
in the Danang area.
I do not believe that the continuation of attacks at about the
level we have been conducting them in the Hanoi-Haiphong area
will lead to pressure on Berlin or a general war with the Soviet
Union. In fact, carefully read, what the Soviets have been trying
to signal is: Keep away from our ships; we may counter-escalate
to some degree; but we do not want a nuclear confrontation over
Viet Nam.
C. CONCENTRATION IN ROUTE PACKAGES 1 AND 2
The advantage of concentrating virtually all our attacks in
this area are three:
-We would cut our loss rate in pilots and planes;
-We would somewhat improve our harassment of infiltration
of South Viet Nam;
-We would diminish the risks of counter-escalatory action by
the Soviet Union and Communist China, as compared with courses
A and B.
He rejected course A as incurring too many risks with too
little return ... Here is how he formulated his conclusions:
With respect to Course B I believe we have achieved greater
results in increasing the pressure on Hanoi and raising the cost
of their continuing to conduct the aggression in the South than
some of my most respected colleagues would agree. I do not
believe we should lightly abandon what we have accomplished;
and specifically, I believe we should mount the most economical
and careful attack on the Hanoi power station our air tacticians
can devise. Moreover, I believe we should keep open the option
of coming back to the Hanoi-Haiphong area, depending upon
what we learn of their repair operations; and what Moscow's
and Peiping's reactions are; especially when we understand better
what effects we have and have not achieved thus far.
I believe the Soviet Union may well have taken certain countersteps
addressed to the more effective protection of the Hanoi-
Haiphong area and may have decided-or could shortly decide to
introduce into North Viet Nam some surface-to-surface missiles.
With respect to option C, I believe we should, while keeping
open the B option, concentrate our attacks to the maximum in
Route Packages 1 and 2; and, in conducting Hanoi-Haiphong
attacks, we should do so only when the targets make sense. I
do not expect dramatic results from increasing the weight of
attacK in Route Packages 1 and 2; but I believe we are wasting
a good many pilots in the Hanoi-Haiphong area without com-
588
mensurate results. The major objectives of maintaining the B
option can be achieved at lower cost.
# 129
Secretary McNamara's Position of May 19
on Bombing and Troops
Excerpts from draft memorandum for the President from
the office of Secretary of Defense McNamara dated May
19, 1967, and headed "Future Actions in Vietnam." Text,
provided in the body of the Pentagon study, is labeled
"first rough draft-data and estimates have not been
checked." Paragraphs in italics are the study's paraphrase
or explanation.
By the 19th of May the opinions of McNa.mara and his key
aides with respect to the bombing and Westy's troop requests had
crystalized sufficiently that another Draft Presidential Memorandum
was written. It was entitled, "Future Actions in Vietnam,"
and was a comprehensive treatment of all aspects of the war military,
political, and diplomatic. It opened with an appraisal of
the situation covering both North and South Vietnam, the U.S.
domestic scene and international opinion. The estimate of the
situation in North Vietnam hewed very close to the opinions of
the intelligence community already referred to. Here is how the
analysis proceeded:
c. NORTH VIETNAM
Hanoi's attitude towards negotiations has never been soft nor
open-minded. Any concession on their part would involve an
enormous loss of face. Whether or not the Polish and Burchett-
Kosygin initiatives had much substance to them, it is clear that
Hanoi's attitude currently is hard and rigid. They seem uninterested
in a political settlement and determined to match U.S.
military expansion of the conflict. This change probably reflects
these factors: (1) increased assurances of help from the Soviets
received during Ph am Van Dong's April trip to Moscow; (2)
arrangements providing for the unhindered passage of materiel
from the Soviet Union through China; and (3) a decision to
wait for the results of the U.S. elections in 1968. Hanoi appears
to have concluded that she cannot secure her objectives at the
conference table and has reaffirmed her strategy of seeking to
erode our ability to remain in the South. The Hanoi leadership
has apparently decided that it has no choice but to submit to the
increased bombing. There continues to be no sign that the bombing
has reduced Hanoi's will to resist or her ability to ship the
589
necessary supplies south. Hanoi shows no signs of ending the
large war and advising the VC to melt into the jungles. The North
Vietnamese believe they are right; they consider the Ky regime
to be puppets; they believe the world is with them and that the
American public will not have staying power against them. Thus,
although they may have factions in the regime favoring different
approaches, they believe that, in the long run, they are stronger
than we are for the purpose. They probably do not want to make
significant concessions, and could not do so without serious loss
of face.
When added to the continuing difficulties in bringing the war
in the South under control, the unchecked erosion of u.S. public
support for the war, and the smoldering international disquiet
about the need and purpose of such U.S. intervention, it is not
hard to understand the DPM's statement that, "This memorandum
is written at a time when there appears to be no attractive course
of action." Nevertheless, 'alternatives' was precisely what the
DPM had been written to suggest. These were introduced with
a recapitulation of where we stood militarily and what the Chiefs
were recommending. With respect to the war in the North, the
DPM states:
Against North Vietnam, an expansion of the bombing program
(ROLLING THUNDER 56) was approved mid-April. Before
it was approved, General Wheeler said, "The bombing campaign
is reaching the point where we will have struck all worthwhile
fixed targets except the ports. At this time we will have to address
the requirement to deny the DRV the use of the ports." With its
approval, excluding the port areas, no major military targets
remain to be struck in the North. All that remains are minor
targets, restrikes of certain major targets, and armed reconnaissance
of the lines of communication (LOCs)-and, under new
principles, mining the harbors, bombing dikes and locks, and
invading North Vietnam with land armies. These new military
moves against North Vietnam, together with land movements into
Laos and Cambodia, are now under consideration by the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.
The broad alternative courses of action it considered were two:
Course A. Grant the request and intensify military actions
outside the South-especially against the North. Add a minimum
of 200,000 men-IOO,OOO (2Y:l division plus 5 tactical air squadrons)
would be deployed in FY 1968, another 100,000 (2V3
divisions and 8 tactical air squadrons) in FY 1969, and possibly
more later to fulfill the JCS ultimate requirement for Vietnam
and associated world-wide contingencies. Accompanying these
force increases (as spelled out below) would be greatly intensified
military actions outside South Vietnam-including in Laos and
Cambodia but especially against the North.
Course B. Limit force increases to no more than 30,000; avoid
extending the ground conflict beyond the borders of South Vietnam;
and concentrate the bombing on the infiltration routes south
590
of 20°. Unless the military situation worsens dramatically, add
no more than 9 battalions of the approved program of 87 battalions.
This course would result in a level of no more than
500,000 men (instead of the currently planned 470,000) on December
31, 1968. (See Attachment IV for details). A part of
this course would be a termination of bombing in the Red River
basin unless military necessity required it, and a concentration of
all sorties in North Vietnam on the infiltration routes in the neck
of North Vietnam, between 17° and 20° .
. . . This was the way the DPM developed the analysis of the
war segment of course of action A:
BOMBING PURPOSES AND PAYOFFS
Our bombing of North Vietnam was designed to serve three
purposes:
-(1) To retaliate and to lift the morals [sic] of the people in
the South who were being attacked by agents of the North.
-(2) To add to the pressure on Hanoi to end the war.
-(3) To reduce the flow and/or to increase the cost of infiltrating
men and material from North to South.
We cannot ignore that a limitation on bombing will cause
serious psychological problems among the men, officers and commanders,
who will not be able to understand why we should
withhold punishment from the enemy. General Westmoreland said
that he is "frankly dismayed at even the thought of stopping the
bombing program." But this reason for attacking North Vietnam
must be scrutinized carefully. We should not bomb for punitive
reasons if it serves no other purpose-especially if analysis shows
that the actions may be counterproductive. It costs American
lives; it creates a backfire of revulsion and opposition by killing
civilians; it creates serious risks; it may harden the enemy.
With respect to added pressure on the North, it is becoming
apparent that Hanoi may already have "written off" all assets
and lives that might be destroyed by U.S. military actions short
of occupation of annihilation [sic]. They can and will hold out at
least so long as a prospect of winning the "war of attrition" in
the South exists. And our best judgment is that a Hanoi prerequisite
to negotiations is significant retrenchment (if not complete
stoppage of U.S. military actions against them-at the least,
a cessation of bombing. In this connection, Consul-General Rice
(Hong Kong 7581, 5/1/67) said that, in his opinion, we cannot
by bombing reach the critical level of pain in North Vietnam
and that, "below that level, pain only increases the will to fight."
Sir Robert Thompson said to Mr. Vance on April 28 that our
bombing, particularly in the Red River Delta, "is unifying North
Vietnam."
With respect to interdiction of men and materiel, it now appears
that no combination of actions against the North short of destruction
of the regime or occupation of North Vietnamese territory will
physically reduce the flow of men and materiel below
the relatively small amount needed by enemy forces to continue
the war in the South. Our effort can and does have severe disruptive
effects, which Hanoi can and does plan on and prestock
against. Our efforts physically to cut the flow meaningfully by
actions in North Vietnam therefore largely fail and, in failing,
transmute attempted interdiction into pain, or pressure on the
North (the factor discussed in the paragraph next above.) The
lowest "ceiling" on infiltration can probably be achieved by
concentration
on the North Vietnamese "funnel" south of 20° and
on the Trail in Laos.
But what if the above analyses are wrong? Why not escalate
the bombing and mine the harbors (and perhaps occupy southern
North Vietnam)-on the gamble that it would constrict the
flow, meaningfully limiting enemy action in the South, and that
it would bend Hanoi? The answer is that the costs and risks
of the actions must be considered.
The primary costs of course are U.S. lives: The air campaign
against heavily defended areas costs us one pilot in every 40
sorties. In addition, an important but hard-to-measure cost is
domestic and world opinion: There may be a limit beyond which
many Americans and much of the world will not permit the
United States to go. The picture of the world's greatest superpower
killing or seriously injuring 1,000 non-combatants a week,
while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission
on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one.
It could conceivably produce a costly distortion in the American
national consciousness and in the world image of the United
States-especially if the damage to North Vietnam is complete
enough to be "successful."
The most important risk, however, is the likely Soviet, Chinese
and North Vietnamese reaction to intensified US air attacks,
harbor-mining, and ground actions against North Vietnam.
LIKELY COMMUNIST REACTIONS
At the present time, no actions--except air strikes and artillery
fire necessary to quiet hostile batteries across the border-are
allowed against Cambodian territory. In Laos, we average 5,000
attack sorties a month against the infiltration routes and base
areas, we fire artillery from South Vietnam against targets in
Laos, and we will be providing 3-man leadership for each of
20 12-man U.S.-Vietnamese Special Forces teams that operate
to a depth of 20 kilometers into Laos. Against North Vietnam,
we average 8,000 or more attack sorties a month against all
worthwhile fixed and LOC targets; we use artillery against ground
targets across the DMZ; we fire from naval vessels at targets
ashore and afloat up to 19°; and we mine their inland waterways,
estuaries . . . up to 20°.
Intensified air attacks against the same types of targets, we
592
would anticipate, would lead to no great change in the policies
and reactions of the Communist powers beyond the furnishing
of some new equipment and manpower. China, for example, has
not reacted to our striking MIG fields in North Vietnam, and
we do not expect them to, although there are some signs of
greater Chinese participation in North Vietnamese air defense.
Mining the harbors would be much more serious. It would
place Moscow in a particularly galling dilemma as to how to
preserve the Soviet position and prestige in such a disadvantageous
place. The Soviets might, but probably would not, force a confrontation
in Southeast Asia-where even with minesweepers
they would be at as great a military disadvantage as we were
when they blocked the corridor to Berlin in 1961, but where their
vital interest, unlike ours in Berlin (and in Cuba), is not so clearly
at stake. Moscow in this case should be expected to send volunteers,
including pilots, to North Vietnam; to provide some new
and better weapons and equipment; to consider some action in
Korea, Turkey, Iran, the Middle East or, most likely, Berlin, where
the Soviets can control the degree of crisis better; and to show
across-the-board hostility toward the U.S. (interrupting any ongoing
conversations on ABMs, non-proliferation, etc.). China could
be expected to seize upon the harbor-mining as the opportunity
to reduce Soviet political influence in Hanoi and to discredit the
USSR if the Soviets took no military action to open the ports.
Peking might read the harbor-mining as indicating that the U.S.
was going to apply military pressure until North Vietnam capitulated,
and that this meant an eventual invasion. If so, China
might decide to intervene in the war with combat troops and air
power, to which we would eventually have to respond by bombing
Chinese airfields and perhaps other targets as well. Hanoi would
tighten belts, refuse to talk, and persevere-as it could without
too much difficulty. North Vietnam would of course be fully
dependent for supplies on China's will, and Soviet influence in
Hanoi would therefore be reduced. (Ambassador Sullivan feels
very strongly that it would be a serious mistake, by our actions
against the port, to tip Hanoi away from Moscow and toward
Peking.)
To U.S. ground actions in North Vietnam, we would expect
China to respond by entering the war with both ground and air
forces. The Soviet Union could be expected in these circumstances
to take all actions listed above under the lesser provocations and
to generate a serious confrontation with the United States at
one or more places of her own choosing.
The arguments against Course A were summed up in a final
paragraph:
Those are the likely costs and risks of COURSE A. They are,
we believe, both unacceptable and unnecessary. Ground action
in North Vietnam, because of its escalatory potential, is clearly
unwise despite the open invitation and temptation posed by
enemy troops operating freely back and forth across the DMZ.
593
Yet we believe that, short of threatening and perhaps toppling
the Hanoi regime itself, pressure against the North will, if anything,
harden Hanoi's unwillingness to talk and her settlement
terms if she does. China, we believe, will oppose settlement
throughout. We believe that there is a chance that the Soviets,
at the brink, will exert efforts to bring about peace; but we believe
also that intensified bombing and harbor-mining, even if coupled
with political pressure from Moscow, will neither bring Hanoi to
negotiate nor affect North Vietnam's terms.
With Course A rejected, the DPM turned to consideration of
the levelling-off proposals of Course B. The analysis of the deescalated
bombing program of this option proceeded in this manner:
The bombing program that would be a part of this strategy is,
basically, a program of concentration of effort on the infiltration
routes near the south of North Vietnam. The major infiltration-related
targets in the Red River basin having been destroyed,
such interdiction is now best served by concentration of all effort
in the southern neck of North Vietnam. All of the sorties would
be flown in the area between 17° and 20°. This shift, despite
possible increases in anti-aircraft capability in the area, should
reduce the pilot and aircraft loss rates by more than 50 per cent.
The shift will, if anything, be of positive military value to General
Westmoreland while taking some steam out of the popular effort
in the North.
The above shift of bombing strategy, now that almost all major
targets have been struck in the Red River basin, can to military
advantage be made at any time. It should not be done for the
sole purpose of getting Hanoi to negotiate, although that might
be a bonus effect. To maximize the chances of getting that bonus
effect, the optimum scenario would probably be (1) to inform
the Soviets quietly that within a few days the shift would take
place, stating no time limits but making no promises to return
to the Red River basin to attack targets which later acquire military
importance (any deal with Hanoi is likely to be midwifed
by Moscow); (2) to make the shift as predicted, without fanfare;
and (3) to explain publicly, when the shift had become
obvious, that the northern targets had been destroyed, and that that
had been militarily important, and that there would be no need
to return to the northern areas unless military necessity dictated
it. The shift should not be huckstered. Moscow would almost
certainly pass its information on to Hanoi, and might urge Hanoi
to seize the opportunity to de-escalate the war by talks or otherwise.
Hanoi, not having been asked a question by us and having no
ultimatum-like time limit, would be in a better posture to answer
favorably than has been the case in the past. The military side of
the shift is sound, however, whether or not the diplomatic spillover
is successful.
In a section dealing with diplomatic and political considerations,
the DPM outlined the political view of the significance of the
594
struggle as seen by the U.S. and by Hanoi. It then developed a
conception of large U.S. interests in Asia around the necessity of
containing China. This larger interest required settling the Vietnam
war into perspective as only one of three fronts that required
U.S. attention (the other two being Japan-Korea and India-
Pakistan). In the overall view, the DPM argued, long-run trends
in Asia appeared favorable to our interests:
The fact is that the trends in Asia today are running mostly
for, not against, our interests (witness Indonesia and the Chinese
confusion); there is no reason to be pessimistic about our ability
over the next decade or two to fashion alliances and combinations
(involving especially Japan and India) sufficient to keep China
from encroaching too far. To the extent that our original intervention
and our existing actions in Vietnam were motivated by the
perceived need to draw the line against Chinese expansionism in
Asia, our objective has already been attained, and COURSE B
will suffice to consolidate it!
With this perspective in mind the DPM went on to reconsider
and restate U.S. objectives in the Vietnam contest under the heading
"Commitment and Hopes Distinguished":
The time has come for us to eliminate the ambiguities from
our minimum objectives-our commitments-in Vietnam. Specifically,
two principles must be articulated, and policies and actions
brought in line with them: (1) Our commitment is only to see
that the people of South Vietnam are permitted to determine their
own future. (2) This commitment ceases if the country ceases to
help itself.
It follows that no matter how much we might hope for some
things, our commitment is not:
-to expel from South Vietnam regroupees, who are South
Vietnamese (thought we do not like them),
-to ensure that a particular person or group remains in
power, nor that the power runs to every corner of the land
(though we prefer certain types and we hope their writ will run
throughout South Vietnam),
-to guarantee that the self-chosen government is non-Communist
(though we believe and strongly hope it will be), and
-to insist that the independent South Vietnam remain separate
from North Vietnam (though in the short-run, we would prefer
it that way).
(Nor do we have an obligation to pour in effort out of proportion
to the effort contributed by the people of South Vietnam
or in the face of coups, corruption, apathy or other indications
of Saigon failure to cooperate effectively with us.)
We are committed to stopping or off setting the effect of North
Vietnam's application of force in the South, which denies the
people of the South the ability to determine their own future.
Even here, however, the line is hard to draw. Propaganda and
political advice by Hanoi (or by Washington) is presumably
not barred; nor is economic aid or economic advisors. Less clear
595
is the rule to apply to military advisors and war materiel supplied
to the contesting factions.
The importance of nailing down and understanding the implications
of our limited objectives cannot be overemphasized. It
relates intimately to strategy against the North, to troop requirements
and missions in the South, to handling of the Saigon government,
to settlement terms, and to US domestic and international
opinion as to the justification and the success of our efforts on
behalf of Vietnam.
This articulation of American purposes and commitments in
Vietnam pointedly rejected the high blown formulations of U.S.
objectives in NSAM 88 ["an independent non-communist South
Vietnam," "defeat the Viet Cong," etc.], and came forcefully to
grips with the old dilemma of the U.S. involvement dating from
the Kennedy era: only limited means to achieve excessive ends.
Indeed, in the following section of specific recommendations, the
DPM urged the President to, "issue a NSAM nailing down U.S.
policy as described herein." The emphasis in this scaled down set
of goals, clearly reflecting the frustrations of failure, was South
Vietnamese self-determination. The DPM even went so far as to
suggest that, "the South will be in position, albeit imperfect, to
start the business of producing a full-spectrum government in
South Vietnam." What this amounted to was a recommendation
that we accept a compromise outcome. Let there be no mistake
these were radical positions for a senior U.S. policy official within
the Johnson Administration to take. They would bring the bitter
condemnation of the Chiefs and were scarcely designed to flatter
the President on the success of his efforts to date.. That they
represented a more realistic mating of U.S. strategic objectives
and capabilities is another matter.
The scenario for the unfolding of the recommendations in the
DPM went like this:
(4) June: Concentrate the bombing of North Vietnam on
physical interdiction of men and materiel. This would mean
terminating, except where the interdiction objective clearly dictates
otherwise, all bombing north of 200 and improving interdiction
as much as possible in the infiltration "funnel" south of 200 by
concentration of sorties and by an all-out effort to improve detection
devices, denial weapons, and interdiction tactics.
(5) July: Avoid the explosive Congressional debate and U.S.
Reserve call-up implicit in the Westmoreland troop request.
Decide that, unless the military situation worsens dramatically,
U.S. deployments will be limited to Program 4-plus (which according
to General Westmoreland, will not put us in danger of
being defeated, but will mean slow progress in the South). Associated
with this decision are decisions not to use large numbers
of U.S. troops in the Delta and not to use large numbers of them
in grassroots pacification work.
(6) September: Move the newly elected Saigon government
well beyond its National Reconciliation program to seek a political
596
settlement with the non-Communist members of the NLF-to
explore a cease-fire and to reach an accommodation with the
non-Communist South Vietnamese who are under the VC banner;
to accept them as members of an opposition political party, and,
if necessary, to accept their individual participation in the national
government-in sum, a settlement to transform the members of
the VC from military opponents to political opponents.
(7) October: Explain the situation to the Canadians, Indians,
British, UN and others, as well as nations now contributing
forces, requesting them to contribute border forces to help make
the inside-South Vietnam accommodation possible, and-consistent
with our desire neither to occupy nor to have bases in Vietnam offering
to remove later an equivalent number of U.S. forces.
(This initiative is worth taking despite its slim chance of success.)
Having made the case tor de-escalation and compromise, the
DPM ended on a note ot candor with a clear statement ot its
disadvantages and problems:
The difficulties with this approach are neither few nor small:
There will be those who disagree with the circumscription of
the U.S. commitment (indeed, at one time or another, one U.S.
voice or another has told the Vietnamese, third countries, the
U.S. Congress, and the public of "goals" or "objectives" that go
beyond the above bare-bones statement of our "commitment");
some will insist that pressure, enough pressure, on the North
can payoff or that we will have yielded a blue chip without
exacting a price in exchange for our concentrating on interdiction;
many will argue that denial of the larger number of troops will
prolong the war, risk losing it and increase the casualties of the
Americans who are there; some will insist that this course reveals
weakness to which Moscow will react with relief, contempt and
reduced willingness to help, and to which Hanoi will react by
increased demands and truculence; others will point to the difficulty
of carrying the Koreans, Filipinos, Australians and New Zealanders
with us; and there will be those who point out the possibility
that the changed U.S. tone may cause a "rush for the exits" in
Thailand, in Laos and especially inside South Vietnam, perhaps
threatening cohesion of the government, morale of the army, and
loss of support among the people. Not least will be the alleged
impact on the reputation of the United States and of its President.
Nevertheless, the difficulties of this strategy are fewer and smaller
than the difficulties of any other approach.
597
# 130
William Bundy's May 30 Memo on Reasons
for U.S. Involvement
Excerpts from memorandum from Assistant Secretary of
State Bundy, circulated at State and Defense Departments,
May 30, 1967, as provided in the body of the Pentagon
study. Paragraphs in italics are the study's paraphrase or
explanation.
William Bundy at State drafted comments on the DPM on May
30 and circulated them at State and Defense. In his rambling and
sometimes contradictory memo, Bundy dealt mainly with the
nature and scope of the U.S. commitment-as expressed in the
DPM and as he saw it. He avoided any detailed analysis of the
two military options and focused his attention on the strategic
reasons for American involvement; the objectives we were after;
and the terms under which we could consider closing down the
operation. His memo began with his contention that:
The gut point can almost be summed up in a pair of sentences.
If we can get a reasonably solid GVN political structure and
GVN performance at all levels, favorable trends could become
really marked over the next 18 months, the war will be won
for practical purposes at some point, and the resulting peace will
be secured. On the other hand, if we do not get these results
from the GVN and the South Vietnamese people, no amount of
U.S. effort will achieve our basic objective in South Viet-Nama
return to the essential provisions of the Geneva Accords of
1954 and a reasonably stable peace for many years based on
these Accords.
It is the view of the central importance of the South that dominates
the remainder of Bundy's memo. But his own thinking was
far from clear about how the U.S. should react to a South Vietnamese
failure for at the end of it he wrote:
None of the above decides one other question clearly implicit
in the DOD draft. What happens if "the country ceases to help
itself." If this happens in the literal sense, if South Viet-Nam
performs so badly that it simply is not going to be able to govern
itself or to resist the slightest internal pressure, then we would
agree that we can do nothing to prevent this. But the real underlying
question is to what extent we tolerate imperfection, even
gross imperfection, by the South Vietnamese while they are still
under the present grinding pressure from Hanoi and the NLF.
This is a tough question. What do we do if there is a military
coup this summer and the elections are aborted? There would
then be tremendous pressure at home and in Europe to the effect
that this negated what we were fighting for, and that we should
pull out.
598
But against such pressure we must reckon that the stakes in
Asia will remain. After all, the military rule, even in peacetime,
in Thailand, Indonesia, and Burma. Are we to walk away from
the South Vietnamese, at least as a matter of principle, simply
because they failed in what was always conceded to be a courageous
and extremely difficult effort to become a true democracy
during a guerrilla war?
Bundy took pointed issue with DPM's reformulation of V.S.
objectives. Starting with the DPM's discussion of V.S. larger
interests in Asia, Bundy argued that:
In Asian eyes, the struggle is a test case, and indeed much
more black-and-white than even we ourselves see it. The Asian
view bears little resemblance to the breast-beating in Europe or
at home. Asians would quite literally be appalled-and this includes
India-if we were to pull out from Viet-Nam or if we
were to settle for an illusory peace that produced Hanoi control
over all Viet-Nam in short order.
In short, our effort in Viet-Nam in the past two years has not
only prevented the catastrophe that would otherwise have unfolded
but has laid a foundation for a progress that now appears truly
possible and of the greatest historical significance.
Having disposed of what he saw as a misinterpretation of Asian
sentiment and V.S. interests there, Bundy now turned to the
DPM's attempt to minimize the V.S. commitment in Vietnam. He
opposed the DPM language because in his view it dealt too heavily
with our military commitment to get NV A off the South Vietnamese
back, and not enough with the equally important commitment,
to assure that "the political board in South Vietnam is not
tilted to the advantage of the NLF." Bundy's conception of the
V.S. commitment was twofold:
-To prevent any imposed political role for the NLF in South
Vietnamese political life, and specifically the coalition demanded
by point 3 of Hanoi's Four Points, or indeed any NLF part in
government or political life that is not safe and acceptable voluntarily
to the South Vietnamese Government and people.
-To insist in our negotiating position that "regroupees," that
is, people originally native to South Viet-Nam who went North
in 1954 and returned from 1959 onward, should be expelled as
a matter of principle in the settlement. Alternatively, such people
could remain in South Viet-Nam if, but only if, the South Vietnamese
Government itself was prepared to receive them back
under a reconciliation concept, which would provide in essence
that they must be prepared to accept peaceful political activity
under the Constitution (as the reconciliation appeal now does).
This latter appears to be the position of the South Vietnamese
Government, which-as Tran Van Do has just stated in Geneva argues
that those sympathetic to the Northern system of government
should go North, while those prepared to accept the Southern
system of government may stay in the South. Legally, the first
alternative is sound, in that Southerners who went North in 1954
599
became for all legal and practical purposes Northern citizens and
demonstrated their allegiance. But if the South Vietnamese prefer
the second alternative, it is in fact exactly' comparable to the
regroupment provisions of the 1954 Accords, and can legally be
sustained. But in either case the point is that the South Vietnamese
are not obliged to accept as citizens people whose total pattern of
conduct shows that they would seek to overthrow the structure
of government by force and violence.
The remainder of Bundy's comments were addressed to importance
of this last point. The U.S. could not consider withdrawing
its forces until not only the North Vietnamese troops but also
the regroupees had returned to the North. Nowhere in his comments
does he specifically touch on the merits of the two military
options, but his arguments all seem to support the tougher of the
two choices (his earlier support of restricting the bombing thus
seems paradoxical). He was, it is clear, less concerned with immediate
specific decisions on a military phase of the war than
with the long term consequences of this major readjustment of
American sights in Southeast Asia.
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