Washington,
January 6, 1965
Source: Department
of State, Bundy Files: Lot 85 D 240, WPB Chron, January-March
1965. Top Secret. Printed also in Pentagon Papers: Gravel
Edition, vol. IV, pp. 684-686.
SUBJECT
Notes on the South Vietnamese Situation and Alternatives
For your meeting
this afternoon with the President,(2) and even
though Ambassador Taylor's incoming messages have not been released
by the President except to yourself and Mr. Ball, I thought it
might be helpful to have notes prepared among Mike Forrestal,
Len Unger, and myself.
1. I think
we must accept that Saigon morale in all quarters is now very
shaky indeed, and that this relates directly to a widespread feeling
that the US is not ready for stronger action and indeed is possibly
looking for a way out. We may regard this feeling as irrational
and contradicted by our repeated statements, but Bill Sullivan
was very vivid in describing the existence of such feelings in
October,(3) and we must honestly concede that
our actions and statements since the election have not done anything
to offset it. The blunt fact is that we have appeared to the Vietnamese
(and to wide circles in Asia and even in Europe) to be insisting
on a more perfect government than can reasonably be expected,
before we consider any additional action--and that we might even
pull out our support unless such a government emerges. We have
not yet been able to assess the over-all impact of the continuing
political crises and of the Binh Gia military defeat,(4)
but there are already ample indications that they have had a sharp
discouraging effect just in the last two weeks.
2. By the
same token, it is apparent that Hanoi is extremely confident,
and that the Soviets are being somewhat tougher and the Chinese
Communists are consolidating their ties with Hanoi. All three
have called for a Laos conference without preconditions but have
refrained from mentioning a conference on Vietnam. We think the
explanation is extremely simple: that they are not too happy with
the way things have gone in Laos, but that they see Vietnam falling
into their laps in the fairly near future. At the same time, as
to Laos, none of us think that the Communist side would concede
in any meaningful fashion on any of the preconditions; they probably
hope that Souvanna or we would abandon these preconditions, and
they probably share our judgment that for Souvanna to do so would
drastically weaken his own position in Vientiane if not destroy
it.
3. In key
parts of the rest of Asia, notably Thailand, our present posture
also appears weak. As such key parts of Asia see us, we looked
strong in May and early June, weaker in later June and July, and
then appeared to be taking a quite firm line in August with the
Gulf of Tonkin. Since then we must have seemed to be gradually
weakening--and, again, insisting on perfectionism in the Saigon
government before we moved. With all the weakness that we all
recognize in the Saigon political situation, the fact is that
it is not an unusual or unfamiliar one to an Asian mind, and that
our friends in Asia must well be asking whether we would support
them if they too had internal troubles in a confrontation situation.
4. The sum
total of the above seems to us to point--together with almost
certainty stepped-up Viet Cong actions in the current favorable
weather--to a prognosis that the situation in Vietnam is now likely
to come apart more rapidly than we had anticipated in November.
We would still stick to the estimate that the most likely form
of coming apart would be a government or key groups starting to
negotiate covertly with the Liberation Front or Hanoi, perhaps
not asking in the first instance that we get out, but with that
necessarily following at a fairly early stage. In one sense, this
would be a
"Vietnamese solution," with some hope that it would
produce a Communist Vietnam that would assert its own degree of
independence from Peiping and that would produce a pause in Communist
pressure in Southeast Asia. On the other hand, it would still
be virtually certain that Laos would then become untenable and
that Cambodia would accommodate in some way. Most seriously, there
is grave question whether the Thai in these circumstances would
retain any confidence at all in our continued support. In short,
the outcome would be regarded in Asia, and particularly among
our friends, as just as humiliating a defeat as any other form.
As events have developed, the American public would probably not
be too sharply critical, but the real question would be whether
Thailand and other nations were weakened and taken over thereafter.
5. The alternative
of stronger action obviously has grave difficulties. It commits
the US more deeply, at a time when the picture of South Vietnamese
will is extremely weak. To the extent that it included actions
against North Vietnam, it would be vigorously attacked by many
nations and disapproved initially even by such nations as Japan
and India, on present indications. Most basically, its stiffening
effect on the Saigon political situation would not be at all sure
to bring about a more effective government, nor would limited
actions against the southern DRV in fact sharply reduce infiltration
or, in
present circumstances, be at all likely to induce Hanoi to call
it off.
6. Nonetheless,
on balance we believe that such action would have some faint hope
of really improving the Vietnamese situation, and, above all,
would put us in a much stronger position to hold the next line
of defense, namely Thailand. Accepting the present situation--or
any negotiation on the basis of it--would be far weaker from this
latter key standpoint. If we moved into stronger actions, we should
have in mind that negotiations would be likely to emerge from
some quarter in any event, and that under existing circumstances,
even with the additional element of pressure, we could not expect
to get
an outcome that would really secure an independent South Vietnam.
Yet even on an outcome that produced a progressive deterioration
in South Vietnam and an eventual Communist takeover, we would
still have appeared to Asians to have done a lot more about it.
7. In specific
terms, the kinds of action we might take in the near future would
be:
a.
An early occasion for reprisal action against the DRV.
b.
Possibly beginning low-level reconnaissance of the DRV at once.
c.
Concurrently with a or b, an early orderly withdrawal of our
dependents. We all think this would be a grave mistake in the
absence of stronger action, and if taken in isolation would
tremendously increase the pace of deterioration in Saigon. If
we are to clear our decks in this way--and we are more and more
inclined to think we should--it simply must be, for this reason
alone, in the context of some stronger action.
d.
Intensified air operations in Laos may have some use, but they
will not meet the problem of Saigon morale and, if continued
at a high level, may raise significant possibilities of Communist
intervention on a substantial scale in Laos with some plausible
justification. We have gone about as far as we can go in Laos
by the existing limiting actions, and, apart from cutting Route
7, we would not be accomplishing much militarily by intensifying
US air actions there. This form of action thus has little further
to gain in the Laos context, and has no real bearing at this
point on the South Vietnamese context.
e.
Introduction of limited US ground forces into the northern area
of South Vietnam still has great appeal to many of us, concurrently
with the first air attacks into the DRV. It would have a real
stiffening effect in Saigon, and a strong signal effect to Hanoi.
On the disadvantage side, such forces would be possible attrition
targets for the Viet Cong. For your information, the Australians
have clearly indicated (most recently yesterday) that they might
be disposed to participate in such an operation. The New Zealanders
are more negative and a proposal for Philippine participation
would be an interesting test.
