by Neil Sheehan
On April 20—the day after the collapse of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba—President Kennedy ordered a quick review of the Vietnam situation. As quoted by Secretary McNamara, the President’s instructions were to “appraise . . . the Communist drive to dominate South Vietnam” and “recommend a series of actions (military, political and/or economic, overt and/or covert) which, in your opinion, will prevent Communist domination of that country.”
The task force, headed by Roswell L. Gilpatric, Deputy Secretary of Defense, turned in its report on April 27.
The report, quoted in the Pentagon study, recommended a 100-man increase in the American military advisory mission in Saigon, more American arms and aid for the Vietnamese regional forces known as the Civil Guard, the release of funds for a previously approved expansion of the South Vietnamese Army and the dropping of earlier conditions that President Diem undertake political and social reforms in return. Allied efforts, the report said, should be infused with a sense of urgency to impress friends and foes alike that “come what may, the U.S. intends to win this battle.” The emphasis was in the original report.
Even before the report was submitted, it was overtaken by events: The Laotian crisis was at its peak. President Kennedy met with the National Security Council on April 26 to decide whether to send troops into Laos. Late that night the Joint Chiefs of Staff alerted the commander in chief of Pacific forces, Adm. Harry D. Felt, “to be prepared to undertake air strikes against North Vietnam, and possibly southern China,” the account reports.
Overnight the Vietnam recommendations changed. “As insurance against a conventional invasion of South Vietnam” through the eastern, mountainous portions of Laos, the Gilpatric task force recommended quick expansion of the South Vietnamese Army by two divisions—40,000 men—plus the first major input of American troops, as training forces, according to the Pentagon study.
The April 28 “Laos annex,” the narrative recounts, called for “a 1,600-man [American] training team for each of the two new [South Vietnamese] divisions, plus a 400-man Special Forces contingent to speed up counterinsurgency forces: a total of 3,600 men.”
On April 29—described in the narrative as a day of “prolonged crisis meetings at the White House”—Admiral Felt was alerted to prepare to move one American combat brigade of 5,000 men with air elements to northeastern Thailand and another to Danang, on the South Vietnamese coast, as a threat to intervene in Laos. “Decision to make these deployments not firm,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff cabled Admiral Felt. The tactics were directly related to the Laos crisis.
Acting on Vietnam that day, the study reports, President Kennedy approved the modest 100-man increase in the American advisory mission and a few other steps suggested in the first Gilpatric task force’s report.
“The only substantial significance that can be read into these April 29 decisions,” the analyst writes, “is that they signaled a willingness to go beyond the 685-man limit of the U.S. military mission in Saigon.” Publicity would have entailed “the first formal breach of the Geneva agreements,” the study says, so the move was kept quiet.
By May 1 the acute fever of the Laos crisis had eased, the account goes on, and there was a “strong sense . . . that the U.S. would not go into Laos: that if the cease-fire failed, we would make a strong stand, instead, in Thailand and Vietnam.”
Vietnam planning was directly affected. The State Department drafted the first of several revisions to tone down the Gilpatric task force’s recommendations. When the task-force report finally went before the National Security Council on May 9, the study recounts, the State Department had largely prevailed. Shortly before that the White House announced that Vice President Johnson was leaving within days for a trip to Saigon and other Asian capitals.
The final task-force report, quoted in the Pentagon account, recommended the deployment of 400 Special Forces soldiers and an immediate Pentagon study of a further build-up “in preparation for possible commitment of U.S. forces to Vietnam, which might result from an N.S.C. decision following discussions between Vice President Johnson and President Diem.” The idea of sending 3,200 other soldiers right away was dropped.
In place of a Pentagon proposal made on May 1 for unilateral American intervention in Vietnam if that became necessary to “save the country from Communism,” the final report by the Gilpatric task force proposed a new “bilateral arrangement with Vietnam.”
“On the grounds that the Geneva accords have placed inhibitions upon Free World action while at the same time placing no restrictions upon the Communists,” the report said, “Ambassador Nolting should be instructed to enter into preliminary discussions with Diem regarding the possibility of a defensive security alliance despite the inconsistency of such action with the Geneva accords . . . . Communist violations, therefore, justify the establishment of the security arrangements herein recommended.”
A Sterner Objective
On May 11, two days after Vice President Johnson’s departure for Saigon, President Kennedy made his decisions. As recorded in National Security Action Memorandum 52, a copy of which accompanies the Pentagon study, the American objective was stated more bluntly and more ambitiously than in typical public pronouncements. The memorandum said the American objective was “to prevent Communist domination of South Vietnam,” whereas six days earlier President Kennedy himself spoke at a news conference of a vaguer desire “to assist Vietnam to obtain its independence.”
The memorandum also specified measures that were not disclosed to the public: Presidential approval for the deployment of 400 Special Forces troops, for Ambassador Nolting to start negotiations on “a new bilateral arrangement with Vietnam” and for the initiation of a covert-warfare campaign against North Vietnam.
The one step, in the Pentagon analyst’s view, that involved the United States more than the President’s public statements suggested was the decision to send Special Forces. “Obviously the President was sold on their going,” the study comments, “and since the Vietnamese Special Forces were themselves supported by C.I.A. rather than the regular military-aid program, it was possible to handle these troops covertly.”
According to the documentary record, President Kennedy’s specific orders on covert warfare called for these steps:
• “Dispatch . . . agents to North Vietnam” for intelligence gathering.
• “Infiltrate teams under light civilian cover to southeast Laos to locate and attack Vietnamese Communist bases and lines of communications.”
• “In North Vietnam, using the foundation established by intelligence operations, from networks of resistance, covert bases and teams for sabotage and light harassment.”
• “Conduct overflights for dropping of leaflets to harass the Communists and to maintain morale of North Vietnamese population, and increase gray [unidentified-source] broadcasts to North Vietnam for the same purposes.”
• Train “the South Vietnamese Army to conduct ranger raids and similar military actions in North Vietnam as might prove necessary or appropriate.”
The documents also show that Mr. Kennedy approved plans “for the use in North Vietnam operations of civilian air crews of American and other nationality, as appropriate, in addition to Vietnamese.” The plans, quoted in full in the final report of the Gilpatric task force, designate the South Vietnamese Army’s First Observation Group, stationed at Nhatrang, as the main unit for carrying on unconventional warfare in Laos, South Vietnam and North Vietnam.
In July, 1961, General Lansdale submitted to General Taylor, the President’s military adviser, a preliminary report on preparations for this clandestine warfare. By that time, the report said, the First Observation Group had “some limited operations in North Vietnam and some shallow penetrations into Laos.” [See Document #22.]
The Lansdale report stated, however, that most of the unit’s operations had been directed against the Vietcong in South Vietnam and that this was being changed to focus it entirely on North Vietnam and Laos—“denied a
reas,” in official terminology.
“The plan is to relieve the group from these combat assignments [against the Vietcong] to ready its full strength for denied-areas missions,” General Lansdale said. As of July 6, the unit was to be expanded to 805 men from 340. “Personnel are volunteers who have been carefully screened by security organizations,” General Lansdale said. “Many are from North Vietnam. They have been trained for guerrilla operations at the group’s training center at Nhatrang.”
In addition, the Lansdale report said, 400 selected South Vietnamese soldiers, 60 montagnard tribesmen and 70 civilians were being formed into “additional volunteer groups, apart from the First Observation Group, for similar operations.” The general listed 50 Americans—35 from the Defense Department and 15 from the C.I.A.—engaged in training these groups and preparing other South Vietnamese intelligence and psychological-warfare operations. According to the Pentagon study, these were to be augmented by some of the 400 Special Forces soldiers President Kennedy ordered to the field on May 11.
The study does not report on the actual operations of the units during the Kennedy years.
Bernard Fall, in his history “The Two Vietnams,” published in 1963, described the organization of the First Observation Group into 15-man combat teams and 24-man support teams. “One such unit was captured near Ninhbinh (180 miles north of the 17th Parallel) in July, 1961, when its aircraft developed engine trouble,” Mr. Fall reported.
In July the Hanoi radio, as monitored by the United States Government, carried several English-language broadcasts on the incident, saying that North Vietnam had shot down a plane encroaching on its airspace and describing a number of American-made items to try to authenticate the plane’s origin. According to the broadcasts, the plane was marked in red letters “C-47,” the oil tank “Douglas Aircraft” and the radio apparatus “Bendix Radio, Baltimore, U.S.A.,” and some of the 10 men aboard carried “Colt” automatics. The generator was marked “Signal Corps U.S. Army,” one broadcast said.
The North Vietnamese Government announced plans to try three survivors on charges of sabotage and espionage, saying that they confessed to having been trained by Americans who gave them a map and traced out their flight route over North Vietnam. Hanoi protested the incident formally to Britain and the Soviet Union, as co-chairmen of the 1954 Geneva conference on Vietnam, asserting that since May 13, 1961—two days after President Kennedy’s orders were issued—the “U.S.-Diem regime” had “continuously carried out espionage and provocative acts against the North.”
The North Vietnamese Foreign Minister described the C-47 incident as “an extremely impudent violation of the Geneva agreements.” During July and August the North Vietnamese also broadcast descriptions of the build-up of the First Observation Group and the American organization and training of that unit, with details that corresponded almost exactly with the Lansdale report.
The North Vietnamese Government also formally protested several times to the International Control Commission that South Vietnamese units had conducted raids into the demilitarized zone separating the two Vietnams.
On Nov. 1 The New York Times carried a dispatch from Saigon quoting informants as reporting disaffection in North Vietnam and citing as evidence the sabotaging of an industrial plant at Vinh on Aug. 11 and other similar incidents.
Diem at the Fulcrum
President Kennedy’s decision in May deferred—but did not settle—the issue of combat troops for South Vietnam. Throughout the summer and fall of 1961 the Administration’s debate on that crucial matter was significantly affected by the attitude of President Diem, according to the Pentagon account. Initially, it relates, Vice President Johnson found the South Vietnamese leader reluctant; in midsummer he warmed to the idea somewhat; by fall he was appealing to the United States to become a co-belligerent.
The Vietnam troop decisions were also affected by the confrontation with the Soviet Union over Berlin. At his meeting in Vienna with Premier Khrushchev in June, President Kennedy managed to strike a general bargain to seek neutralization in Laos. But the Soviet leader applied pressure on the Berlin issue by threatening to sign a peace treaty with East Germany, making Western access to West Berlin extremely vulnerable. The tension on this issue mounted—and overshadowed developments in Southeast Asia—until, on Oct. 17, Premier Khrushchev dropped the idea of the peace treaty with East Germany.
Vice President Johnson, on his whirlwind mission through Asia to bolster the confidence of America’s allies, met with President Diem on May 12. According to an embassy report of their meeting, when Mr. Johnson raised the possibility of sending American combat units to Vietnam or working out a bilateral defense treaty, he found Mr. Diem uninterested. The embassy report quoted President Diem as saying he wanted American combat troops only in the event of an open invasion.
In his private report to President Kennedy on May 23, the Vice President painted American alternatives in Asia in blacks and whites, giving Thailand and Vietnam pivotal significance. “We must decide whether to help these countries to the best of our ability,” he declared, “or throw in the towel in the area and pull back our defenses to San Francisco and a ‘Fortress America’ concept.” [See Document #21.]
Nonetheless, alluding to President Diem’s response on the troop question, Mr. Johnson told Mr. Kennedy: “Asian leaders—at this time—do not want American troops involved in Southeast Asia other than on training missions. . . . This does not minimize or disregard the probability that open attack would bring calls for U.S. combat troops.”
If this seemed to close the issue for President Kennedy, as the study indicates, it was not the last word from President Diem. Responding to a suggestion from Vice President Johnson, the South Vietnamese leader spelled out his military proposals in a letter to President Kennedy on June 9.
The letter, quoted extensively in the Pentagon account, urged a major expansion of the South Vietnamese Army, from 170,000 to 270,000 men, accompanied by “considerable” United States build-up with “selected elements of the American armed forces.” President Diem said that the increases were needed “to counter the ominous threat” of Communist domination—a threat that he documented by what the study calls “inflated infiltration figures.”
The plea for “selected elements of the American armed forces,” according to the Pentagon narrative, sounded “very much like” a request for the kind of forces that the Defense Department had proposed in April and that the American advisory mission in Saigon was urging in midsummer.
The real interest of the Joint Chiefs and other military officers, the account says, was “in getting U.S. combat units into Vietnam, with the training mission a possible device for getting this accepted by Diem” and by civilian leaders in Washington.
The White House, preoccupied by Berlin, sidestepped the issue by agreeing in August to finance a much more modest increase in the Vietnamese Army—30,000 men—and by postponing any build-up of American advisers, according to the study.
Moreover, the writer suggests that the White House was already developing other ideas about Southeast Asia. During the summer discussions, Mr. Rostow once again produced proposals that, in the study’s words, were a “quite exact” prescription for President Kennedy’s decisions in the fall. In what is described in the account as a handwritten note to Secretary McNamara on a piece of scratch paper, probably passed by hand during a meeting about June 5, Mr. Rostow said:
“Bob:
“We must think of the kind of forces and missions for Thailand now, Vietnam later.
“We need a guerrilla deterrence operation in Thailand’s northeast.
“We shall need forces to support a counterguerrilla war in Vietnam:
“aircraft
“helicopters
“communications men
“special forces
“militia teachers
“etc.
“WWR”
The emphasis on deterrence was Mr. Rostow’s.
In late fa
ll President Diem jolted the Kennedy Administration into its most urgent consideration of the troop issue—and its most significant military decisions—with a sudden, secret request for the bilateral defense treaty he previously spurned.
On Sept. 29 the study recounts, Mr. Diem had a gloomy meeting with American officials, and Ambassador Nolting sent Washington this cablegram:
“Diem asked for bilateral defense treaty. Large and unexplained request. Serious. Put forward as result of Diem’s fear of outcome of Laos situation, SVN vulnerability to increased infiltration, feelings that SEATO action would be inhibited by U.K. and France in the case of SVN as in Laos. . . .
“Our reaction is that the request should be seriously and carefully treated to prevent feeling that U.S. is not serious in intention to support SVN. But see major issues including overriding Article 19, Geneva accords, possible ratification problems as well as effect on SEATO.
“Diem’s request arises from feeling that U.S. policy on Laos will expose his flank [to] infiltration and lead to large-scale hostilities in SVN. So seeking a stronger commitment than he thinks he has now through SEATO.”
Admiral Felt, the Pacific commander, who was also present at the Sept. 29 meeting, cabled a fuller report several days later saying that President Diem wanted not only a treaty but also an accelerated American “military build-up.” Specifically, Admiral Felt said, the President pressed for a “large increase in advisers of all types” and American tactical air squadrons to help break up the larger Vietcong units that had recently been massing for attacks.
The Felt message explained that the stepped-up scale of combat in Vietnam was worrying President Diem as much as the threat of infiltration or attack from the Laotian side, if not more. It added: “Diem said VC now able to assemble large units, had extensive radio net, operating in one or more battalions with heavy arms capable of raiding principle cities in provinces. . . . Could enter a city, burn out stores, attack leaders, withdraw.”
