by Neil Sheehan
The Pentagon narrative explains that the Vietcong, now believed to be 17,000 strong, had nearly tripled the level of their attacks to 450 a month in September.
“The most spectacular attack, which seems to have had a shattering effect in Saigon,” the writer goes on, “was the seizure of Phuocthanh, a provincial capital only 55 miles from Saigon,” where the Vietcong held the town most of the day and publicly beheaded the province chief, departing before the South Vietnamese Army arrived.
For Washington the situation had become more alarming than it was in the spring. Then Laos was the primary cause of Vietnam’s jitters. “This time,” the study comments, “the problem was not directly Laos, but strong indications of moderate deterioration of Diem’s military position and very substantial deterioration of morale in Saigon.”
Even before President Diem’s request for a treaty, momentum for American intervention in Southeast Asia had been mounting.
By early October, the Pentagon papers recount, several proposals had emerged: The Joint Chiefs of Staff advocated allied intervention to seize and hold major portions of Laos, mainly to protect the borders of South Vietnam and Thailand; the “Rostow proposal” urged sending a force of about 25,000 men from the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization into Vietnam to try to guard the border with Laos; and several other plans suggested putting American forces into the Vietnamese Central Highlands or the port of Danang, with or without a training mission.
In the bureaucratic maneuvering that led up to the important National Security Council meeting of Oct. 11, a significant new element was injected.
For the first time, the study notes, a proposal was put before President Kennedy urging that the United States accept “as our real and ultimate objective the defeat of the Vietcong.” The analyst says this was suggested in a compromise paper drafted hastily by U. Alexis Johnson, Deputy Under Secretary of State. The paper said that “three divisions would be a guess” on the number of American troops needed but that a more precise estimate would be forthcoming from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The study describes this as a “somewhat confusing” blend of earlier proposals by Mr. Rostow and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put together on Oct. 10. “It was pretty clear,” the account continues, “that the main idea was to get some American combat troops into Vietnam, with the nominal excuse for doing so quite secondary.”
The Joint Chiefs provided a supplemental note estimating “that 40,000 U.S. forces will be needed to clean up the Vietcong threat” and that 128,000 additional soldiers would be sufficient to cope with possible North Vietnamese or Chinese Communist intervention. The note, which accompanies the historical study, cited the Berlin crisis as another strain on American military manpower and urged “a step-up in the present mobilization, possibly of major proportions.”
A third paper, which the narrative terms notable for its candor, also advocated “early and hard-hitting” intervention in Vietnam. This paper, a note to Secretary McNamara from William P. Bundy, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense, said:
“It is really now or never if we are to arrest the gains being made by the Vietcong. Walt Rostow made the point yesterday that the Vietcong are about to move, by every indication, from the small-unit basis to a moderate battalion-size basis. Intelligence also suggests that they may try to set up a provisional government’ . . . in the very Kontum area into which the present initial plan would move SEATO forces. If the Vietcong movement ‘blooms’ in this way, it will almost certainly attack all the back-the-winner sentiment that understandably prevails in such cases and that beat the French in early 1954 and came within an ace of beating Diem in early 1955.”
Mr. Bundy bluntly put the odds as he saw them:
“An early and hard-hitting operation has a good chance (70 per cent would be my guess) of arresting things and giving Diem a chance to do better and clean up . . . It all depends on Diem’s effectiveness, which is very problematical. The 30 per cent chance is that we would wind up like the French in 1954; white men can’t win this kind of fight.
“On a 70-30 basis, I would myself favor going in. But if we let, say, a month go by before we move, the odds will slide . . . down to 60-40, 50-50 and so on.”
The italics are Mr. Bundy’s.
The intelligence community provided what the study calls a “conspicuously more pessimistic (and more realistic)” assessment than the formal recommendations of the Pentagon or Mr. Rostow. In spite of all the American worry about infiltration into South Vietnam through Laos, a special national intelligence estimate on Oct. 5 reported “that 80-90 per cent of the estimated 17,000 VC had been locally recruited, and that there was little evidence that the VC relied on external supplies,” according to the Pentagon account.
The intelligence estimate also included a warning about the kind of enemy shrewdness and tenacity that became reality. The estimate, drafted while the Administration was thinking primarily of SEATO—rather than unilateral American—intervention, forecast:
“The Communists would expect worthwhile political and psychological rewards from successful harassment and guerrilla operations against SEATO forces. The D.R.V. would probably not relax its Vietcong campaign against the GVN [Government of (South) Vietnam] to any significant extent. Meanwhile, Communist strength in south Laos would probably be increased by forces from North Vietnam to guard against an effort to partition Laos. . . . The Soviet airlift would probably be increased with a heavier flow of military supply into south Laos. . . .”
Confronted with such conflicting advice, President Kennedy decided to send General Taylor to Saigon. According to minutes of the National Security Council meeting on Oct. 11, quoted in the Pentagon account, the general was instructed to consider three strategies:
• Bold intervention to “defeat the Vietcong,” using up to three divisions of American troops.
• Sending “fewer U.S. combat forces” to Vietnam, not to crush the insurgency but “for the purpose of establishing a U.S. ‘presence’ in Vietnam.”
• “Stepping up U.S. assistance and training of Vietnam units, furnishing of more U.S. equipment, particularly helicopters and other light aircraft, trucks and other ground transport”—short of using American combat forces.
The minutes said President Kennedy was to announce the Taylor mission, at an afternoon news conference, “as an economic survey.” But, the account says, the President did “not make the hardly credible claim that he was sending his personal military adviser to Vietnam to do an economic survey.” After a vaguely worded announcement, the narrative relates, President Kennedy was “noncommittal when asked whether Taylor was going to consider the need for combat troops.”
Even before General Taylor and his party could leave Washington, the Diem Government had sent new and urgent requests for American combat troops. Ambassador Nolting reported to Washington on Oct. 13 that Nguyen Dinh Thuan, the Vietnamese Acting Defense Minister, had requested: “U.S. combat units or units to be introduced into SVN as ‘combat trainer units’ . . . Wanted a symbolic U.S. strength near the 17th [Parallel] to prevent attacks there, free own forces there. Similar purpose station U.S. units in several provincial seats in Central Highlands. . . . Thuan said first step quicker than [defense] treaty and time was of the essence. Thuan said token forces would satisfy SVN and would be better than treaty.” [See Document #25.]
The South Vietnamese Government’s state of alarm was communicated by Mr. Nolting’s additional report that Saigon was considering asking Nationalist China “to send one division of combat troops in the southwest.” Ambassador Nolting said he had tried to discourage this approach.
The Pentagon study goes on to report that Administration officials effectively squelched press speculation about the troop question with carefully managed news leaks at this point.
It cites a dispatch on Oct. 14 in The New York Times reporting that military leaders, including General Taylor, were reluctant to send combat units to Vietnam and that this question was “near the bottom of th
e list” of things the general would consider.
From the way the dispatch was handled, the acount says, it clearly “came from a source authorized to speak for the President, and probably from the President himself.” He adds that “in the light of the recommendations quoted throughout this paper, and particularly most of the staff papers . . . that led up to the Taylor mission, most of this was simply untrue.” But he concludes: “The Times story had the apparently desired effect. Speculation about combat troops almost disappeared from news stories.”
State of Emergency
The Taylor mission arrived in Saigon on Oct. 18 and was greeted by what the Pentagon study calls a “spectacular opening shot”: President Diem’s formal declaration of a state of emergency. Within the next week General Taylor met twice with the chief of state.
According to an embassy message to Washington on Oct. 20, President Diem told General Taylor at their first meeting that he wanted a bilateral defense treaty, American support for another expansion of the South Vietnamese Army and a list of combat-support items very close to those suggested in June by Mr. Rostow in his handwritten note to Secretary McNamara.
“He asked specifically for tactical aviation, helicopter companies, coastal patrol forces and logistic support (ground transport),” the embassy report said. He did not, however, repeat the earlier request for actual American ground combat units.
By the second Diem-Taylor meeting, on Oct. 24, American and South Vietnamese officials had discussed the disastrous flooding in the Mekong River Delta, where the American military advisory mission, headed by Lieut. Gen. Lionel C. McGarr, thought American troops might be of some help.
General Taylor had incorporated this idea in a series of recommendations, which he put before President Diem at the second meeting. Item E, the study reports, was headed “Introduction of U.S. Combat Troops,” and it proposed “a flood-relief task force, largely military in composition, to work with GVN over an extended period for rehabilitation of area. Such a force might contain engineer, medical, signal and transportation elements as well as combat troops for the protection of relief operations.”
The general directed two messages to Washington after that meeting, both quoted in the Pentagon account. The first, sent through regular channels, reported that President Diem’s reaction to all of General Taylor’s recommendations—including the flood-relief task force—“was favorable.”
In his second message, sent privately to President Kennedy and the President’s most senior advisers, General Taylor was more specific. He proposed a force of 6,000 to 8,000 American soldiers, not only to cope with the flooding but significantly, as the narrative points out, to assure “Diem of our readiness to join him in a military showdown with Vietcong or Vietminh.” [See Documents #26 and #27.]
General Taylor said that he envisioned mostly logistics forces but that “some combat troops” would be necessary to defend the American engineer troops and their encampments. He warned that “any troops coming to VN may expect to take casualties.”
The general underscored the propaganda advantage of relating the introduction of American ground troops to the need for flood relief as “offering considerable advantages in VN and abroad” and leaving President Kennedy his choice on further action. “As the task is a specific one,” he explained, “we can extricate our troops when it is done if we so desire. Alternatively, we can phase them into other activities if we wish to remain longer.”
He acknowledged, in conclusion: “This kind of task force will exercise little direct influence on the campaign against the VC. It will, however, give a much needed shot in the arm to national morale.”
General Taylor’s proposals engendered State Department opposition. His messages, evidently relayed to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who was in Japan for a conference, prompted Mr. Rusk to cable Washington, warning about the risks of making a military commitment without reciprocal political reforms by President Diem.
According to his Nov. 1 message, which is appended to the Pentagon study, Mr. Rusk said that if, as previously, the South Vietnamese leader was not willing to trust his military commanders more and to take steps to bring more non-Communist elements into influential roles, it was “difficult to see how handful of American troops can have decisive influence.” While attaching the “greatest possible importance” to the security of Southeast Asia, Mr. Rusk expressed reluctance to see American prestige committed too deeply for the sake of “a losing horse.”
Similar reservations were already reflected by reports from two middle-level State Department members of General Taylor’s mission. Sterling J. Cottrell and William J. Jorden submitted separate dissents to General Taylor on their way home by way of Bangkok and the Philippines.
Mr. Cottrell, head of the interagency Vietnam task force in Washington, asserted in a memorandum dated Oct. 27 that “since U.S. combat troops of division size cannot be employed effectively, they should not be introduced at this stage” despite the “favorable psychological lift” it would give the Vietnamese.
“Since it is an open question whether the GVN can succeed even with U.S. assistance,” he went on, “it would be a mistake for the U.S. to commit itself irrevocably to the defeat of the Communists in SVN.” But if combined American and Vietnamese efforts failed in the South, he recommended moving “to the ‘Rostow plan’ of applying graduated punitive measures on the D.R.V. with weapons of our choosing.”
Mr. Jorden reported finding explosive pressures for political and administrative change in South Vietnam as well as “near paralysis” in parts of the Government because so many decisions had to await personal approval by President Diem. Many Government officials and military officers, he said, “have lost confidence in President Diem and his leadership.” He urged that the United States not identify itself “with a man or a regime.”
Quite contrary pressures were being exerted on Washington, however, by the American mission in Saigon. On Oct. 31, the study says, the embassy reported to Washington the Vietnamese people’s “virtually unanimous desire” for the introduction of American troops.
From Baguio, in the Philippines, where he had stopped to draft his formal report with Mr. Rostow and his other aides, General Taylor sent two more messages to President Kennedy on Nov. 1, urging a commitment of a “U.S. military task force” to Vietnam.
But, the messages show, he now listed the flood-relief mission as secondary to the objective of providing a “U.S. military presence capable of raising national morale and of showing to Southeast Asia the seriousness of the U.S. intent to resist a Communist take-over.”
Writing in more sweeping language than he used in Saigon a week before, the general now advocated a “massive joint effort” with the South Vietnamese “to cope with both the Vietcong and the ravages of the flood.” The presence of American ground units, he said, was “essential” to “reverse the present downward trend of events.”
His second message discounted the risks of sliding into a major Asian land war accidentally and sought to assure President Kennedy that the American troops would not be aggressively hunting down the Vietcong guerrillas though they would be involved in some combat. He wrote:
“This force is not proposed to clear the jungles and forests of Vietcong guerrillas. That should be the primary task of the armed forces of Vietnam for which they should be specifically organized, trained and stiffened with ample U.S. advisers down to combat battalion levels.
“However, the U.S. troops may be called upon to engage in combat to protect themselves, their working parties and the area in which they live. As a general reserve, they might be thrown into action (with U.S. agreement) against large, formed guerrilla bands which have abandoned the forests for attacks on major targets.”
The parenthetical matter was in General Taylor’s original cablegram.
The message also repeated the theme, attributed by the analyst and by Mr. Cottrell to Mr. Rostow, that bombing of North Vietnam could be used as a diplomatic threat to hold Hanoi at
bay.
The language of all of General Taylor’s messages, the Pentagon study comments, suggests that the support forces—helicopter companies, the expanded advisory mission, tactical air support—“were essentially already agreed to by the President before Taylor left Washington.”
The general’s interest, the study explains, was in getting a commitment of “ground forces (not necessarily all or even mainly infantrymen, but ground soldiers who would be out in the countryside where they could be shot at and shoot back).” His argument for ground troops, the study observes, was based more on “psychological than military reasons.”
The formal report by the Taylor mission, submitted on Nov. 3, incorporated the proposal for what the analyst calls a “hard commitment on the ground” and other measures, all under the over-all concept of a new American role in Vietnam: “limited partnership.” The drift of the report, which the Pentagon narrative says was probably written with Mr. Rostow, was reflected in the proposal that the American military advisory mission in Saigon not only should be “radically increased” but also should undertake more active direction of the war by becoming “something nearer [to]—but not quite—an operational headquarters in a theater of war.”
The main evaluation section, the study comments, “puts Saigon’s weakness in the best light and avoids suggesting that perhaps the U.S. should consider limiting rather than increasing commitments to the Diem regime.”
The dissents of Mr. Cottrell and Mr. Jorden were submitted, along with a military annex, which said: “The performance of ARVN [the Army of South Vietnam] is disappointing and generally is characterized by a lack of aggressiveness and at most levels is devoid of a sense of urgency.”
The Taylor report, the Pentagon account notes, proposed solving this type of problem through administrative reforms in the army and the infusion of Americans. The writer comments that there was no serious demand for pressing President Diem to make the kind of reforms that Secretary Rusk felt necessary.
