by Neil Sheehan
The covert step-up in the air operations in Laos ordered by the President did not take place until mid-October. The Pentagon account says that one reason for the delay was the Administration’s need to “await the uncertain outcome” of negotiations then taking place in Paris between the right-wing, neutralist and pro-Communist factions in Laos. The objective of the talks was to arrange a cease-fire that might lead to a new 14-nation Geneva conference to end the Laotian civil war.
“However, a Laotian cease-fire was not compatible with current perceptions of U.S. interest,” the analyst writes.
The Administration feared that during an ensuing Geneva conference on Laos, international pressures, particularly from the Communist countries, might force the discussions onto the subject of Vietnam. Negotiations in the present circumstances were considered certain to unravel the shaky anti-Communist regime in Saigon.
The Administration also believed that even the convening of a conference on Laos might create an impression in Saigon that Washington was going to seek a negotiated withdrawal from South Vietnam and set off a political collapse there and the emergence of a neutralist coalition regime that would ask the United States to leave.
The account notes that in his Aug. 11 high-level policy memorandum on Southeast Asia, William Bundy had “characterized U.S. strategy” toward the Paris talks with the statement that “we should wish to slow down any progress toward a conference and to hold Souvanna to the firmest possible position.” Mr. Bundy had referred to a suggestion by Ambassador Leonard Unger that Prince Souvanna Phouma insist on three-faction administration of the Plaine des Jarres as “a useful delaying gambit.”
“Significantly,” the analyst says, “this proposal was advanced at Paris by Souvanna Phouma on 1 September—illustrating the fact that Souvanna was carefully advised by U.S. diplomats both prior to and during the Paris meetings. Other features of Souvanna’s negotiating posture which apparently were encouraged as likely to have the effect of drawing out the discussions were insistence on Communist acceptance of (1) Souvanna’s political status as Premier and (2) unhampered operations by the I.C.C. [International Control Commission].”
“Insistence on Souvanna’s position is another point on which he should insist, and there would also be play in the hand on the question of free I.C.C. operations,” Mr. Bundy wrote in his Aug. 11 memorandum.
“It will be recalled that the latter point was the issue on which progress toward a cease-fire became stalled,” the analyst remarks. The negotiations broke down in Paris late in September.
American mission representatives from Bangkok and Vientiane met in Saigon on Sept. 11 under Ambassador Taylor’s auspices, however, and decided that the South Vietnamese Air Force should not participate in the stepped-up air action in Laos authorized by the President in his directive of Sept. 10.
A list of 22 targets in the Laotian panhandle had been drawn up during the summer for the possibility of such raids, including one on a control point at the Mugia Pass, just across the North Vietnamese border.
South Vietnamese air strikes would offend Premier Souvanna Phouma by complicating his political position, the meeting determined, so the air attacks would be confined to clandestine raids by the T-28’s in Laos and the United States Navy and Air Force jets—code-named Yankee Team—operating over Laos. Accord was also reached that South Vietnamese troops, possibly accompanied by American advisers, would also make ground forays into Laos up to a depth of 20 kilometers, or 12 miles.
“The mission representatives agreed that, once the [air and ground] operations began, they should not be acknowledged publicly,” the analyst writes. “In effect, then, they would supplement the other covert pressures being exerted against North Vietnam. Moreover, while the Lao Government would of course know about the operations of their T-28’s, Souvanna was not to be informed of the GVN/U.S. [ground] operations. The unacknowledged nature of these operations would thus be easier to maintain.”
On Oct. 6, a joint State and Defense Department message authorized Ambassador Unger in Laos to obtain Premier Souvanna Phouma’s approval for the T-28 strikes “as soon as possible.”
But as the analyst points out, the message showed that the President had decided to postpone the accompanying strikes by Yankee Team jets, the “U.S. armed aerial reconnaissance” mentioned in Mr. Johnson’s National Security Action Memorandum 314.
Five of the targets in the Laotian panhandle, well-defended bridges, had been specifically marked for the American jets, and fire by the Yankee Team planes would also be required against antiaircraft batteries defending the Mugia Pass. The message from Washington excluded these targets from the list of 22.
“You are further authorized to inform Lao that Yankee Team suppressive-fire strikes against certain difficult targets in panhandle, interspersing with further T-28 strikes, are part of the over-all concept and are to be anticipated later, but that such U.S. strikes are not repeat not authorized at this time,” the cable said. [Document #83.]
Ambassadors Unger and Taylor both warned that the Laotian Government, without some participation by the American jets, would not persevere in attacking targets on the Communist infiltration routes. Accordingly, the day before the T-28 strikes began on Oct. 14 with Premier Souvanna Phouma’s approval, Washington authorized the Yankee Team jets to fly combat air patrol over the T-28’s to raise morale and protect them from any interference by North Vietnamese MIG’s.
Ambassador Taylor said in his cable that the combat air patrol missions could be achieved by “a relatively minor extension” of the current rules of engagement for American aircraft in Indochina.
The President also postponed for the present the planned ground forays into Laos by the South Vietnamese. Ambassador Taylor pointed out in a cable on Oct. 9 that these would not be possible “in foreseeable future” in any case because the South Vietnamese Army was so tied down fighting the guerrillas in its own country.
Several eight-man South Vietnamese reconnaissance teams were parachuted into Laos in an operation called Leaping Lena, but the Nov. 7 report to William Bundy on covert operations would note that “all of these teams were located by the enemy and only four survivors returned. . . .”
On Nov. 1, two days before the election, the Vietcong struck with a devastating mortar barrage on American planes and facilities at Bienhoa airfield near Saigon. The attack put the President under great internal pressure, the analyst says, to strike back openly, as he had said in his directive of Sept. 10 that he was prepared to do “in the event of any attack on U.S. units or any special D.R.V./VC action against SVN.”
In the enemy’s barrage, four Americans were killed, five B-57 bombers were destroyed and eight damaged. These were some of the B-57’s that had earlier been sent from Japan to the Philippines at Mr. McNamara’s suggestion as part of the preparations for possible bombing of the North. They had since been moved into South Vietnam, however, to try to shore up the Khanh Government’s military position by bringing more air power to bear upon the Vietcong.
“As of the end of October (in anticipation of resumed De Soto patrols), elements of our Pacific forces were reported as ‘poised and ready’ to execute reprisals for any D.R.V. attacks on our naval vessels. Thus, there was a rather large expectancy among Administration officials that the United States would do something in retaliation,” the analyst writes. The words in parentheses are his.
The Joint Chiefs told Mr. McNamara that the Bienhoa attack had been “a deliberate act of escalation and a change of the ground rules under which the VC had operated up to now.” Asserting that “a prompt and strong response is clearly justified,” they proposed, on the same day as the incident, “that the following specific actions be taken” (the words in parentheses are those of the Joint Chiefs; words in brackets have been inserted by The Times for clarification):
“a. Within 24-36 hours Pacific Command (PACOM) forces take initial U.S. military actions as follows:
“(1) Conduct air strikes in Laos against t
argets No. 3 (Tchepone barracks, northwest), No. 4 (Tchepone military area), No. 19 (Banthay military area), No. 8 (Nape highway bridge), and the Banken bridge on Route 7.
“(2) Conduct low-level air reconnaisance of infiltration routes and of targets in North Vietnam south of Latitude 19 degrees.
“b. Prior to air attacks on the D.R.V. land the Marine special landing forces at Danang and airlift Army or Marine units from Okinawa to the Saigon-Tansonnhut-Bienhoa area, to provide increased security for US personnel and installations.
“c. Use aircraft engaged in airlift (subparagraph b, above) to assist in evacuation of U.S. dependents from Saigon, to commence concurrently with the daylight air strikes against the D.R.V. (subparagraph d, below).
“d. Assemble and prepare necessary forces so that:
“(1) Within 60 to 72 hours, 30 B-52’s from Guam conduct a night strike on D.R.V. target No. 6 (Phucyen airfield). [Phucyen, 13 miles from Hanoi, is the principal North Vietnamese air base].
“(2) Commencing at first light on the day following subparagraph (1) above, PACOM air and naval forces conduct air strikes against D.R.V. targets No. 6 (Phucyen airfield) (daylight follow-up on the above night strike), No. 3 (Hanoi Gialam airfield), No. 8 (Haiphong Catbi airfield), No. 48 (Haiphong POL), and No. 49 (Hanoi POL). [POL is a military abbreviation for petroleum, oil and lubricants.]
“(3) Concurrently with subparagraph (2), above the Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) will strike DRV target No. 36 (Vitthulu barracks).
“(4) Combat air patrols (CAP), flak suppressive fire, strike photographic reconnaissance, and search and rescue operations (S.A.R.) are conducted as appropriate.
“(5) The above actions are followed by:
“(a) Armed reconnaissance on infiltration routes in Laos.
“(b) Air strikes against infiltration routes and targets in the D.R.V.
“(c) Progressive PACOM and SAC [Strategic Air Comand] strikes against the targets listed in 94 Target Study.
“(e) Thai bases be used as necessary in connection with the foregoing, with authority to be obtained through appropriate channels. . . .
“Recognizing that security of this plan is of critical importance, they [the Joint Chiefs] consider that external agencies, such as the VNAF, should be apprised only of those parts of the plan necessary to insure proper and effective coordination. The same limited revelation of plans should govern discussions with the Thais in securing authority for unlimited use of Thai bases.”
From Saigon, Ambassador Taylor cabled for a more restrained response consisting of “retaliation bombing attacks on selected D.R.V. targets” using both American and South Vietnamese planes and for a “policy statement that we will act similarly in like cases in the future.”
But the President felt otherwise for the moment. “Apparently, the decision was made to do nothing,” the analyst says, adding that the documentary evidence does not provide an adequate explanation.
At a White House meeting the same day, the account continued, the President expressed concern that United States retaliatory strikes might bring counterretaliation by North Vietnam or China against American bases and civilian dependents in the South.
In briefing the press, Administration officials, unidentified in the study, drew a contrast “between this incident and the Tonkin Gulf attacks where our destroyers were ‘on United States business.’ ”
“A second [White House] meeting to discuss possible U.S. actions was ‘tentatively scheduled’ for 2 November, but the available materials contain no evidence that it was held,” the account continues. “President Johnson was scheduled to appear in Houston that afternoon, for his final pre-election address, and it may be that the second White House meeting was called off.”
“One thing is certain,” the writer concludes. “There were no retaliatory strikes authorized following the attack on the U.S. bomber base.”
But the President had not altogether declined to act on Nov. 1. He had appointed an interagency working group under William Bundy to draw up various political and military options for direct action against North Vietnam. This was the one “concrete result” of the Nov. 1 mortar raid on Bienhoa, the account reports.
The Bundy working group, as it would be unofficially called in the Government, held its first meeting at 9:30 A.M. on Nov. 3, the day that Mr. Johnson was elected to the Presidency in his own right by a huge landslide.
“Bienhoa may be repeated at any time,” Mr. Bundy wrote in a memorandum to the group on Nov. 5. “This would tend to force our hand, but would also give us a good springboard for any decision for stronger action. The President is clearly thinking in terms of maximum use of a Gulf of Tonkin rationale, either for an action that would show toughness and hold the line till we can decide the big issue, or as a basis for starting a clear course of action under the broad options.” [See Document #84.]
Ostensibly, the Bundy group had a mandate to re-examine the entire American policy toward Vietnam and to recommend to the National Security Council a broad range of options. Its membership represented the entire foreign-policy-making machine of the Government—Mr. Bundy; Marshall Green; Michael V. Forrestal, head of the interagency Vietnam coordinating committee, and Robert Johnson of the State Department; Mr. McNaughton from the civilian hierarchy of the Pentagon; Vice Adm. Lloyd M. Mustin from the Joint Chiefs’ staff and Harold Ford of the Central Intelligence Agency.
But, the account says, ‘there appears to have been, in fact, remarkably little latitude for reopening the basic question about U.S. involvement in the Vietnam struggle.”
The basic national objective of “an independent, non-Communist South Vietnam,” established by the President’s National Security Action Memorandum 288 of the previous March, “did not seem open to question.”
The Options Harden
The September discussions had established a consensus that bombing of the North “would be required at some proximate future date for a variety of reasons” and individual and institutional pressures all tended to harden the options toward this end as they were finally presented to the National Security Council and then the President.
The analyst gives a number of examples of this stiffening process from the successive draft papers developed by the group during its three weeks of deliberations.
“The extreme withdrawal option was rejected almost without surfacing for consideration” because of its conflict with the policy memorandums. “Fall-back” positions outlined in an original working-group draft suffered a similar fate.
The first fallback position, the study says, “would have meant holding the line—placing an immediate, low ceiling on the number of U.S. personnel in SVN, and taking vigorous efforts to build on a stronger base elsewhere, possibly Thailand.”
“The second alternative would have been to undertake some spectacular, highly visible supporting action like a limited-duration selective bombing campaign as a last effort to save the South; to have accompanied it with a propaganda campaign about the unwinnability of the war given the GVN’s ineptness and, then, to have sought negotiations through compromise and neutralization when the bombing failed.”
But because of “forceful objections” by Admiral Mustin, the Joint Chiefs representative, both of these possibilities were downgraded in the final paper presented to the National Security Council on Nov. 21. In effect they were “rejected before they were fully explored,” the study says.
Thus all three options, labeled A, B and C, entailed some form of bombing, with “the distinctions between them” tending to blur as they evolved during the group’s three weeks of deliberations, the analyst says. Mr. McNaughton and William Bundy collaborated closely on their formulation.
A similar convergence occurred on the question of negotiations.
Here the minimum United States position was defined as forcing Hanoi to halt the insurgency in the South and to agree to the establishment of a secure, non-Communist state there, a position the analyst defines as “acceptance or else.” Moreover,
talks of any kind with Hanoi were to be avoided until the effects of bombing had put the United States into a position to obtain this minimum goal in negotiations.
“The only option that provided for bargaining in the usual sense of the word was Option C,” the study says. Here the United States would be willing to bargain away international supervisory machinery to verify Hanoi’s agreement.
“The policy climate in Washington simply was not receptive to any suggestion that U.S. goals might have to be compromised,” the study comments.
These are the options in their final form as the study summarizes them:
OPTION A—Conduct U.S. reprisal air strikes on North Vietnam “not only against any recurrence of VC ‘spectaculars’ such as Bienhoa,” intensify the coastal raids of Operation Plan 34A, resume the destroyer patrols in the gulf, step up the air strikes by T-28’s against infiltration targets in Laos and seek reforms in South Vietnam.
OPTION B—What Mr. McNaughton called “a fast/full squeeze.” Bomb the North “at a fairly rapid pace and without interruption,” including early air raids on Phucyen Airfield near Hanoi and key bridges along the road and rail links with China until full American demands are met. “Should pressures for negotiations become too formidable to resist and discussion begin before a Communist agreement to comply,” the analyst writes, “it was stressed that the United States should define its negotiating position ‘in a way which makes Communist acceptance unlikely.’ In this manner it would be ‘very likely that the conference would break up rather rapidly,’ thus enabling our military pressures to be resumed.”
OPTION C—Mr. McNaughton’s “slow squeeze”; the option he and William Bundy favored. Gradually increasing air strikes “against infiltration targets, first in Laos and then in the D.R.V., and then against other targets in North Vietnam” intended to “give the impression of a steady deliberate approach . . . designed to give the United States the option at any time to proceed or not, to escalate or not and to quicken the pace or not.” This option also included the possibility of a “significant ground deployment to the northern part of South Vietnam” as an additional bargaining counter.
