Pentagon Papers

by Neil Sheehan

  On April 21, Secretary McNamara told the President that 11,000 of these new men would augment various existing forces, while 7,000 were logistic troops to support “previously approved forces.”

  “It isn’t entirely clear from the documents exactly what the President did have in mind for the support troop addons,” the study comments. “What is clear, however, . . . was that the J.C.S. were continuing to plan for the earliest possible introduction of two to three divisions into RVN.” The analyst cites a memorandum from Mr. McNamara to General Wheeler on April 6 as evidence of this planning.

  Later, on May 5, the study continues, Assistant Secretary of Defense McNaughton would send a memorandum to Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus R. Vance, saying that “the J.C.S. misconstrued the [support] add-ons to mean logistic build-up for coastal enclaves and the possible later introduction of two to three divisions.” (These were the divisions the Joint Chiefs had requested on March 20.)

  The enclave strategy had as its object the involvement of United States combat units at “relatively low risk.” It proposed “that U.S. troops occupy coastal enclaves, accept full responsibility for enclave security, and be prepared to go to the rescue of the RVNF as far as 50 miles outside the enclave. . . . The intent was not to take the war to the enemy but rather to deny him certain critical areas,” the study says.

  To prove the viability of its “reserve reaction,” the analyst goes on, the enclave strategy required testing, but the rules for committing United States troops under it had not been worked out by the time it was overtaken by events—a series of major military victories by the Vietcong in May and June that led to the adoption of the search and destroy strategy.

  Search and destroy, the account says, was “articulated by Westmoreland and the J.C.S. in keeping with sound military principles garnered by men accustomed to winning. The basic idea . . . was the desire to take the war to the enemy, denying him freedom of movement anywhere in the country . . . and deal him the heaviest possible blows.” In the meantime, the South Vietnamese Army “would be free to concentrate their efforts in populated areas.”

  From April 11 through April 14, the additional two Marine battalions were deployed at Hue-Phubai and at Danang, bringing the total maneuver battalions to four.

  “The marines set about consolidating and developing their two coastal base areas, and, although they pushed their patrol perimeters out beyond their tactical wire and thereby conducted active rather than passive defense, they did not engage in any offensive operations in support of ARVN for the next few months,” the study says.

  At this point, the Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs and General Westmoreland collaborated—as it turned out, successfully—in what the study alls “a little cart-before-horsemanship.” It involved the deployment to South Vietnam of the 173d Airborne Brigade, two battalions that were then situated on Okinawa in a reserve role.

  General Westmoreland had had his eye on the 173d for some time. On March 26, in his “Commander’s Estimate of the Situation,” in which he requested the equivalent of two divisions, he also recommended that the 173d Airborne Brigade be deployed to the Bienhoa-Vungtau areas “to secure vital U.S. installations.” This recommendation, like that for two divisions, was not acted upon by the National Security Council in the April 1-2 meeting.

  On April 11, General Westmoreland cabled Admiral Sharp, the Pacific commander, that he understood from the National Security Council’s meetings and Ambassador Taylor’s discussions in Washington at the beginning of the month that his requested divisions were not in prospect. But, he said, he still wanted the 173d Airborne Brigade.

  This message, the study says, set in motion “a series of cables, proposals and false starts which indicated that Washington was well ahead of Saigon in its planning and in its anxiety.”

  The upshot of all this communication was that at a meeting in Honolulu of representatives of the Joint Chiefs and the Pacific command from April 10 to April 12, the deployment of the 173d Airborne Brigade was recommended. On April 14, the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered the deployment to Bienhoa-Vungtau, and the replacement of the brigade by one from the United States.

  “This decision to deploy the 173d apparently caught the Ambassador flatfooted,” the study says, “for he had quite obviously not been privy to it.”

  On the day of the Joint Chiefs’ decision, Ambassador Taylor cabled the State Department that “this [decision on the deploying the brigade] comes as a complete surprise in view of the understanding reached in Washington [during his visit] that we would experiment with the marines in a counterinsurgency role before bringing in other U.S. contingents.” He asked that deployment of the brigade be held up until matters were sorted out.

  However, the study notes, Ambassador Taylor “held the trump card” because the proposed action had to be cleared with Premier Quat, and the Ambassador told his superiors on April 17 that he did not intend to tell the Premier without clearer guidance explaining Washington’s intentions. [See Document #99.]

  “That Washington was determined, with the President’s sanction, to go beyond what had been agreed to and formalized in NSAM 328 was manifested unmistakably in a cable under joint Defense/State auspices by Mr. McNaughton to the Ambassador on 15 April,” the Pentagon study says.

  In the cablegram, Mr. McNaughton said: “Highest authority [the President] believes the situation in South Vietnam has been deteriorating and that, in addition to actions against the North, something new must be added in the South to achieve victory.” He then listed seven recommended actions, including the introduction of military-civil affairs personnel into the air effort and the deployment of the 173d Airborne Brigade to Bienhoa-Vungtau “as a security force for our installations and also to participate in counterinsurgency combat operations” according to General Westmoreland’s plans.

  Reacting to that cable on April 17, Ambassador Taylor protested to McGeorge Bundy in the White House against the introduction of military-civilian affairs personnel into the aid effort. The Ambassador’s cablegram continued by saying that the McNaughton message “shows a far greater willingness to get into the ground war than I had discerned in Washington during my recent trip.”

  “Mac, can’t we be better protected from our friends?” the Ambassador asked. “I know that everyone wants to help, but there’s such a thing as killing with kindness.”

  Discussing the contretemps between the Pentagon and General Taylor, the study says: “The documents do not reveal just exactly when Presidential sanction was obtained for the expanded scope of the above [McNaughton] proposals. It is possible that [on the approval for deploying the brigade] the Ambassador may have caught the Defense Department and the J.C.S. in a little cart-before-horsemanship.”

  In any event, on April 15, the day after it had ordered the deployment of the brigade, the J.C.S. sent a memorandum to Secretary McNamara dealing with the Ambassador’s objections and still insisting that the brigade was needed.

  “Whether or not the J.C.S. wrote that memorandum with red faces,” the study remarks, “the Secretary of Defense dates approval for final deployment of the 173d as of the 30th of April.”

  Pressure From Military

  The strategy of base security having been ended by National Security Action Memorandum 328, a high-level meeting began in Honolulu on April 20 to “sanctify” and “structure”, as the Pentagon analyst puts it, “an expanded enclave strategy.”

  Present at the meeting were Secretary of Defense McNamara; William Bundy, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs; Assistant Secretary of Defense McNaughton; Ambassador Taylor; Admiral Sharp; General Wheeler and General Westmoreland.

  “Some of these men had helped produce the current optimism in situation reports and cables,” the Pentagon study says, “and yet the consensus of their meeting was that the then-present level of Vietcong activity was nothing but the lull before the storm.

  “The situation which presented itself to the Honolulu conferees was in many w
ays the whole Vietnam problem in microcosm. What was needed to galvanize everyone to action was some sort of dramatic event within South Vietnam itself. Unfortunately, the very nature of the war precluded the abrupt collapse of a front or the loss of large chunks of territory in lightning strokes by the enemy. The enemy in this war was spreading his control and influence slowly and inexorably but without drama. The political infrastructure from which he derived his strength took years to create, and in most areas the expansion of control was hardly felt until it was a fait accompli.”

  Of the conferees, the study says, “by far the most dogged protagonist of the enclave strategy was Ambassador Taylor.” It had already become apparent, however, and was to become manifestly clear at Honolulu, that the Ambassador was fighting a rear-guard action against both civilian and military officials in the Pentagon who were bent on expansion of U.S. forces in South Vietnam and an enlargement of their combat mission.

  On March 18, in a message to Washington, Ambassador Taylor had suggested that if a division were sent to South Vietnam as had been proposed by the Army Chief of Staff, General Johnson, then consideration should be given to deploying it in either a highland or coastal enclave.

  When he got no response, Ambassador Taylor sent another message on March 27, stating that if United States forces were to come, his preference was, as the study says, that they be used in a combination of defensive or offensive enclave plus reserve for an emergency, rather than in “territorial clear and hold” operations.

  The Ambassador, the study notes, interpreted the pivotal National Security Action Memorandum as supporting his position, because in it the President seemed to make plain that he “wanted to experiment very carefully with a small amount of force before deciding whether or not to accept any kind of ground war commitment.”

  Therefore, the study says, “the Ambassador was surprised to discover that the marines [the two additional battalions that landed April 11-14] had come ashore with tanks, self-propelled artillery, and various other items of weighty equipment not ‘appropriate for counterinsurgency operations.’ ”

  In his April 17 cable to McGeorge Bundy, Ambassador Taylor had also protested the “hasty and ill-conceived” proposals for the deployment of more forces with which he was being flooded.

  “Thus was the Ambassador propelled into the conference of 20 April 1965, only one step ahead of the Washington juggernaut, which was itself fueled by encouragement from Westmoreland in Saigon,” the study comments. “Taylor was not opposed to the U.S. build-up per se, but rather was concerned to move slowly with combat troop deployments . . . He was overtaken in Honolulu.”

  According to Mr. McNaughton’s minutes, the conference in preliminary discussions on April 20 agreed that:

  “(1) The D.R.V. was not likely to quit within the next six months; and in any case, they were more likely to give up because of VC failure in the South than because of bomb-induced ‘pain’ in the North. It could take up to two years to demonstrate VC failure.

  “(2) The level of air activity through Rolling Thunder was about right. The U.S. did not, in Ambassador Taylor’s words, want ‘to kill the hostage.’ Therefore, Hanoi and environs remained on the restricted list. It was recognized that air activity would not do the job alone.

  “(3) Progress in the South would be slow, and great care should be taken to avoid dramatic defeat. The current lull in Vietcong activity was merely the quiet before a storm.

  “(4) The victory strategy was to ‘break the will of the D.R.V./VC by denying them victory.’ Impotence would lead eventually to a political solution.”

  At the time of the Honolulu conference, the study notes, “the level of approved U.S. forces for Vietnam was 40,200,” but 33,500 were actually in the country at that time.

  “To accomplish the ‘victory strategy’ described above,” the study continues, the conferees agreed that U.S. ground forces should be increased from 4 to 13 maneuver battalions and to 82,000 men. The United States, they agreed, should also seek to get additional troops from Australia and South Korea that would bring the so-called third-country strength to four maneuver battalions and 7,250 men.

  Thus, the Honolulu conferees proposed raising the recommended United States-third country strength to 17 battalions.

  The conferees also mentioned but did not recommend a possible later deployment of 11 U.S. and 6 South Korean battalions, which, when added to the approved totals, would bring the United States-third country combat capability to 34 battalions. In this later possible deployment was included an Army airmobile division.

  Secretary McNamara forwarded the Honolulu recommendations to the President on April 21, together with a notation on possible later deployment of the airmobile division and the Third Marine Expenditionary Force.

  On April 30 the Joint Chiefs presented a detailed program for deployment of some 48,000 American and 5,250 third-country soldiers. “Included were all the units mentioned in the Honolulu recommendations plus a healthy support package,” the study says.

  The Joint Chiefs said that these additional forces were “to bolster GVN forces during their continued build-up, secure bases and installations, conduct counterinsurgency combat operations in coordination with the RVNAF, and prepare for the later introduction of an airmobile division to the central plateau, the remainder of the third M.E.F. [the marine force] to the Danang area, and the remainder of a ROK [Republic of Korea] division to Quangngai.”

  From the thrust of this memorandum by the Joint Chiefs, the analyst comments, “it is apparent that the enclave strategy was no stopping place as far as the Chiefs were concerned. They continued to push hard for the earliest possible input of three full divisions of troops. They were still well ahead of the pack in that regard.”

  The Enemy Responds

  The question of final Presidential approval of the 17-battalion recommendations now became academic as the enemy started attacks that provided the Pentagon and General Westmoreland with a battlefield rationale for their campaign to have American troops take over the major share of the ground war.

  As the manpower debates continued in March and April, the study portrays the military situation: “The Vietcong were unusually inactive throughout March and April. There had been no major defeat of the enemy’s forces and no signs of any major shift in strategy on his part. Hence it was assumed that he was merely pausing to regroup and to assess the effect of the changed American participation in the war embodied in air strikes and in the marines,” the first two battalions deployed at Danang on March 8.

  “There were, however, plenty of indications in the early spring of 1965 of what was to come,” the study continues. . . . “From throughout the country came reports that Vietcong troops and cadres were moving into central Vietnam and into areas adjacent to the ring of provinces . . . around Saigon.”

  “Finally and most ominous of all,” the study says, a memorandum by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency on April 21, 1965, “reflected the acceptance into the enemy order of battle of one regiment of the 325th PAVN [People’s Army of Vietnam] division said to be located in Kontum province. The presence of this regular North Vietnamese unit, which had been first reported as early as February, was a sobering harbinger. . . .”

  On May 11, when the Vietcong attacked Songbe, the capital of Phuoclong Province, using more than a regiment of troops, “the storm broke in earnest,” the study says. The enemy overran the town and the American advisers’ compound, causing heavy casualties. After holding the town for a day, the Vietcong withdrew, the study relates.

  Later in May, in Quangngai Province in the northern part of South Vietnam, a battalion of Government troops—the Army of the Republic of Vietnam—was ambushed and overrun near Bagia, west of Quangngai. Reinforcements were also ambushed.

  “The battle,” the study says, “dragged on for several days and ended in total defeat for the ARVN. Two battalions were completely decimated. . . . From Bagia came a sense of urgency, at least among
some of the senior U.S. officers who had been witness to the battle.”

  Then in June, two Vietcong regiments attacked an outpost at Dongxoai and when Government reinforcements were committed “piecemeal” they were “devoured by the enemy” the Pentagon study says.

  “My mid-June, 1965,” it asserts, “the Vietcong summer offensive was in full stride.” By mid-July, the Vietcong were “systematically forcing the GVN to yield what little control it still exercised in rural areas outside the Mekong Delta.”

  On June 7, after the attack on Bagia, General Westmoreland sent a long message on the military situation and his needs to the Pacific Commander for relay to the Joint Chiefs.

  “In pressing their campaign,” the general said, “the Vietcong are capable of mounting regimental-size operations in all four ARVN corps areas, and at least battalion-sized attack in virtually all provinces. . . .

  “ARVN forces on the other hand are already experiencing difficulty in coping with this increased VC capability. Desertion rates are inordinately high. Battle losses have been higher than expected; in fact, four ARVN battalions have been rendered ineffective by VC action in the I and II Corps zones. . . .

  “Thus, the GVN/VC force ratios upon which we based our estimate of the situation in March have taken an adverse trend. You will recall that I recommended the deployment of a U.S. division in II Corps to cover the period of the RVNAF build-up and to weight the force ratios in that important area. We assumed at that time that the ARVN battalions would be brought to full strength by now and that the force build-up would proceed on schedule. Neither of these assumptions has materialized. . . .

  “In order to cope with the situation outlined above, I see no course of action open to us except to reinforce our efforts in SVN with additional U.S. or third country forces as rapidly as is practical during the critical weeks ahead.”