200. Memorandum From the Special Assistant in the Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs (Neubert) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Hilsman)1

SUBJECT

  • Maintaining Momentum in our Vietnam Policy

Although I am sure I am telling you nothing new, I thought it might be worthwhile to set down some of the evidence that we are heading into a period of considerable difficulty in maintaining cohesion and momentum in our policy toward the GVN. It is all very well for us to assert that all Washington agencies are now agreed upon a policy of graduated pressure on the GVN designed to obtain: 1) continuing progress in war effort, 2) improvement in the GVN’s popular support, and 3) improvement in relations between the US and the GVN. At the same time we must—and do—recognize that these objectives are to a considerable extent mutually incompatible, and not necessarily likely to be achieved by the measures available to us. In addition to this, despite protestations of unity, the interests of State, CIA and the Pentagon are necessarily disparate.

As I see it, it is quite clear that the first serious problem confronting us here in Washington as we attempt to pursue a policy that really satisfies no one is going to arise with CIA. John McCone expressed at some length and reportedly with considerable vigor at the day before yesterday’s (October 16) Special Group (CI)2 the view that we are going to have “an explosion” in Vietnam in the very near future. I am not sure precisely what McCone had in mind, but I imagine that he was asserting for the record one of his familiar “visceral” feelings. These, as we know, are sometimes right (Soviet missiles in Cuba) and sometimes wrong (ChiCom major attack on India), but I also think there is more to his present view than this. I suspect he is quite legitimately concerned about the likelihood we will be able to continue a successful war effort (in which his agency is to some extent involved) while at the same time, we are holding up economic aid as well as in effect encouraging political uncertainty in the GVN. The original McNamara/Taylor horseback opinion of how long it would be before the GVN felt the economic squeeze was two to four months. McCone may be arguing that the cumulative effect of political-economic unease will bring things to a head in much shorter order. As a further speculation, I would suggest that he may think that the development [Page 407] of an explosive situation is unlikely to redound to our benefit, that an alternative government acceptable and useful to us is unlikely to arise, and that the communist Viet Cong is in the best position to exploit the chaos that could ensue.

[1 paragraph (15 lines) and handwritten marginal notation not declassified]

In sum, I believe we can expect McCone now to argue that the consequences of our present course are going to be unhelpful in the extreme and that we should, therefore, edge quite rapidly back toward what might be described as our policy toward Vietnam before last August.

I do not see any signs that the Pentagon has yet reached similar conclusions. In view of the military responsibility for getting on with the war, however, I would be astonished if they were not impressed by the line of reasoning I would expect McCone to advance.

I conclude that we may have rapidly increasing difficulty in inducing the rest of the town to live with the untidiness that we at least have fully expected to accompany pursuit of our present policy. Unless we can effectively refute the argument that our present course is trending toward “an explosion”, we are going to have to assert with some considerable confidence that such an explosion is to our benefit. Perhaps all we can hope to do now is to hold the line at least until Lodge gets back here for consultation. It may be that what he has in mind is some positive thinking on ways in which we can, in fact, insure that any “explosion” is exploitable to our advantage.

  1. Source: Kennedy Library, Hilsman Papers, Countries Series-Vietnam. Secret.
  2. No record of this meeting has been found.