360. Memorandum From Michael V. Forrestal of the National Security Council Staff to President Johnson1
VIETNAM
You will probably be meeting with Secretary McNamara before he takes off on his mission to Saigon and the following (which is based upon my recent visit there)2 may be of help to you in giving guidance to the Secretary.
The Present Situation
The most urgent current problem in South Vietnam is the strong Viet Cong position in the delta provinces just south of Saigon. Recent reports have suggested that Communist control of these provinces may be far more wide-spread that we had previously thought. One recent report states that out of 219 strategic hamlets in the Long An Province which had been reported as completed under the Diem regime, only 45 have actually been identified.3 The implication is either that the Viet Cong have infiltrated a large number of established hamlets because of the failure of the GVN to protect them, or that the province chiefs under the old regime reported as completed hamlets which did not meet the criteria of the strategic hamlet program. Since allocations of money to the various provinces were made on the basis of the number of hamlets reported completed, there was an incentive both for political and financial reasons for province chiefs to tend to exaggerate the number of strategic hamlets built.
[Page 699]To some extent the recent rather alarming reports may be the result of a new look being taken by the new regime at an old program. There is, however, evidence that a certain amount of inertia has occurred in provincial administration since the coup. A large number of the province chiefs have been changed and some of the newly appointed ones have been changed again. This has produced a certain indecisiveness in administration, the effect of which has been transmitted downwards through the district chiefs and into the villages.
Another problem has been the fact that the strategic hamlet program was closely associated with Counselor Nhu and consequently has been criticized by the leaders of the new regime. These leaders have not, however, come up with new programs or new directives to replace the old; and until they do, subordinate officials of their highly centralized Government are not apt to take any initiatives.
On the military front, however, there is some cause for optimism. Since there is now virtually no political interference in military operations, regional commanders have, in some areas, shown more aggressiveness and drive than they had in the past. More effective contact has been made with the enemy by the ARVN, and our military people in Saigon feel optimistic for the future.
The principal difficulty remains what it always has been, i.e. bringing the government effectively to the villages in such a way as to win the peasants’ confidence and support.
Operations Against North Vietnam
For some time the Central Intelligence Agency has been engaged in joint clandestine operations with ARVN against North Vietnam. Despite considerable effort, however, very little has come of these operations, partly because of the tight police control in the North and partly because of their very small size. It would be worthwhile exploring the possibility of larger-scale operations against selected targets in the North provided we carried them out in connection with a political program designed to get a practical reaction out of Hanoi. So far such a program has not been worked out and—even more importantly—the capacity for carrying out larger-scale operations does not now exist. It will take time to develop such a capacity, and there is no reason why we should not do so while we try to work out a diplomatic scenario in which military pressure against the North would play a part.
Laos Cross Border Operations
There has been considerable interest in stepping up operations across the Laotian border from South Vietnam against the “Ho Chi Minh Trail.” This is a perennial and has often come up when difficulties develop in the military situation within South Vietnam. Actually [Page 700] we have had little or no hard intelligence since October of last year on the use of Laos as a corridor into South Vietnam. The recent discoveries of new weapons and ammunition supplies in South Vietnam have been made in the Delta and in the Ca Mau Peninsula in the southernmost part of the country. I was told in Saigon that the best guess was that these were supplies reaching South Vietnam through Cambodia via the Mekong or from the sea. Nevertheless, carefully controlled intelligence operations across the Laotian border should be considered provided we balance carefully the risk of discovery which would upset the delicate balance of forces in Laos against what we would expect to gain from these operations. In order to do this, we should try to keep the operations as covert as possible and make sure that Ambassador Unger in Vientiane has a say in what goes on. Past experience has shown that the best way of accomplishing this is to control this kind of operation covertly through CIA, rather than through military channels.
Guidance for Secretary McNamara
In light of the above, you might wish to tell McNamara that you hope he will be able to focus the attention of the Vietnamese generals on their first priority problem, the immediate restoration of administrative initiative in the provinces, especially the Delta. They should subordinate all political dickering among themselves to the fundamental necessity of getting the most effective officials appointed-and having done so, they should keep them in their jobs and support them. Secretary McNamara might also tell them that in his opinion it is of utmost importance to establish a new program for the villages and immediately issue the necessary implementing directives. He might also offer our help in getting up such a program, something which should be rather easy for us to do, since it would draw heavily from the old Strategic Hamlet Program.
Secretary McNamara might also direct our own military and intelligence people to cooperate on devising a significant capability to strike at selected targets in North Vietnam. The question of when and how we would use any assets we can develop would be deferred until the Government here has worked out a program.
Lastly, Secretary McNamara and Director McCone should investigate ways and means of ensuring that Laos cross border operations are conducted covertly both from the Vietnamese and U.S. point of view and subject to the closest kind of control to ensure that we don’t upset Ambassador Unger’s continuous juggling act in Laos.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Vietnam Country File, Memos. and Misc. Top Secret. Also published in Declassified Documents, 1975, 174C.↩
- After the Honolulu meeting on November 20, Forrestal and Kattenburg went to Vietnam. Forrestal also visited Cambodia at the end of the month and returned to Washington early in December.↩
- See Document 352.↩