Office of the Historian

123. Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary of Defense (Wilson)1

Washington, December 21, 1956.

SUBJECT

  • U.S. Policy in Mainland Southeast Asia (U)
1.
By a memorandum dated 13 September 1956, subject: “U.S. Policy in Mainland Southeast Asia,”2 the Joint Chiefs of Staff were requested to prepare a definition of the term “limited initial resistance” as contained in paragraphs 47, 51, and 56 of NSC 5612, as amended. These paragraphs became 48, 52, and 57 in NSC 5612/1, approved by the President on 5 September 1956.3
2.
The term “limited initial resistance” in NSC 5612/1 as it applies to Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand should be defined as “resistance to Communist aggression by defending or by delaying in such manner as to preserve and maintain the integrity of the government and its armed forces for the period of time required to invoke the UN Charter and/or the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty or the period of time required for the U.S. Government to determine that considerations of national security require unilateral U.S. assistance and to commit U.S. or collective security forces to support or reinforce indigenous forces in defense of the country attacked.”
3.
The time span between the initiation of hostilities and a U.S. decision to commit forces will depend on circumstances existing at the time as well as on the scale of attack, and hence cannot be predetermined. For planning purposes, however, the Joint Chiefs of Staff assume that in case of a large scale attack a decision to commit external forces will be reached within a matter of hours so that forces could begin deployment almost immediately. With respect to Laos, Vietnam or Thailand the Joint Chiefs of Staff consider that a time-phased deployment of external forces to the area could provide appreciable assistance within two days; thereafter there could be a continuing build-up by air and sea from sources in the Far East, with any additional augmentation necessary arriving from the continental United States within forty-five days.
For the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
Arthur Radford4
Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
  1. Source: Department of State, S/P–NSC Files: Lot 62 D 1, NSC 5612 Series. Top Secret.↩
  2. Not found in Department of State files.↩
  3. Document 119.↩
  4. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩