17. Editorial Note
On January 22, 1964, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent Secretary of Defense McNamara a memorandum recommending that the United States put aside many of the “self-imposed restrictions” in South Vietnam and undertake bolder action. The Joint Chiefs stated that success or failure in Vietnam was crucial to the U.S. position in all Southeast Asia. They recommended the following specific actions:
- “a. Assign to the US military commander responsibilities for the total US program in Vietnam.”
- “b. Induce the Government of Vietnam to turn over to the United States military commander, temporarily, the actual tactical direction of the war.”
- “c. Charge the United States military commander with complete responsibility for conduct of the program against North Vietnam.”
- “d. Overfly Laos and Cambodia to whatever extent is necessary for acquisition of operational intelligence.”
- “e. Induce the Government of Vietnam to conduct overt ground operations in Laos of sufficient scope to impede the flow of personnel and material southward.”
- “f. Arm, equip, advise, and support the Government of Vietnam in its conduct of aerial bombing of critical targets in North Vietnam and in mining the sea approaches to that country.”
- “g. Advise and support the Government of Vietnam in its conduct of large-scale commando raids against critical targets in North Vietnam”
- “h. Conduct aerial bombing of key North Vietnam targets, [1–1/2 lines of source text not declassified].”
- “i. Commit additional US forces, as necessary, in support of the combat action within South Vietnam.”
- “j. Commit US forces as necessary in direct actions against North Vietnam.” (Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OASD/ISA Files: FRC 69 A 926,092 Vietnam)
McNamara sent a copy of this memorandum to Rusk on January 28. The full text of the memorandum is printed in Pentagon Papers: Gravel Edition, volume III, pages 496–499.