Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume I, Vietnam, 1964

357. Memorandum From the Chairman of the Policy Planning Council (Rostow) to the Secretary of State¹

S/P–213–64

Washington, September 19, 1964.

SUBJECT

• Some Ambiguities in Southeast Asia and in Our Policy Towards That Region

Leaving open the question of whether we retaliate immediately against North Viet Nam in response to the Tonkin Gulf engagement of September 18,1 should like to suggest certain ambiguities in the situation as it has developed since the earlier Tonkin Gulf incidents, which may have implications for diplomatic action. They have operational urgency, given the character of the retaliatory targets now planned in response to a Tonkin Gulf attack.

1. The military and political dispositions of Hanoi and Peiping. Evidently Hanoi and Peiping retain a capability to launch major conventional aggression in Southeast Asia. This capability has not yet been brought into play. Although recent Communist dispositions do not rule out such initiation of massive hostilities, that does not appear to be the current intent in Hanoi and Peiping. Since the earlier Tonkin Gulf incidents, Hanoi has positioned itself on a relatively high degree of air defense and ground force alert. It has accompanied these movements with policy statements which are designed to project a commitment to fight rather than abandon the war in South Viet Nam. Without initiating new military action against us or presenting us with any palpable escalation, they are pressing the war forward via infiltration and their command channels, with high hopes of producing a political situation in South Viet Nam which would take them far along the road to victory and, hopefully, deny us a credible base for action against the North. They do not rule out that we will, under desperate political circumstances in South Viet Nam, initiate military action against North Viet Nam and are evidently looking for Chinese Communist support, as well as trying to build a case before world public opinion, should our action come at a time when it appears to be an effort to retrieve a defeat virtually accomplished by a mixture of their prior military and political action. They are conscious that the timing of the U.S. election plays some role in our policy; but I doubt whether they are clear what effect it will have on our policy, both before or after November 3.²

2. Meanwhile, the Chinese Communists have made a series of military moves which suggest that they, too, envisage the possibility of substantial military action in the relatively near future. These moves, however, are geared in their political pronouncements to some version of the Korean circumstance; that is, a commitment to defend North Viet Nam from being occupied and destroyed as a Communist political unit by the United States. They have kept a certain distance from Hanoi’s commitment to pursue the war in the South. As the Chicom reaction in support of Hanoi’s air defense after the first Tonkin Gulf incidents suggest, Peiping has available a spectrum of moves in support of North Viet Nam short of engaging U.S. or allied forces. Nevertheless, there is a certain potentially important ambiguity between Hanoi’s declaratory commitment to continue the war to the South and Peiping’s declaratory commitment to defend North Viet Nam from attack by the U.S.

3. This ambiguity suggests that, should we move to systematic military pressure on the North, it will be important to make lucid the following three messages:

a. That we are prepared to take serious military action against North Viet Nam if it continues to support the war in the South; but that our objective is not the destruction of the regime in Hanoi but the enforcement of compliance to the 1954 and 1962 Accords.

b. This message must be conveyed to Peiping as well as Hanoi so that Peiping is clear that the analogy to Korea is inexact; namely, that if it engages its forces against the U.S. or our allies, it will be doing so not to protect the integrity of a Communist North Viet Nam but to protect the right of North Viet Nam to conduct aggression against Laos and South Viet Nam.

c. Should the Chinese Communists engage themselves in hostilities for this purpose, that the mainland of China would be subject to attack.

4. The problem of ambiguity is heightened by the character of the targets presently planned for retaliatory action in case of a further attack on our ships in the Tonkin Gulf. These targets relate not merely to the North Vietnamese challenge to our naval forces on the high seas but to their illegal conduct of the war in South Viet Nam. This is, of course, a critically important switch in rationale. I believe that switch is fully justified; but it requires that we be prepared not only with public opinion at home and in the Free World (including opinion in Taipei, Seoul, and Saigon) but in communications with the Communists, to make clear our limited purposes and our unlimited commitment to them.

5. The virtue of our actions in the Cuba missile-crisis and the earlier Tonkin Gulf crisis was the close link between purpose, rationale, and military action. A shift in rationale and apparent purpose, unclarified and lacking a palpable military and political base for prompt follow-through, could give us the worst of both worlds: a situation where we were judged by the Communists to have unlimited purposes (including a possible desire to bring down the regime in Hanoi) and a limited commitment to pursue them.

6. Specifically, I question whether a tit-for-tat approach is wise in punishing Hanoi for its illegal conduct of war in the South. A tit-for-tat approach was highly appropriate in the first Tonkin Gulf incidents because we were reacting to a specific, limited challenge to the U.S. on the high seas. The books could be closed after our retaliation, at least until that challenge was renewed. With respect to the conduct by Hanoi of the war against South Viet Nam, aggression proceeds systematically every day. What is required with respect to Hanoi and Peiping, therefore, is not a tit-for-tat action of limited scope and duration. Measured against the prospects for victory in the South-now so hopefully measured-such limited retaliation is a relatively trivial cost to Hanoi.

7. What is required in Hanoi and Peiping is the conviction that we have decided to go ahead with a regular and systematic imposition of costs on the North on a scale and with a continuity sufficient to raise the question in Hanoi as to whether the war in the South is worth pursuing; a conviction in Peiping that our objectives are limited but deadly serious, and that Peiping’s engagement against us (or our allies) in order to permit Hanoi to continue the war against the South could involve major costs on the mainland; and a conviction in both capitals that we are prepared to deal with any degree of escalation they may mount.

8. The character of the retaliatory targets, therefore, places on us a requirement to shift our military dispositions and communications in such a way as to remove ambiguities which could be dangerous. Specifically, what is likely to maximize the chance of a settlement on our terms with respect to Viet Nam and Laos, is not the damage we may do in a tit-for-tat sequence of exchanges but a mixture of deadly serious communications and deadly serious military preparations which would obviously display two characteristics:

a. A capacity to impose on North Viet Nam damage on a scale sufficient to put in question the advantages of pursuing the war in the South;

b. A capacity to put in question in Peiping the wisdom of placing mainland China in mortal jeopardy in order that Hanoi might extend its power in the direction of Saigon and Vientiane.

9. In short, the situation built up between the Tonkin Gulf incidents and the character of the retaliatory targets now chosen leads us towards a new track, directly related to Hanoi’s aggression and Peiping’s relation to it. This new track requires military signals, communications with the enemy, and diplomacy of a quite different kind than that required in the earlier Tonkin Gulf incidents. In its first phase, the essence of the track is not the damage we do but the scale and character of our military dispositions and our diplomatic communications.

1. Source: Department of State, S/P Files: Lot 70 D 199, Southeast Asia. Top Secret. The source text, which was initialed by Rostow, bears the handwritten notation “S[ecretary] saw 9/28/64.” Copies were sent to William Bundy, Forrestal, Hughes, and Thompson.
2. The date of the U.S. Presidential election.