Office of the Historian

36. Letter From the Secretary of State to the Secretary of Defense (McNamara)1

Washington, February 5, 1964.

Dear Bob: I have read with a great deal of interest the Joint Chiefs of Staff Memorandum of January 22, 1964, on Viet-Nam and Southeast Asia, which you forwarded with your letter of January 28, 1964.2

I share the view of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that in Viet-Nam we must demonstrate to both the Communist and the non-Communist worlds that the “wars of national liberation” formula now being pushed so actively by the Communists will not succeed. The Joint Chiefs have, in my view, correctly remarked that the focus of the counterinsurgency battle lies in South Viet-Nam itself, and the war must be fought and won primarily in the minds of the Vietnamese people. This means that this war, like other guerrilla wars, is essentially political—an important fact to bear in mind in determining command and control arrangements in Viet-Nam.

I also agree with the Joint Chiefs that we must follow an integrated U. S. approach in Southeast Asia to achieve our policy objectives. We must determine what the effects will be on the other countries in the area of any major action we take in or with respect to a given country. We must also determine with respect to any proposed action what we can realistically expect to achieve with that action, and balance that against the political and military risks attendant upon that action before reaching a decision.

I have noted the list of possible actions which the Joint Chiefs may wish to consider recommending from a military standpoint as the situation develops. The Department of State will, of course, always be prepared to consider promptly, in the light of the factors mentioned above, any courses of action which the Joint Chiefs and the Department of Defense propose.

With warm regards,

Sincerely,

Dean
  1. Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OASD/ISA Files: FRC 69 A 926, 092 Vietnam. Top Secret; Exdis. According to the Department of State copy of this letter, Mendenhall was the drafter. (Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 VIET S)↩
  2. See Document 17.↩