370. Editorial Note
On October 5, Under Secretary Ball sent copies of a lengthy memorandum on Vietnam to Secretaries Rusk and McNamara and McGeorge Bundy. The memorandum posited four options for U.S. policy:
- 1.
- Continue the present course of action;
- 2.
- Take over the war;
- 3.
- Mount an air offensive against the North;
- 4.
- Work for a political settlement.
For text of the memorandum, see Atlantic Monthly, July 1972, pages 36–49; for Ball’s recollection of the drafting and discussion of the memorandum, see The Past Has Another Pattern, pages 380–384. According to William Bundy, Ball was tasked by the President to prepare the memorandum at a meeting on October 3 (Bundy Files, [Page 813] Bundy Manuscript, page 17–9), but no record of a meeting on that day appears in either Johnson’s Daily Diary or Rusk’s Appointment Book. (Johnson Library)
Later in the month, following discussions with John McNaughton and Michael Forrestal, William Bundy drafted his own memorandum on Vietnam. Circulated to Rusk, McNamara, Ball, and McGeorge Bundy under cover of an October 19 memorandum, this 42-page paper did not attempt to meet all Ball’s arguments, but in Bundy’s words contained “all the apparent heresies” he could think of. (Department of State, Bundy Files, October 1964) After surveying the situation in Vietnam and the likely developments under the existing U.S. policy, the paper presented the following five options:
- A.
- Continue present policies indefinitely;
- B.
- Maintain systematic military pressures against North Vietnam;
- C.
- Continue present programs, but wink at intra-Vietnam negotiations;
- D.
- Continue present programs, but take a negotiating initiative;
- E.
- Continue present programs, but add actions to convey a believable threat of force, then negotiate.
Discussion of these papers did not occur in a formal sense until November 7, when they became part of the work of the NSC Working Group. See Document 403.