Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume III, Vietnam, June–December 1965

215. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson¹

Washington, December 4, 1965.

1. I promised you yesterday a memorandum by this pouch on the pros and cons of the pause as it now looks. This memorandum is a personal assessment for your interim consideration. There should be a further paper with fairly general support within the Administration by the end of the day on Monday.²

2. The opinion in favor of a pause continues to grow here. This morning there seems to be a favorable consensus among Rusk, McNamara, Vance, Ball, McNaughton, the Bundy brothers, and Tommy Thompson. We think this is the best single way of keeping it clear that Johnson is for peace, while Ho is for war. This has great advantages in balancing the further military deployments and the big military budget. It has advantages with all third countries, and perhaps particularly with the Soviet Union. Thompson points out that a pause would greatly strengthen the Russian resolve to stand clear of our fighting in Vietnam.

3. The pause also has an important political advantage which has only recently emerged in our discussions. If a pause should lead to the conference table, it would mean that Hanoi had given up one of its current conditions—which is the acceptance of the program of the NLF (the Viet Cong). Thus such a move by Hanoi would drive a sharp wedge between Hanoi and the Communists in South Vietnam. We know that it is just this kind of sell-out that the southern Communists fear. Thus, a pause which led to negotiations could be strongly defended in Saigon and with hard-liners at home as a very powerful instrument of attack on Viet Cong morale—since all of our mounting pressures in the South would still continue. Moreover, we are increasingly persuaded that there is no trap we cannot manage in deciding when and how to end the pause. We would make it clear at every stage that the continuation of the pause and its ending would both be governed by our judgment on the continuing aggression from the North against the South. (To put it another way, while a pause might lead to negotiations, we would never commit ourselves to a permanent end of the bombing merely in return for a conference.) Thus either the infiltration would stop, or we would have a perfectly legitimate and internationally defensible reason for renewed bombing at a time of our choice.

4. We are not agreed here on the timing of a pause. Most of us have thought that it probably ought to happen in December and early January, so that you could end it or not—as you chose—around the time of the State of the Union message. But we now think that perhaps it could come later—and might even be a balancing element in your military announcements for the effort in South Vietnam in January. This needs more thought.

5. The weaknesses of the pause are two—one international and one domestic:

The international danger is that it would simply shift the propaganda of soft-liners from the bombing to the need to recognize the NLF. Our current line on this is fairly good—that Hanoi can bring anyone it wants. But the pressure would grow to give some more explicit recognition to people who “control one-half the country.” This is exactly what we must not do if we do not wish to lose the whole game in South Vietnam. But sooner or later we are going to have to face this music, and perhaps it is not so bad to face it now during a pause.

The domestic problem is more severe. The Joint Chiefs are now pressing very hard for escalation of the bombing, and the whole American Right is likely to be tempted by the argument that just at the moment of trial we are weakening in our support for our men in Vietnam. McNamara can make a very convincing argument that the bombing in the North is only marginally related to the fighting in the South—whether or not we escalate. But it is hard to get certified military agreement to this proposition. Against this, of course, we have the pronouncement of the National Council of Churches, but it is far from clear that they really represent their congregations.³

6. This is only a preliminary paper, but I think it does contain the central elements of what will be the most urgent question before us when we meet with you.

McG. B.

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. XVII. Top Secret; Sensitive; Eyes Only. There is an indication on the source text that this memorandum was received at the LBJ Ranch in Texas at 11 a.m. on December 4, and that the President saw it.
2. December 6; see Document 220.
3. On December 3, the general board of the National Council of Churches in Madison, Wisconsin, released a policy statement that noted with approval the Johnson administration’s commitment to unconditional discussions with North Vietnam and its policy of not bombing population centers. It also urged the President to take new initiatives in seeking peace in Vietnam.