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

221. Telegram From the National Security Council Executive Secretary (Smith) to President Johnson, in Texas¹

Washington, December 7, 1965, 9:44 a.m.

CAP 65830. Following is text of cable from Lodge, Saigon 2034.² Secretary Rusk has a copy in his briefing book:

1. The Viet Cong bombing of the Metropole,³ with its toll of American, New Zealand and Vietnamese dead and wounded, is the fourth such event which has happened during my service in Viet-Nam. Like its predecessors, it stimulates the thought, first, that we are not interlopers or trespassers here but that we are here legally and have a right to be here. This prompts the further thought that we have a duty to protect our own personnel against future terrorist attacks of this kind. For us to strike back, therefore, is not only a just punishment for an outrageous aggression but it may also head off another similar outrage. This is a worthy aim.

2. I therefore recommend that we inflict some punishment on North Viet-Nam which we will state is a retaliation. It could be something which we intend to do anyway.

3. You in Washington are much better informed than I am but some possibilities which seem to me to be worthy are bombing coal mines, textile mills, irrigation ditches, the coastal waterway between South China and North Viet-Nam, steel mills, fertilizer factories and any other unmanned objectives. Lodge.⁴

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Vietnam, Vol. XLIII, Cables. Secret; Exdis. Also sent to McGeorge Bundy for information. Received at the LBJ Ranch at 9:07 a.m.
2. Dated December 5. (Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 VIET S.)
3. Reference is to the bombing of the U.S. servicemen’s Metropole Hotel on December 4 in which 9 persons were killed (1 U.S. Marine, 1 New Zealand artilleryman, and 7 South Vietnamese civilians) and 137 injured (of which 62 were civilians).
4. In telegram 1595 to Saigon, December 8, the Department informed Lodge that it had approved a bombing attack on an isolated electric power plant north of Haiphong. (Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 VIET S.)