374. Editorial Note

On November 1, 1967, Under Secretary of State Katzenbach submitted to Secretary of State Rusk a report entitled “Prognosis for Vietnam.” The purpose of the study, compiled on an interagency basis, was to make projections of progress in the war 1 year hence if current policies and programs were continued. The report consisted of a section on politics authored by State Department analysts, an economic projection by the Agency for International Development and William Leonhart of the National Security Council Staff, an analysis by the Central Intelligence Agency on the anti-Viet Cong infrastructure effort, and a final section by Leonhart examining pacification. In the covering memorandum, Katzenbach distilled the conclusions of the study:

“In briefest summation, there is a consensus that one year from now we will be stronger than we are now, making continued progress against the VC, and slowly building up the GVN—but that there will not have been a decisive and undeniable breakthrough, that the enemy will still be very much with us, that it will remain difficult to produce dramatic and convincing evidence of a victory in the near future.”

The full text of the study is in the National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Bundy Files: Lot 85 D 240, Top Secret WPB Chron., Nov./Dec. 1967.