110. Memorandum for the Record1
Meeting with the President, October 23, 1968, 2:45 p.m.
PRESENT
- The President, General William W. Momyer,2 W.W. Rostow
The President asked Mr. Rostow if he had reviewed the President’s problem with General Momyer.
Mr. Rostow said he had not. He thought the President should present it to General Momyer himself.
The President stated that he confronted a dangerous decision. It could yield good results or bad. He did not wish to put General [Page 310] Momyer in the position of overriding the judgments of his military or political superior officers; but he wanted his personal best judgment on a wholly personal basis.
The President would have to make a decision on his own responsibility. He had consulted Bunker and Abrams and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as key civilians. But he also wanted the personal judgment on his decision from General Momyer before making up his mind.
For a long time, the President said, we had taken the position that we were willing to stop the bombing if the enemy would do “almost anything” by way of reciprocity. We had also said that we expected prompt and productive talks looking towards peace; and that we would assume the enemy would not take advantage of a bombing cessation.
Lately we have spelled out our position with some precision. First, the GVN must participate in the productive talks. This would confer a great benefit on the GVN. Hanoi had repeated over and over again it would never deal with these “lackeys” of the U.S. Second, we have made it clear that they must understand that if they violated the DMZ we would have to respond. General Abrams would have standing orders to respond if the DMZ were violated.
These two points were the essence of Harriman’s initial instructions in Paris. Since then, we have added a third point as a result of the enemy’s shelling the cities. We have said that they must understand that if they shell the cities, we would have to respond by bombing North Vietnam.
On these conditions we are considering whether we would stop on an agreement that the GVN would enter the substantive talks within a week.
We would shift our air power over to Laos. We have taken the view that with the heavy rains in the North Vietnamese panhandle our risks might not be too great. We would urge the other side to try to match the negotiating record of 1954 and wind up the negotiations in 30 days. During that period we would expect no attacks across the DMZ and no attacks on the cities.
The President then said he was conscious that there were certain dangers and pitfalls; for example, the other side might not show up for the first meeting. They might violate the DMZ or shell the cities, and we would be in the position of having to resume the bombing and having been duped on the basis of an inadequate agreement. We would have agreement that the GVN must take part in the talks; but this they could simply violate. They could claim that they heard what we said about the DMZ and the cities, but they didn’t agree. The President is much concerned at the possibility of entering an agreement which is not sufficiently explicit and might lead to the charge that he was duped. Some [Page 311] of his advisers, on the other hand, say that we could present our record as having gone the last mile in good faith. The President does not wish to lose a great opportunity for peace, but he wished to share his concerns with General Momyer and seek his judgment. Gen. Momyer should know that only one civilian in the Pentagon is aware of the decision that now lies before the President, although all the members of the JCS, plus General Palmer, know about it. Very few civilians in the government know of what lies before the President.
The President then asked General Momyer for his judgment. General Momyer said: I presume that when we talk about a cessation of bombing we mean only North Vietnam, and that we would continue bombing in Laos and South Vietnam.
The President affirmed that this was the case and reminded General Momyer that we would only hold our hand in North Vietnam if they did not violate the DMZ. General Momyer said that we are now in the midst of the monsoon transition in Vietnam. The weather will be bad in the panhandle all the way from the 17th parallel to Hanoi. Bombing from the 17th to the 19th parallel for the next three months would have to be done by radar. That means that you cannot bomb trucks but only fixed points. The effectiveness of such bombing is low. We would normally concentrate our effort against trucks coming through Laos. If we can still do this, General Momyer said that, in his judgment, the risk being undertaken by the President was minimal at this period and for the next few months.
General Momyer went on to say that unless the enemy is engaged in a purposeful de-escalation, we must expect an increase in infiltration and truck movements through Laos. But if we can keep the pressure on in Laos the military risk of a bombing cessation against North Vietnam was “acceptable.”
The President asked: Would we move all our sorties over to Laos, or would there be more than could be absorbed in Laos?
General Momyer said: Not all. Some would be allocated from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. But we could get better results from bombing in Laos and South Vietnam than in North Vietnam during the present monsoon period. He said, again, that we could only bomb by radar against such fixed points as ferries and fords between the 17th and 19th parallels in the kind of weather that is now upon us. He said this was the most favorable period, from a military point of view, for a bombing cessation. In his judgment, it would not endanger our troops in I Corps.
The President said that he had not wished to indicate the views of others before General Momyer rendered his judgment, but he might be interested to know that General McConnell had given him an evaluation precisely like his own. The JCS also agrees.
[Page 312]The President then turned to another question which, he said, he proposes to put to General Abrams. What is your guess—will the enemy violate the DMZ?
General Momyer said that if he intended to violate the DMZ substantially, he would have to redeploy his forces presently in North Vietnam and in Laos. This would take time in the present period of heavy rain. It might take him two months to get himself into position. It did not make much military sense for him to do so at this time.
The President then said that Secretary Rusk had given him an estimate of a 75% probability that the enemy would honor the DMZ.
General Momyer said he agreed because of the difficulty of moving troops and mounting an attack in the weather conditions which would obtain over the next several months.
General Momyer said he thought they might do a certain amount of desultory shelling across the DMZ to remind us they are there, but nothing like the attacks against Con Thien or Gio Linh where hundreds of shells were fired from or across the DMZ at our men.
General Momyer repeated: I believe the threat of violation is wholly “acceptable.”
The President then put to General Momyer this question: If you were President, would you do it?
After a pause, General Momyer said, “Yes, sir.” He explained that, given the low military risk, he would certainly do it if he had any reason to believe that this gave us the greatest possible opportunity to bring peace to Vietnam.
The President reassured General Momyer as the meeting closed that reconnaissance would continue. General Momyer thought this essential.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Vietnam, Memos to the President/Bombing Halt Decision, Vol. I [1 of 3]. Secret; Sensitive. The meeting, which was held in the Cabinet Room, lasted from 2:44 p.m. to 3 p.m. (Ibid., President’s Daily Diary) In an attached covering note transmitting a copy of this memorandum to the President, October 23, 7:10 p.m., Rostow wrote: “Herewith an account of your conversation this afternoon with General Momyer, for your files or any use you may have of it.” The President made the following handwritten notation on the covering note: “Walt—Save this for Congressional briefing & have available.—L.” A full transcript of the meeting is ibid., Transcripts of Meetings in the Cabinet Room.↩
- Commander, Tactical Air Command, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; Former Commander, Seventh Air Force, Vietnam. [Footnote in the source text.]↩