70. Memorandum From Michael V. Forrestal of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1
SUBJECT
- Intermediate Actions in Laos2
At the moment Article 4 consultations among five of the fourteen Geneva nations are taking place. These will not amount to a hill of beans. The next probable step will be something like the Polish proposal, modified so that this meeting will take place in Luang Prabang instead of Geneva and will include Souvanna Phouma, as well as representatives of the three factions. There will be two principal issues: restoration of the Government of National Union and PL withdrawal from the Plaine des Jarres. This meeting will fail to produce any agreement; but it will probably produce intense pressure for a fourteen-nation Geneva Conference.
We should take an intensely firm decision (probably by the President) not to attend the Geneva Conference. We should repeat this decision incessantly to our friends and enemies. Simultaneously, we should expand our air reconnaissance activities to include all those areas both in [Page 129] Laos and North Vietnam through which Hanoi’s supply lines run into each of those countries. I understand (contrary to my previous expectations) that significant results are already being achieved. The purpose of the reconnaissance is not only to give a signal of our determination, but also to provide evidence for use before Congress and later the world.
Some of our planes will get shot at; some may even be lost. Hopefully, this will not start happening for some time, when we may be in a position to take advantage of this to begin moving down a more serious tack. This is very sketchy, but I think we must get a start on a combined military/political tack in Laos.3
“The political and diplomatic course of action with respect to Laos is probably still the most immediate possible trigger of larger decisions. For the moment, we are doing quite well in our negotiations with and on behalf of Souvanna, and our relatively affirmative position on the Polish proposal has been helpful, but it is agreed that we need to discuss possible further actions with respect to Laos, both among ourselves and with the Thais, the British, and the French.” (Ibid., Memos to the President, Vol. V, 6/1–30/64) The memorandum is printed in full in Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, vol. I, pp. 440–441.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Laos, Vol. VI, Memos, 6/1/64–6/14/64. Secret.↩
- According to a June 3 covering memorandum from Forrestal to Bundy, Forrestal suggested that Laos was the place for the United States to take “an action tack in SEA,” but Forrestal feared that the Department of State was not “really getting down to it.” Forrestal stated that “Bill Bundy’s Laos people are weak, and Sullivan is diffident about intruding into this area; nevertheless, the thoughts in the attached memorandum come largely from him.” (Ibid.)↩
- In a memorandum to President Johnson, June 3, which dealt mostly with Vietnam, McGeorge Bundy summarized developments in Laos as follows:↩