Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXVIII, Laos

77. Memorandum for the Record¹

Washington, June 6, 1964, 10:45 a.m.

SUBJECT

• Meeting of the Executive Committee With the President, Saturday, 6 June, 10:45 a.m.

Note: Detailed memorandum on the conversation which took place being prepared by Mr. Colby.²

1. Secretary McNamara reported on the shoot-down of a Navy reconnaissance plane, the fact that the pilot was observed parachuting and had sent out radio signals and he had landed in an area infected with Pathet Lao. Efforts to retrieve him had failed and had been ordered stopped because of darkness. McNamara then recommended that a reconnaissance mission of two planes be sent out tomorrow, that it be accompanied by 8 fighter bombers, with orders to return fire if the reconnaissance planes were attacked.

2. The President then asked the opinion of each of the Chiefs. All expressed agreement with LeMay and Greene, favoring fighter-bomber operations prior to the reconnaissance flight. Wheeler and MacDonald were studying the Secretary’s recommendation. The differing views were reconciled along the lines of the McNamara recommendation.

3. Rusk then was asked his views. He said that he felt the reconnaissance flights had been a deterrent to PL operations, that they should be continued to the extent “necessary and essential in developing photographic reconnaissance required by the situation”. He opposed excessive flights and he opposed “loitering” to gain visual observation of villages, encampments, etc. With this restriction, Rusk agreed to the reconnaissance flight tomorrow with fighter-bomber accompaniment and orders to return fire.

4. The President then said that he questioned whether we had thought through where we are going; specifically he said, “and what comes next?” This question—the most important question raised in the meeting—remained unanswered.

5. The President then asked my opinion. I stated that it was probably true that the reconnaissance flights had caused the Pathet Lao North Vietnamese to act with restraint. However I noted their limited time for military actions which involved going forward aggressively for a short period, pausing and then withdrawing was typical of PL operations and probably due more to logistic and support problems, ammunition shortages, etc., than to such considerations as our overflights. With respect to the McNamara recommendations, I supported them without hesitation or reservation.

6. The Attorney General likewise supported the recommendations.

7. The meeting adjourned.

I then met briefly with Forrestal and asked if he had researched the SEATO Agreement³ and the extent to which we could lean on it if we wished it to commit actual war. Forrestal agreed to review the Treaty and the obligations over the weekend.

I then met privately with Bundy and posed the same question to him. I said that the problems of securing a Joint Resolution were most serious as it would involve a debate on the Floor of the Senate which would probably be violent and corrosive to U.S. policy position. However in my opinion the commitment of ground troops to Laos would cause consternation throughout the country and the debate on the Hill infinitely more violent than the one that might arise over a Joint Resolution as outlined by the Attorney General. I said it would surprise me if several important Senators such as Russell and Saltonstall would not severely criticize the commitment of troops to Laos and that I felt a sampling of public opinion at this time would indicate that not one person in 50 favored such commitment. I pointed out that all of the “hardboiled spokesmen” such as Goldwater, Nixon, Rockefeller (to a lesser extent), and even Symington had advocated air strikes and envisaged our boys flying back to base in safety after having deposited their bombs on North Vietnam or elsewhere. I therefore viewed with great concern the consequences of the actions which we were “drifting into” and I wished Bundy to express this view to the President. Bundy agreed to give the President a brief memorandum.⁴

[Here follows discussion of the DCI’s and CIA’s general responsibilities and the possibility of CIA returning to South Vietnam in an active rather than a support role.]

1. Source: Johnson Library, John McCone Memoranda, Meetings with President, 1/4/64–4/28/64. Secret; Eyes Only. Dictated by McCone and transcribed by his secretary. Copies were sent to Carter and Helms. McCone mistakenly describes this as an Executive Committee of the NSC meeting. It is a formal numbered NSC meeting. For Forrestal’s account of the meeting, see Document 76.
2. Not found.
3. The Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty (Manila Pact), September 8, 1954. For text and related Protocol, see American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents, 1950–1955, pp. 912–916.
4. Not further identified.