Office of the Historian

231. Memorandum From the Acting Secretary of Defense (Bundy) to the Secretary of Defense (McNamara)1

Washington. November 9, 1961.

SUBJECT

  • Comments on South Viet-Nam Threat

Basic

1.
The paper2 does not say whether we will in fact send combat forces and if so when. Does it mean “take the seven steps and then test,” or what? If it means “make the commitment and take only the seven steps,” then I would agree with George Ball that this is the worst of both worlds.
2.
The combat forces scheme is most undesirable militarily, and was so pointed out three weeks ago by JCS.3 The border area is not an area of major Viet Cong activity, it is unhealthy and difficult to operate in, and easy to bypass for the Viet Cong. Either the Kontum plateau or the Delta “flood relief” force make much more sense, and I for one see no compensating political edge to the idea in the draft. The Kontum area has a good border-holding explanation.
3.
The timing of action is not covered. In particular, the relation to Laos is left hanging. Does the draft mean wait at all costs till Laos is buttoned up? If so, it may be indefinite and futile, and in itself condemn us to the “seven points” only. On the other hand, it is true that if we rely on sea lift the time of transit from the US (35 days) or Hawaii (25-30 days since shipping has to come from the US) would itself mean that, even if we decided now, we could hold the impact of arrival of the major force off till a month from now. If the movement leaked, we could argue a maneuver with at least faint plausibility. By airlift or use of Okinawa forces we can of course get some forces in quicker-a week by sea from Okinawa, 7-10 days to get a brigade from the US by air ….4 However, on this whole question of relation to Laos, the tough question is whether the cat won’t be out of the bag the moment we say to Diem that we will send forces. To me, the draft judgment that there is “considerable risk” of the other side moving in Laos is a bit over-stated. There is a risk, all right, but the right noises would help keep it down-and it [Page 572] doesn’t wholly go away even with a settlement. This again argues against too fixed calculation on the timing of a settlement.
4.
The paper does not mention the issue of honoring the Laos border. This does hinge on a settlement. If there is one, or about to be one, my own judgment is that we would be wiser, net, to honor the border. However, we might have to change later if the flow kept up-and the odds are that it would.

Lesser

5.
On SEATO help, seek it by all means, but let’s not wait long on this. Accord on not accepting any veto.
6.
On when to tell the Soviets (page 9), to tell them right away would run the risk of appeals for a conference, and our having to reject this before we even move men in. One answer might be to move some few men in and tell the Soviets coincidentally. Enough to show we mean business, not so large it makes the whole thing clearly unnegotiable.
William P. Bundy
  1. Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 330, McNamara Files: FRC 71 A 3470, SE Asia 1961. Top Secret. The time of receipt in the Office of the Secretary of Defense is stamped on the source text as 2:20 p.m., November 9.↩
  2. See footnote 1, Document 228.↩
  3. Presumably a reference to Document 150.↩
  4. Ellipsis in the source text.↩