Office of the Historian

175. Letter From the Director of the Vietnam Task Force (Cottrell) to the Commander in Chief, Pacificʼs Political Adviser (Martin)1

Washington, undated.

Dear Ed: Sorry not to have answered your letter of April 172 earlier.

Your letter raises two questions:

1.

What is our position on the reunification of Viet-Nam?

It remains as stated by Bedell Smith. Under present circumstances, however, with war in the country, our immediate objective is the restoration of peace and of the situation created by the Geneva Agreement of 1954.

2.
What would be our aims in the event we became engaged in military operations against North Viet-Nam?

The political objective of any military plan involving North Viet-Nam would be the restoration of the situation created by the Geneva Agreement of 1954—the division of Viet-Nam at the 17th parallel guaranteed by the powers. There is no thought at present of a re-conquest of North Viet-Nam by military means, to effect a reunification.

The only thinking which comes close to your question which I have heard is the proposition (no official sanction yet) that if our present efforts in Viet-Nam fail, we should go to the source of the problem and apply graduated punishment on the DRV to cease and desist. This does not involve reunification, however.

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So, my conclusion is that however meritorious it might be to seek reunification through military force, I know of no such policy. Consequently, if the Admiral wants to make his assumptions match present thinking rather than break new ground, I think he would be safer to use the “graduated punishment” idea.

If, however, he postulates overt Chicom intervention, with a scrap between us and the Chinese, then my own idea is that if we had to destroy both the Chinese and DRV war making capability it would be rather silly to return the DRV to Commie control.

This is the best I can do on Monday morning.

All the best,

Sincerely,

Sterling J. Cottrell3
  1. Source: Department of State, Vietnam Working Group Files: Lot 66 D 193, 20.1, GVN 1962, Secret; Official-Informal. The source text is undated, but since it indicates that the letter was written on a Monday, it may have been April 30.↩
  2. Document 161.↩
  3. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩