Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XXIV, Laos Crisis

386. Memorandum From Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Kennedy⁰

Washington, June 4, 1962.

As Mr. Forrestal has explained to you, the draft memorandum of 4 June 1962,¹ which you have read, was prepared by my staff in consultation with the Department of State. It had not been cleared personally by me or by Secretary Rusk. Upon looking it over carefully, I believe it requires the following major changes to reflect my views:

1. Recommendations 2 and 3 on page 9² should be stated in terms of having plans ready for these contingencies. I am not prepared to recommend them at the present time. We are already preparing such plans in the DOD. Similarly, all the courses of action should be considered as possible plans rather than firm proposals.

2. The discussion of Stage 2, “Occupation of the Mekong River Areas,” on pages 3 and 4, overstates the military usefulness of this course of action. Denial of the north-south road system in Southern Laos would not have any effect on the present supply route to South Vietnam, which appears to be adequate for the North Vietnamese to send in men and funds, although it undoubtedly has limitations on equipment. Even Communist control of these roads would still leave them with a major problem getting equipment onward from Attopeu.

3. Most important of all, page 4³ fails to make clear that we might confront the “threshold” within a matter of days after we had taken the first move in occupying these areas. The intelligence estimate is that the Communists would almost certainly respond by harassing actions and by seeking to consolidate and gradually expand their hold, particularly in Southern Laos. I cannot visualize our staying at this point long, and believe that as a practical matter we would have to move further to Stage 3 and 4 and possibly 5 and 6. In short, I see Stage 2 as a politically useful opening gambit which might conceivably restore a cease-fire and bring about resumed negotiations, but if it failed to do so would have to lead quickly to further action.

4. For this same reason, I think that if we undertook Stage 2, we should have the 35,000 reserve forces referred to actually stationed in Thailand. It might prove feasible to have airborne units on call from the Philippines or Okinawa, but even these should have their necessary heavy equipment pre-stocked in Thailand so that they could go into action at once.

5. On page 6,⁴ the estimate of force requirements is currently 30,000 US forces rather than 45,000 in order to conduct firm offensive action. However, I am not convinced that these forces could do the job of really cleaning up the Panhandle without some additional reinforcement. Moreover, I would underscore the point that even if we defeat organized forces in the Panhandle, we would not have eliminated, although we might sharply reduce, the Communist supply route to South Vietnam.

0. Source: Washington, National Records Center, RG 330, OSD Files: FRC 66 A 3542, Laos 381. McNamara purposely did not sign this memorandum and it apparently did not go the White House.
1. Tab A to Document 387.
2. The last two recommendations of the paper.
3. McNamara is referring to subparagraphs “a and b” of paragraph 2, “Occupation of the Mekong River Areas.”
4. In paragraph 4, “Offensive Operations in Laos.”