Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume I, Vietnam, 1964

47. Memorandum From the Chairman of the Policy Planning Council (Rostow) to the Secretary of State¹

Washington, February 15, 1964.

SUBJECT

• Ho and Mao

The question of Hanoi-Peking relations was raised briefly yesterday.² I should like to add a word.

I have assumed for some time that, in terms of Bloc relations and policy towards South Viet-Nam, Ho and Mao were coming closer together, although not without some debate in the Communist Party in Hanoi of which there is considerable evidence.

I assume further that Ho and Mao are now operating very closely and, indeed, engaged in a plan to warn us of escalation should we move north. Some additional aircraft have been moved to Hainan and into South China, I believe.

Moreover, in my view, no plan to inflict even limited damage on the North should proceed without our taking the fullest possible preparations to face any degree of escalation within enemy capabilities. The likelihood of escalation will be inversely proportional to their judgment of our determination and available and relevant military strength.

But this is a quite different matter from the important point made in the paper.³ For centuries all Vietnamese have had as an objective of policy to keep an arms-length relation to China. The Vietnamese Communist Party has maintained control over its own army, secret police, and party apparatus. It maintains that critical degree of independence now.

I do not for one moment believe—nor is there any evidence—that the North Vietnamese are prepared to forego that kind of independence, whatever their present relations with Peking.

A substantial war in North Viet-Nam would require the Chinese Communists to introduce into Hanoi aircraft and, perhaps, troops. No Vietnamese would view this event without a certain apprehension that the consequence might be the permanent reduction in their status from junior partner to Chinese province.

I continue to believe, therefore, that this deep reservation in Hanoi about relations with China will be one among other constraints on their conduct in the face of the policy we have been discussing; although, to repeat, we should not count on anything but a determination and a capacity to make their present course of action, in violation of solemn Accords, unprofitable as opposed to any other course of action they might adopt.

1. Source: Department of State, S/P Files: Lot 70 D 199, Vietnam. Secret. Copies were sent to Harriman, Sullivan, U. Alexis Johnson, and Hilsman. Rusk’s initials appear on the source text.
2. Apparently at the 4:40 p.m. meeting on February 14; see footnote 2, Document 44.
3. See footnote 3, Document 44.