61. Memorandum From the Secretary of State’s Special Assistant for Vietnam (Sullivan) to the Secretary of State1
Mr. Read has asked for my comments on Walt Rostow’s paper entitled, “Habana and Hanoi.”2 You will appreciate that I have no competence to make any observations on the Venezuela-Cuba situation and will therefore address my remarks exclusively to the corollary problem which we face in Viet Nam.
- First, as I know Mr. Rostow agrees, action against North Viet Nam can never be a substitute for the hard, grubby job of routing out the Viet Cong in the areas where they have established themselves in the South. Despite the fact that they have control, direction, and a certain amount of supply from the North, the Viet Cong, especially in the Delta areas, have a sustaining strength of their own. Therefore, any action which might be taken against the North must be designed to bring the problem in the South within manageable dimensions and not in the vain hope that it can be eliminated purely by pressure on Hanoi.
- Secondly, it seems to me that we have to give explicit and active attention to the Soviets. If we propose any moves in North Viet Nam, we should at the same time consider how we can neutralize Soviet reaction. I feel, without having gone into this in detail, that such neutralization might require a fairly broad “peace offensive” erected against the Soviets on matters nearest to the heart, such as Germany, trade, credits, etc. In other words, if we are going to produce a reaction [Page 106] from the North Vietnamese and the Chinese, we should at the same time be actively dangling before the Soviets some reasons for them to look the other way.
Therefore it would seem to me hardly propitious for us to consider simultaneous action in North Viet Nam and in Cuba, no matter how thoroughly we attempt to dissemble either event as being of indigenous origin. Soviet prestige is very actively engaged in Cuba, not only in its confrontation with the U.S. but also in its conflict with the Chinese. Therefore any prospects we might have of deflecting Soviet attention from a more active policy in North Viet Nam would, in my opinion, be seriously compromised by engaging the Soviets simultaneously in the Caribbean.
I believe that if we decide upon more active measures with respect to both Hanoi and Habana, we should undertake them in separate sequence. and with very carefully tailored parallel steps in other directions.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 VIET N. Secret; Sensitive. Copies were sent to U. Alexis Johnson and Rostow.↩
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Rostow’s paper, February 22, dealt primarily with potential U.S. responses to the discovery of Cuban weapons in Venezuela. Rostow suggested that after reconnaissance and a leaflet drop by U.S. aircraft, Venezuelan military aircraft attack a Cuban target as a reprisal. Rostow then drew a parallel with Vietnam as follows:
“The same principle might be applied in North Viet Nam; that is, if our first overt acts of violence in the north were against targets directly related to North Viet Nam aggression against the south (for example, the Vinh radio station), we could share in the warning leaflet drop, ride high-cover and deal with any escalation, while the South Viet Nam air force would actually attack the chosen target or targets. Once again, this would dramatize the principle at work; be consistent with the notion that our objective is to help the South Vietnamese defend their independence, and that we were merely protectors of that principle, in conformance with the 1954 treaty; and make it somewhat easier for Mao to keep out of the act; although, once again, we cannot go into this without being prepared for escalation.”
Rostow also thought that military action against Cuba might “carry enough conviction in Hanoi and elsewhere that the mere massing of our forces in Southeast Asia would, against that background, be a credible demonstration that we were prepared to act against the north.” (Ibid., S/P Files: Lot 70 D 199, Vietnam)
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