Office of the Historian

101. Memorandum From Senator Mike Mansfield to President Johnson1

Washington, February 10, 1965.

SUBJECT

  • Further Observations on Viet Nam

These observations are in addition to the views summarized in my memorandum of February 8th2 which I advanced at the earlier National Security Council meetings3 and which remain unchanged. They are directed specifically at the second major Viet Cong attack.

(1)
Anticipate that the Communist defenses against air attacks in the North have already been and will continue to be strengthened since the last attack.
(2)
Anticipate that another retaliation on our part now will not cool off the situation—that much should now be clear. Rather it is likely to lead to a further Viet Cong response in South Viet Nam. Therefore, it would be unwise to undertake any retaliation without the full expectation of the response.
(3)
Anticipate, further, that the next Viet Cong retaliation is not going to be to fly Migs into Hawk missiles—that would be pitting their weakness against our strength. They are not fools and they are not going to play the game as fools. They are going to continue to play their strength against our weakness. Our weakness is on the ground in Viet Nam, where isolated pockets of Americans are surrounded by, at best, an indifferent population and, more likely, by an increasingly hostile population.
(4)
Anticipate that we can count on the South Vietnamese people for less, rather than more, help as the tit-for-tat pattern develops. In a matter of weeks or months it will become unlikely that any of the present United States installations outside of Saigon will be really secure against the Viet Cong. If we are to minimize repetitions of the recent American bloodlettings, therefore, the outposts will have to be vastly strengthened by American forces or pulled into and consolidated in the Saigon area. The timing of any further retaliation against the North, if that is the decision, should take cognizance of this factor.

The French government has indicated that it would participate in a conference of the 1954 Geneva conferees if it should be called by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, the sponsoring powers. We are not members of the 1954 Conference (although we were represented there by an observer) and we should certainly interpose no objections to its being called. Indeed if there is to be another retaliation against the North in response to this latest incident, it may be well to try to make it serve the purpose of bringing about the reconvening of such a Conference. If it is convened, our diplomacy should strive to see to it that the first act of this Conference should be to call for a cease-fire throughout Viet Nam and Indochina. We could then attend the Conference, if we chose, as observers or as participants depending on an assessment of both the military and diplomatic situation at the time.

  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Name File, Vietnam—Mansfield Memo and Reply. No classification marking.↩
  2. Document 92.↩
  3. See Documents 76, 77, and 80.↩