Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume II, Vietnam, January–June 1965

107. Letter From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to Senator Mike Mansfield¹

Washington, February 11, 1965.

Dear Mike:

The President has asked me to acknowledge your memorandum of February 10,² with its considerations directed specifically at the second major Viet Cong attack. Let me once again try to comment in order on your specific points.

1. We of course are watching the Communist defenses against air attack with great care, and all missions are designed in the light of the most up-to-date information we can get. You are entirely right in believing that this question of Communist air defenses is of critical importance.

2. It is not our current expectation that any single retaliation can be expected at this stage to cool off the situation. It is clear that for the immediate future the Vietnamese Communists will try as hard as they can to show that they have more determination than we. The choice we are facing, however, is the choice between making a reply and not making one, and it is in that framework that the President’s decision was made. As he said last night,³ the action taken today is designed to be prompt, adequate, and measured.

3. There is no question that Americans on the ground in Vietnam face the prospect of harassment by the Viet Cong. The Pleiku incident makes it clear that they faced the prospect before our current replies were begun, and as I said in my last letter,⁴ it is obviously of high importance that our commanders out there should do everything they can to take all the precautionary measures that they can against such harassment. Nevertheless, you are quite right in pointing to this as a continuing problem.

4. Only the future can tell what the long-term reaction of the South Vietnamese people may be, but it seems to us much too soon to reach your pessimistic conclusion that the help from the South Vietnamese will decrease if a tit-for-tat pattern develops. We shall certainly be doing all that we can do to prevent such a result, and as the President remarked last night, the most important single thing which we can do is to avoid an appearance that the American people are looking for an easy way out in Vietnam.

5. The problem of possible international conferences is a most important and interesting one, and so is the question of the terms which we set as a part of any possible future discussions. I am not sure just what you mean by a “call for cease-fire.” If the cease-fire were to apply to all forces in South Vietnam, it would seem to me to be an effort to apply equal standards to the cops and to the robbers; but if it is a matter of saying that any replies we make in the North can be stopped the minute there is an end to the aggression in the South, I can see great merit in it.

6. The President asked me to repeat again that he values your continuing counsel on this very difficult problem.

Sincerely,

McGeorge Bundy⁵

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Name File, Vietnam—Mansfield Memo and Reply. Confidential.
2. Document 101.
3. Apparently a reference to remarks made by President Johnson at a meeting the previous evening with Congressional leaders; see Document 100.
4. Document 94.
5. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.