Office of the Historian

183. Draft Telegram From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to the Embassy in Vietnam1

Washington, October 26, 1965.

Joint State-Defense-White House message. For Ambassador and Westmoreland only.

1.
As we prepare for later discussions with the President on future policy in Vietnam, we are all eager for your personal comments on some of the major problems. Since there is no immediate prospect of meeting with you, we would like to use this channel for informational exchanges in the next few weeks. We count on you to reply in whatever way is convenient to you, and we are not seeking formal Embassy or MACV positions so much as the benefit of your own thinking in whatever form you wish to present it.
2.
Last week we listened with great interest to De Puy2 in his preliminary presentation of Phase II plans. While we are impressed by the high quality of the thinking behind this plan, a number of questions have occurred to different ones of us on which we would value your early comment.
3.
As presented, these plans focus sharply upon a dominant fighting role for U.S. ground forces. They appear to imply that aggressive operations will be conducted almost exclusively by U.S. forces. We recognize that for planners it is vastly easier to plan in terms of the deployment and use of U.S. forces under direct U.S. command. But some of us are greatly concerned by the possibility that what began as a Vietnamese war with U.S. assistance may end as a U.S. war with only passive Vietnamese cooperation. We doubt if this is your plan, but we fear that the momentum of U.S. military planning and deployment may force us all in this direction if we do not take very strong action to insure maximum use of Vietnamese forces in all forms of combat. It may be that De Puy briefing has misled us because of its natural focus upon the role of additional U.S. troops suggested for Phase II. But in reaching conclusions on Phase II and related problems, we would all be helped if we could have a clearer picture of the efforts you currently envisage for strengthening the Vietnamese armed forces at all levels and for all purposes.
4.
Some of us also wonder whether we adequately understand what is now happening in Vietnam. GVN losses are still running several times higher than those of U.S. forces, and we believe, on the basis of estimates here, that most Viet Cong casualties still come from engagements in which the ground forces on our side are mainly Vietnamese. Thus there appears to be a substantial difference between the war as it now is and the war as the Phase II briefing suggests that it may be next year. Your comments on this apparent discrepancy would be welcome.
5.
De Puy’s briefing relates to the situation on the ground in South Vietnam, and did not directly treat the question of air operations either in the South or in the North. There is an evident requirement on us for correlation of all military action in the theater, and we would be glad to know of your thinking about the relation between ground and air action in the South, and the relation of both to the various possible rates at which the Rolling Thunder campaign might be carried forward.
6.
Finally, we face major political decisions in connection with any additional deployments, and it may well be that we would wish to precede any Phase II deployments by another pause in bombing the North. Our preliminary estimate is that any such pause would be unlikely to produce a satisfactory response from Hanoi and would simply demonstrate again that root of problem of war and peace is in Hanoi. Here again we would value your thinking on ways and means of executing such a political preliminary to a further buildup.
7.
Very existence of this message series will be held extremely closely here. You can speak as freely on this channel as if you were at the Cabinet table in a carefully restricted meeting. We will do the same.
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Vietnam, Vol. XLI, Memos (A). Secret. There is no indication on the source text that this message was sent.↩
  2. See footnote 2, Document 181.↩