Office of the Historian

188. Letter From the Ambassador to Vietnam (Lodge) to President Johnson1

Saigon, November 3, 1965.

Dear Mr. President:

Herewith is my best attempt to peer into the future:

1.
We are beginning to master the technique of thwarting and eventually overcoming the Viet Cong main force units and military redoubts. The process will be long and difficult, but we know what is required to accomplish it.
2.
The next step must be to eliminate Viet Cong terrorism and to smash Viet Cong organization in the villages. The GVN, with our help, is just beginning this process.
3.
If governmental stability is maintained, I believe that the GVN, with our help, can succeed. But the process is, if anything, more complex than the military one because it involves braiding so many programs [Page 511] together. If the pacification program moves ahead as we intend, I would expect that, within six months, about 300 additional villages of the 2,685 in the country for a total of about 1,100 will have been pacified in the three different areas which are the initial objectives. From then on, it will be straightforward, if slow, plowing ahead with the light at the end of the tunnel growing brighter all the time.
4.
No assurance can be given that the government will stay in power. But I try to leave nothing undone to prevent a sudden change. Everyone in the U.S. Mission is alerted to let me know of any rumor that they hear, and whenever I hear one worthy of attention, I will certainly try to do something effective.
5.
Let us assume that the government stays in power and that the Viet Cong decide that we and the Vietnamese are able to overcome the terrorists as individuals and in small groups. I expect them then to accept our offer for unconditional discussions and to do so at the time and in the way most embarrassing to us. I do not expect to hear through intelligence ahead of time. Mao Tse-tung’s manual says, “Fight, Fight. Talk, Talk.” When the fighting goes against them, they will try to win by talking, by politics, by propaganda, by public opinion. They go to an international discussion not to end the war but to win it.
6.
The three most embarrassing things which I can think of now are: 1. a cease-fire; 2. an end to the bombing of the North; and 3. recognition of the Viet Cong (self-styled National Liberation Front) in some form. Let me submit my views on each of these issues.

Cease-Fire

7.
As things stand now, if we were to accept a cease-fire (without supervision and without withdrawal of troops), the Government of Viet-Nam would be seriously threatened and could even fall, and the fighting spirit would go out of the Vietnamese military—beyond reasonable hope of being pumped up again. The Viet Cong would thus win in one diplomatic stroke what they had not been able to win by fighting.
8.
Moreover, since civilian pacification still lags behind the military program, a premature cease-fire would confirm Viet Cong control in a large portion of the country, enable them to terrorize the population in much of the remainder and would do so in an artful way without seeming to do so.
9.
An offer of cease-fire has a superficially attractive appearance and yet at the U.N. an offer of cease-fire was not generally considered worthy of respect unless it was accompanied at the same time by an offer by the aggressor to withdraw troops, together with a practical scheme to supervise the withdrawal.
10.
One answer to a cease-fire proposal, therefore, could be a.) a cease-fire must be accompanied by the aggressor’s withdrawal of troops [Page 512] and by machinery to supervise and verify; and b.) these are obviously things to be discussed at the meeting and should go on the agenda.
11.
But I stress the communist tactic of inscribing as an agenda item the substantive result which they wish finally to achieve at a conference. We think of an agenda as a list of things to discuss; they think of it as an opportunity to win the conference before it has even started.
12.
We should thus insist that the first item on the agenda should be machinery to supervise and to verify whatever agreement is ultimately reached.
13.
We should also hold that the GVN has a sovereign right to move anywhere in its territory and to suppress armed terrorists where it finds them. This is an exercise of the domestic police power which no sovereign state should be asked to abdicate.

Bombing

14.
An end of bombing of the North with no other quid pro quo than the opening of negotiations would load the dice in favor of the communists and demoralize the GVN. It would in effect leave the communists free to devastate the South with impunity while we tie our hands in the North.2
15.
We might agree to end the bombing of the North for a limited period—say thirty days—if the following conditions are met:
a.
A withdrawal of NVN units through international checkpoints to the North.
b.
Unimpeded access of the GVN to any part of its territory.
c.
A significant reduction of incidents.
d.
Cessation of infiltration of men and materiel.
e.
If enforcement of all these measures is the first item of any agenda.
16.
Your advisers might study the merits of making a new discussion offer in which you said in effect that on April 83 you offered unconditional discussions and were rebuffed; that this offer had stood from April 8 to the present time; that it was not, however, an offer to last through all eternity; and that, therefore, you were revising it along the lines of paragraph 15. Such an initiative might relieve you of the embarrassment of a communist cease-fire proposal by making in effect a cease-fire proposal of your own.
17.
Such a public announcement, like all public announcements, should be coordinated in advance with the GVN.
[Page 513]

Recognition of Viet Cong

18.
Any form of recognition of the Viet Cong—other than as individual members of a Hanoi delegation—will lead to a collapse of the GVN. It would be taken in the countryside—and so represented by the still potent communist underground—as the beginning of a communist takeover. This would, I believe, lead to a rapid disintegration of all we have sacrificed so much to create.
19.
I would therefore suggest that our attitude on this be that the Viet Cong will not be recognized, though Hanoi is free to include in its delegation any individual it chooses.
20.
I would hate to see you in a position where you had to choose between flying in the face of overwhelming U.S. public opinion on the one hand or losing everything you have gained with so much struggle and sacrifice in Viet-Nam on the other.
21.
I believe it will be possible to reconcile U.S. and Vietnamese positions with regard to the holding of discussions with Hanoi, but American opinion must be prepared to give a little ground inasmuch as the Vietnamese have a very different viewpoint, due to their being so close to the conflict and so small and weak a nation, which has suffered so much. Also they take themselves seriously as a sovereign nation—and thus cannot accept a cease-fire for their own troops in their own country in the exercise of their own police power.

With warm and respectful regards,

Faithfully yours,

Cabot L.
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. XVI. Secret. McGeorge Bundy sent this letter to the President under cover of a November 8 memorandum that reads as follows:
    “Here is a letter which has just come in from Cabot Lodge for you. I have taken the liberty of giving copies to Rusk and McNamara only, because Lodge’s views are deeply relevant to the discussions now going forward. I have not sent a copy to Arthur Goldberg because I am afraid it would only stir him to a very strong reaction. On the other hand, it may be useful for Arthur to know Saigon’s thinking. Which do you prefer?”
    The memorandum, which has an indication that Johnson saw it, did not show the President’s preference. (Ibid., Country File, Vietnam, Vol. XLII, Memos (B))    ↩
  2. President Johnson quoted this paragraph in The Vantage Point, p. 234.↩
  3. Reference is to Johnson’s April 7 speech at Johns Hopkins University; see vol. II, Document 245.↩