Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume IV, Vietnam, 1966

137. Memorandum of Conversation Between Secretary of Defense McNamara and the Ambassador at Large (Harriman)¹

Washington, May 14, 1966.

Bob McNamara believes the Government in Saigon will become weaker and weaker as time goes on. On the other hand, the Viet Cong are showing signs of poor morale and also the bombing seems to have caused more difficulties in the North.

Under these circumstances, he feels we should get in touch direct with the NLF, also the North Vietnamese, but particularly the NLF, and begin to try to work up a deal for a coalition government.

I brought up the question of Moscow, and he said, “Well, canʼt we get Moscow to go along if we make it plain we are willing to take all of our troops out if the North Vietnamese do the same?” I said, “But can we trust them?” He said, “We have to get international guaranteeing machinery. What about Swedish division?” I didnʼt have the occasion to comment on the latter, but pointed out that in Laos the North Vietnamese didnʼt respect their agreement for a single day.

He agreed with me that we must have some way of forcing the South Vietnamese government to avoid taking these disastrous actions, such as firing Thi or Kyʼs recent press conference.² He is satisfied that the Buddhists expect the Ky Government to be finished when the Constituent Assembly convenes, not simply to draft a constitution, but to be responsible for forming a civilian government, although not continuing in the function of a National Assembly for which, of course, elections would have to be held.

I asked him why we shouldnʼt get the military committee to put someone else in as Prime Minister, rather than Ky, and he at first seemed to agree, and then said perhaps we better wait until after September 15 when the elections are held.

On bombing, I impressed on him the desirability of postponing a decision on bombing the oil storage at Haiphong and showed him my memo of May 10 to Secretary Rusk.³ I maintained that it would adversely affect our position in the world. It was a mistake to escalate as dramatically in the North and get ourselves more committed when things were so weak in the South. He admitted that it was a dramatic step and didnʼt argue against my position, but did indicate that he felt it would create further difficulties for the North Vietnamese government.

I told him that I had not been satisfied with the political actions in Vietnam, that I couldnʼt understand why Lodge hadnʼt prevented the firing of Thi, and it certainly was a mistake to carry Kyʼs troops to the North. He agreed. He said he would be quite willing to tell Ky we would take our troops out if we really meant it. I suggested we devise sanctions, tough, but less complete than that. He stated that the First Corps was completely out of control, and the Fourth Corps was very much more in Viet Cong hands than we admitted, and that in the Fourth Corps deals were being made to send rice to the Northern area to support the Viet Cong operations there. There were a lot more dealings with the Viet Cong in the South than we would accept.

WAH

1. Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Harriman Papers, Box 486, McNamara, Robert S. Personal & Secret; Absolutely No One Else To See. Prepared by Harriman.
2. See Document 130.
3. Not found.