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

296. Telegram From the Presidentʼs Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson, in Texas¹

Washington, November 9, 1966, 1416Z.

CAP 66932. You will receive this morning by courier the JCS views on expanded military pressure against North Viet Nam.² Sec. McNamara and Sec. Rusk will forward their views³ as soon as they have had a chance to study Gen. Wheelerʼs recommendations.

My own views are as follows:

1. We must begin now to lean more heavily on the North. I have reviewed all the evidence and all the reports we have on the effect of bombing the North. It is clear that the attritional cost we are imposing is significant for the North Vietnamese in military and economic terms and increasingly significant for Moscow and the Eastern European countries which are being forced to expand military and economic aid to compensate for our bombing; and they donʼt like it. That increased burden may add to their interest in a negotiated settlement.

2. The expansion in military pressure should be as steady and undramatic as we can make it.

3. We have to take into account George Brownʼs visit to Moscow later in the month. There is no reason to be excessively hopeful about that visit; but we must give him a fair chance to probe. It might help his mission if we signalled, between now and then, our intent to up the ante in the North; but it could destroy his mission if we did anything dramatic or noisy.

4. The Rolling Thunder program proposed by the JCS probably goes too far at this time in the light of the Brown visit.

5. Therefore, I suggest you approve certain limited targets from the JCS recommendations, which would make clear to Hanoi and Moscow the seriousness of our future intent, without putting them under public challenge or ultimatum. For example, we might hit the SAM support sites, one or two thermo-power plants, one of the two unstruck POL storage facilities, and extend the surface sea interdiction zone a bit to the North. In the last few weeks the sea interdiction between the 17th parallel and 17 degrees 13ʼ has been an effective operation. An additional northward shift of 30 minutes would represent the kind of steady incremental increased pressure we wish to signal.

6. A limited quietly expanded program of this type, involving no new target systems, is, I believe, what we need between now and Brownʼs visit. Properly done it could both increase Moscowʼs leverage on Hanoi and Brownʼs leverage in Moscow. While he is actually in Moscow, we might cut back to armed reconnaissance.

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Rostow Files, Bombing. Top Secret.
2. Document 295.
3. See Document 299.