Mr. President
Here is an extraordinarily interesting dispatch from Ayub which makes the
best case against the resumption of bombing that I have seen. I still
donʼt agree with it but I am sure you will want to read it.
Attachment2
Washington,
January 27, 1966, 10:25 a.m.
Text of Message from Ambassador
McConaughy—Karachi
1510
I met on the evening of January 25 with President Ayub at my request.
Our half-hour discussion was devoted entirely to Vietnam.
The meeting was at the Ayub residence, and he appeared informal,
cordial, and candid in a manner reminiscent of our conversations
prior to the rocky course of Pak-U.S. relations during 1965. In
discussing Vietnam, President Ayub appeared desirous of imparting
through me to President Johnson the views of a sympathetic and concerned
friend who, while gratified at having been consulted in a matter of
such serious import, also sought to offer as straightforward and
responsible a response as possible.
Noting the seriousness and criticality of Vietnam, I said President
Johnson and Secretary
Rusk had instructed me to
inform him that we had received no indication whatsoever of interest
from Hanoi in our current
[Page 161]
effort to promote the cause of peace in Southeast Asia. Quite the
contrary, there had been considerable Viet Cong military activity
even during the Tet New Year, continued infiltration from North
Vietnam, and an evident wish to continue hostilities without regard
for the suffering and welfare of the Vietnamese people, and a
generally threatening and provocative posture. The U.S. has tried
through a large number of approaches, including the initiative which
Ayub had kindly taken with Premier Kosygin at Tashkent, to open a constructive dialogue
with Hanoi. Now in view of the great seriousness of the problem, the
U.S. Government is undertaking last minute soundings bearing on the
question.
President Ayub agreed the Vietnam problem is an extremely serious and
critical one which he had hoped might have been reviewed in light of
some constructive Hanoi response. He assumed President Johnsonʼs military advisors must
now be pressing him very hard to resume bombing North Vietnam.
Nonetheless, “As I told you before, I have a personal conviction,
based on no evidence but a strong feeling, that among Vietnamese
Communist ranks there must be some desire to talk. I say this for
your and our own sake, once you resume bombing there will be a
desperate situation and escalation. I would still advise waiting
with the hope of getting some response. The Chinese are telling them
not to negotiate, but it is the Vietnamese whose lives are at stake.
You can bomb hell out of them or just sit tight, but they canʼt
throw you out. Looking at the situation as a statesman as well as a
soldier, I would say ‘Come on you bastards, what can you do to
us!’”
I remarked that to sit tight would still mean numerous allied
casualties. Ayub agreed but responded, “What can you do to that
enemy in any event. The Vietnamese terrain doesnʼt lend itself to
quick military decisions.” Ayub then implied his understanding and
sympathy for the criticism to which his recommended sit tight policy
would subject President Johnson by remarking, “Look, I am being criticized
for Tashkent, which I agree was a very important decision. But
people are emotionally aroused and donʼt understand.” With feeling
and stress Ayub continued, “If you could get this message across, it
is not in your own interest to escalate. Personally, I think you
have such a large military force in South Vietnam the Communists
couldnʼt do anything to you. Their boast to throw you out is
nonsense. I still advise that you not start things up again. As
Kosygin said to me at
Tashkent, “Yes, we are giving a bit of aid there, but you cannot fly
aircraft off a penny, and it takes months to get into the front
lines whatever we may decide to send.” In my opinion if you start
bombing again, you wonʼt see them coming to the conference table. On
the contrary, those inclined to negotiate would be silenced, and you
would have to fight on for three or four years. If you just sit
tight there, in six months or a year that will convince them. But if
bombing starts again, moderate
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elements will be silenced and you will have to
move up the scale of military operations.”
I asked Ayub if he thought we could stand idly by and allow supply
routes to be built up and thereby expose our forces to that buildup.
Ayub argued that U.S. could interdict supply routes within South
Vietnam as effectively as in North Vietnam. When I mentioned Laos,
Ayub admitted that is a difficult problem, but he stood by his view
that concentrated interdiction is possible within South Vietnam. I
referred to the military doctrine of attacking a problem at its
source, but Ayub maintained such a doctrine during the present
situation would require isolating North Vietnam not only from South
Vietnam but from China as well. Commenting again that he was
speaking only as a friend, Ayub pointed to the extreme military
difficulties of solid interdiction and reiterated his opinion that,
“If you want to convince them they must come to the conference
table, let them throw themselves against your superior fire power
and sooner or later they will see the light.”
I asked Ayub if he didnʼt think the Viet Cong could spin out
indefinitely a U.S. sit tight policy such as he proposed, and bog us
down inconclusively in Vietnam for years. Ayub pointed to the
limiting factor of Viet Cong logistics which cannot support a major
fighting force without air and sea supply routes. Despite being a
soldier, Ayub again deprecated the primacy of the military factor in
Vietnam, arguing that history has proven repeatedly the fallacy of
seeking to enlarge oneʼs area of operations for military reasons. It
is necessary, he continued, to work backward from
political-strategic considerations to the conference table. “Sit it
out. Why present targets? Why move out into the country in
vulnerable files? I spent six years under such conditions. You canʼt
win on their terms; they always get in the first shot. You canʼt
search a jungle area with fire. Therefore, I would adopt a different
course and wait them out.”
I referred to our experience in Korea and the critical role of our
heavy military pressure in forcing negotiations beginning in 1951
which culminated in 1953 Armistice Agreement. Ayub agreed military
pressure had been successfully employed in Korea. But he argued that
the Vietnam situation was much different from Korea, what with
larger armies, visible military actions, essentially non-Communist
South Korea, distinction between friend and foe. He concluded, “In
Korea you had to bring them to the conference table by fighting
hard; in Vietnam you should wait them out.” Commenting on the
American penchant for resolving the dirty business of war quickly
and decisively, Ayub said, “Your enemies expect you to be impatient,
to commit more and more forces, and finally to weaken your resolve
in the face of unsatisfactory military results and your own
democratic pressures.” While acknowledging there is always room for
debate in such a matter, I suggested that General Westmoreland apparently had
different ideas on the necessity of
[Page 163]
keeping down the military back-up activities
in Vietnam. At the same time, I assured Ayub that President
Johnson would give
greatest care to all considerations as he contemplated the painful
decisions facing him in Vietnam. Ayub then cited successful strategy
in the Greek-Turkish War in 1922 in which Mustafa Kemal Pasha
insisted upon remaining on the defensive and wearing down the enemy
as they came in. This was an extremely unpopular strategy,
particularly among his soldiers who wanted to seize the initiative
and attack, but Mustafa waited for his opportunity and was
successful.
I referred to the full report on Vietnam given to the Foreign
Minister by Stull on January 25.3 I noted that the report made it quite
clear there had been no real let down in Viet Cong military
activities. Ayub indicated he had studied that report carefully and
had it with him at the time. He said he assumed that Viet Cong
military activity during the Tet period indicated the Viet Cong did
not have complete control of all such activities throughout South
Vietnam. He then reiterated his view that the U.S. has only the
basic alternatives of sit tight until negotiations, or escalate and
fight on for years.
I said that I took it he had no word from the Soviets or any other
Communist Source of interest to the U.S. Peace Initiative. Ayub
replied there had been nothing other than what he had related during
our January 18 meeting about the talk with Kosygin at Tashkent. I remarked
that this absence of constructive response was the same in all
quarters. Ayub said, “Those who want the war to go on must
nonetheless be worried by your initiative. They must be hoping that
the bombing will start again in order to win over those who may wish
to stop fighting.” I then drew Ayubʼs attention to Secretary
Ruskʼs January 23
internationally-televised interview.4 I gave Ayub a transcript
of Ruskʼs remarks relating to
Vietnam, and drew his special attention to the Secretaryʼs
observation that the U.S. does not consider itself “Gendarmes of the
Universe,” but we do have commitments on which we are determined to
make good.
