Office of the Historian

120. Memorandum From Michael V. Forrestal of the National Security Council Staff to President Johnson1

Washington, March 21, 1964.

SUBJECT

  • Cambodia—Chantrea Incident

This memorandum is designed to bring you up to date on the state of our information about the Cambodian border incident as of noon today.2

We still have two entirely conflicting stories from Phnom Penh and Saigon. Yesterday our Phnom Penh Embassy reported that our Military Attaché accompanied the Canadian representative of the International [Page 280] Control Commission in Cambodia to the village of Chantrea, where they saw fifteen corpses of villagers killed by shrapnel, burns from napalm bombs and gunfire. They took testimony from the villagers that twelve amphibious personnel carriers accompanied by three American officers entered the village and questioned some of the inhabitants after the attack. The villagers also testified that an American light observer plane was shot down, crashing on the South Vietnamese side of the border.

The story from Saigon has been slow in coming, and the information is still very sketchy. We now know only that an operation was carried out on March 19 near the Cambodian border. An L–19 observation plane covering this operation was shot down, apparently by two Cambodian fighters. Its American pilot was wounded. Three columns of ARVN troops conducted clearing operations near the Cambodian border, but as yet we have no evidence from Saigon that any of these units actually crossed the border. At least three American officers participated in these operations, but we have a report of only one of them at the moment. In a matter of hours we should have the report of the other two. So far there has been no confirmation from Saigon that any Cambodian village was attacked. Four 500 lb. cans of napalm were used during the clearing operations in “open areas”.

In the meantime we have already expressed our sympathy and regret that this incident occurred and have told the Cambodian Foreign Minister that we are investigating thoroughly to see if there was any American involvement. The Cambodian Government has protested to the UN Secretary General, and the subject may come up in the Security Council on Monday.3

Needless to say, we are making the most intense effort here to extract more information from Saigon. We are not planning any further public comment or diplomatic action until we have the facts in hand. I will keep you informed of further developments.

Mike
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Cambodia, Vol. II, Memos 3/64–7/64. Confidential. There is an indication on the source text that the President saw it.↩
  2. Rusk discussed the incident with the President on March 21, at 12:16 p.m. (Ibid., Recordings of Telephone Conversations) A transcript of this conversation is ibid., Transcripts of Telephone Conversations, Alpha Series, Dean Rusk.↩
  3. March 23.↩