217. Telegram From the Embassy in Laos to the Department of State1
713. 1. At Senator Symington’s request, I met with him privately at Udorn January 4. In order preclude possibility some aspects this conversation may be reported out of context, I feel it prudent submit this summary record of our meeting.
2. Meeting opened with Senator asking for review recent U.S. air action against infiltration routes in Laos. I showed him operational reports on last three days’ action and list of sorties scheduled for January 4. There were 274 sorties for Steel Tiger areas fragged for that day alone.
3. Senator pronounced this shocking waste of air power and said it was crime to use high-priced, high-powered jets to “beat the bushes” in southern Laos. He asked if I felt we were accomplishing interdiction by [Page 435] these air strikes. I said that I did not and felt that at best we were causing enemy some harassment. I pointed out that depots had been broken up into 5–10 ton storages. Troop concentrations were limited to few hundred men each and all were dispersed under the trees. There was very little that we saw moving on the roads themselves.
4. Senator then said he understood it would take three divisions of U.S. troops to try to interdict Ho Chi Minh Trail by land. He felt such troops were not available, but wondered whether I thought they should be asked for. I said I thought three division estimate was probably conservative and doubted they could develop air tight plug anyway. I went over with him nature of terrain, methods of infiltration, etc. I doubted that ground troops constituted the answer.
5. Senator then asked whether I didn’t feel air power, instead of “beating bushes”, should be used to “knock out fuel storage areas, power plants, port of Haiphong, and hit dams and levels which would flood countryside in DRV.” I suggested Senator had better examine just how many such installations existed in North Vietnam before he reached a judgment on that proposal. I recalled a prime target list we worked up for DRV in late 1963 which had less than 100 targets altogether. It was my impression greater part of these had already been hit and, although certain significant areas remained unscathed, I wondered what practical effect their destruction would have on continuing DRV ability infiltrate troops into South and maintain them in combat against U.S. forces there.
6. Our experience in Laos suggested that a fuel storage area, once destroyed, would reappear in the form of 50-gallon drums scattered under trees and in caves. It would cause DRV much more work, but would not seriously degrade their ability to get fuel. Power plants would be either replaced by small generators or else products they nourished would be provided by China and Russia. As for dams, I doubted there were many available and busting levees on the Red River would make sense only in July and August, when the river was in flood. Breaking up Port of Haiphong would be a serious blow, but it would just mean that cargo would come in by small coastal vessels transshipping out of Port Wallut and elsewhere in south China. It would, furthermore, place DRV completely in ChiCom hands by excluding Soviet shipping. I felt that aspect had to be considered.
7. In short, I doubted efficacy of “strategic bombing campaign” in DRV, and especially doubted that it would have any significant effect upon DRV infiltration into SVN. My comments obviously pained the Senator, who said that “everybody else” he had talked to on this trip agreed with him that air strikes such as he proposed would “take DRV out of the war.” I said I regretted being in such isolated minority but thought I felt more comfortable in that position than I would be joining those who stood elsewhere.
[Page 436]8. Senator then shifted discussion and said he understood I favored amphibious operations at Vinh. I confirmed that I had submitted recommendation for such operation and explained my reasoning for recommendation. He then asked whether I felt such an operation should be undertaken without air strikes against strategic targets he had previously described. I said that I frankly did not know; that this seemed to me a matter which military planners needed to study; and that they should recommend what preparatory or supplementary air action was required to make the invasion a success. The Senator asked whether he could then say that I did favor bombing his strategic target list in order to support “my invasion.” I reiterated my previous position about military planners, etc., and we finished our meeting on this note.
9. Comment: It might be helpful to give Senator Symington, on his return to Washington, some idea of the specific targets available for type of campaign he envisages. Since he categorically says that he does not favor “bombing DRV back to the stone age”, he presumably proposes a fairly limited campaign, with, I fear, limited results. I have the impression he intends propose this course of action in public statements and in Armed Services Committee.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 VIET S. Top Secret; Priority; Limdis. McGeorge Bundy sent a copy of this telegram to President Johnson, under a covering memorandum, January 5, 5:30 p.m., in which Bundy suggested that the President might be interested in Symington’s views as expressed to Sullivan. McGeorge Bundy wrote: “It may be that we ought to talk to him [Symington] before he starts to say this sort of thing in public. He doesn’t much like being muzzled by the White House, but he has played ball with us before.” An initial on the memorandum indicates that Johnson saw it. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Memoranda to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. XVIII)↩