Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXVIII, Laos

359. Telegram From the Embassy in Laos to the Department of State¹

Vientiane, April 24, 1968, 0346Z.

6011. Ref: A. State 150585; B. State 150873.²

1. Any assessment of U.S. policy with respect to Laos must start from an assessment of the commitments and obligations which the U.S. is willing to undertake towards Laos. If the U.S. were willing to underwrite the political and territorial integrity of Laos as we have done for Thailand and the Philippines, we would be faced in Laos with an overt challenge to our self-declared national interests and would presumably be required to react by overt deployment of U.S. forces. If, on the other hand, our commitment is decidedly hedged and deliberately obscure, then our reaction to events in Laos has to be less precise, less overt, and less conventional.

2. A second consideration with respect to Laos must be our understanding about the source of the trouble in Laos. It should be clear to all that the troubles are not indigenous, but stem from North Vietnam. The most direct, effective, and decisive attack on the problems of Laos should in practice be an attack against North Vietnam. If a decision were made that we should resolve our difficulties in Laos by purely military means without regard to the political consequences, then I would unreservedly recommend that we invade North Vietnam, invest its terrain, and strangle its military potential to operate in and against Laos.

3. A third basic consideration should embrace an understanding of the strategic significance of Lao territory to U.S. interests in Southeast Asia. This significance is partly in relationship to Lao territory as a buffer in protection of Thailand, and partly in relationship to Lao territory as a buffer (or conversely a threat) to South Vietnam. It is hard to assess which of these relationships is the more significant to U.S. long term interests, as distinct from immediate interests of a tactical nature. However, if I were required to make a choice, I would opt for the protection of Thailand as being the more important. This is not to say that I believe we have to consider these matters as alternatives, since our policy should be directed towards preserving both elements of our interest. However, it is a way of saying that we should not sacrifice a long term strategic interest for a short term tactical objective.

4. Having stated these premises, it then becomes important to know something about the nature of the Lao state. Laos is an agglomeration of territories, families, interests, and personalities which, taken together, fulfill the geographical expression of statehood. However, the state does not articulate through a central, linear system of controls but rather through the inspiration of a series of ganglia-like control centers which have to be stimulated simultaneously and in the same direction. If the sequence of stimulation is not simultaneous, or if the directions do not coincide, the agglomeration could disintegrate into separate geographic, political and ideological entities. These would become subject to external manipulation and each would contain, in multiplicity, the same problems and divisions which currently beset the state as a whole. This would mean three, or possibly four, political creatures, each requiring a different and competitive degree of commitment and none of them providing the strategic buffer protection for neighboring territories. We went this route once before in 1959–61 with disastrous consequences.

5. By application of these several considerations and experiences, we have come to the conclusion that the form and framework which is most feasible for us to obtain (given the limitations on the commitments we are willing to make) is the sort of Lao state envisaged by the Geneva Agreements of 1962. In a larger geopolitical sense, those agreements are important because they incorporate a tacit U.S.-Soviet agreement to collaborate in the support of independent, non-Communist states on the southern flank of China as a means to contain the southward thrust of the thoughts of Mao Tse-tung. This same tacit collaboration exists in such forms as the Dept schedules for Indonesia, the mutual provision of arms to India, the Tashkent agreements on the sub-continent, etc. But, nowhere else is it incorporated in a formal document except in the case of Laos.

6. Therefore, the first conclusion which I would like to see established in your assessment is the fact that the 1962 Geneva Agreements, as written and signed, constitute the basic desideratum of our policy with respect to Laos and that it is [not?] in our national interests to see these agreements being “exploited” by anyone. (If any nation has been able to “exploit” them successfully, it is the United States.) It is, however, a very clear and precise question of the agreements being violated by North Vietnam. If you can agree on this fundamental, then you can go on to a successful assessment of U.S. policy re Laos. If you can not agree on this point, then I would suggest you scrap the whole project right there and kick it upstairs, because anything other than this is moonbeams.

7. The central problem facing you, therefore, should be the question of how to obtain enforcement of the 1962 agreements. It should be agreed that the primary violator of the agreements is North Vietnam, egged on by the ChiComs. It should then be understood, however, that the Poles, supported by the Russians, are also violators, because of their default in observance of the protocol governing ICC matters. It should then, finally, be understood that the Geneva Agreements do not govern the internal structure of the Lao Government, do not underwrite the status of the Pathet Lao, and do not sanctify a tripartite coalition government. Those actions were all Lao national actions as distinct from international actions. Our attention therefore should be focused on the problem of requiring (a) the withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces from Laos, and (b) the active participation of the Poles in the functioning of the ICC.

8. At this stage, it should be realistically understood that it is nonsense to consider Laos in a vacuum, and that it can really be discussed only in relation to Vietnam. (At this stage, some of the more astute participants in the IRG exercise may become aware that this whole IRG “reassessment” is consequently nonsense.) Therefore, in determining what we can do to achieve 7 (a) above, we have to relate our abilities and our will to that which we are prepared to do in order to achieve success in Vietnam. If we are prepared to use that military force necessary to invade, invest, and defeat North Vietnam on its home territory, then, presto, we will have solved the problem of North Vietnamese troops in Laos. If we are not prepared to use that degree of force, then we have to consider other methods.

9. One such method often proposed is the introduction of U.S. and/or GVN ground forces into the area of the Ho Chi Minh Trail to invest that terrain and therefore drive the North Vietnamese out of Laos. This is the hard way. In fact, it is about the hardest way that could be devised. Le Duan, Secy Gen of the Lao Dong Party, has examined this prospect and written about it. He has concluded that even Americans wouldn’t be so obtuse as to try this system. It would require, he points out, that the U.S. first seize control of the Do Xa and the western highlands of South Vietnam. (We have never yet had adequate troops to do this.) It would next require a major logistics effort into the trail area. Then it would require a few divisions of troops to be sustained in that area against the threat of massive, concentrated attacks by regular North Vietnamese forces who will be able to attack from short lines of communications in terrain which they know and which favors them. The military picture Le Duan paints is that of a series of Con Thiens and Khe Sanhs along the southwest border of North Vietnam.

10. While I don’t wish to hold up Le Duan or Giap as military experts superior to some of our own deep thinkers on these matters, I would submit that their experience is enough to credit them with the description of a military threat which would require at least 206,000 additional U.S. troops to encounter. I would also note that Le Duan goes on to comment on possibility that the U.S. might eschew a major action like this and choose to attack with lesser units. He says “If a small force is used the problem remains insoluble.” He goes on to add that “The U.S. will be severely condemned by people all over the world and the anti-U.S. movement will turn out to be stronger.” If he knew the U.S. Senate better, he might have added a few gems about its reaction as well.

11. In short, we do not have the will to make the only military move which would be effective (invasion of North Vietnam). We do not have the means to make a military move which, at great cost, might prove significant. The only military means we have could achieve very little of lasting effectiveness, and would predictably do that at a political cost which would further erode the will and the support which remains for other military operations elsewhere in Vietnam.

12. These considerations really address only the immediate local military problem. As such, they are serious enough. However, they pale beside the indirect military consequences and the political results. The indirect political consequences would involve North Vietnamese (and possibly ChiCom) action to exploit in north and central Laos the fact of the immense forces which we would tie down in southern Laos, this in turn would bring into play the whole question of Laos as a buffer to Thailand and our commitments to Thailand. We would probably be called on to deploy at least one (and probably two) divisions to Thailand for the latter’s protection. Moreover, since Souvanna would quit Laos, the country (as described in para 4 above) would break up into smaller units, at least two of which would predictably ask us for other troops to protect them (say, about four more regiments, with associated air power). We could elaborate the nightmare further by citing the probable consequences in relation to the Soviets. With Souvanna gone and a Pathet Lao “Liberation Front Government” emerging in at least a portion of Lao territory, we could expect the Soviets to withdraw recognition from whatever political group replaces Souvanna in Vientiane and transfer their support (both political and material) to the Pathet Lao. This could only be considered a step backward in the Southeast Asia situation as a whole.

13. It therefore becomes quite clear that the framework in which we have to operate with respect to removing the NVN from Laos is the framework established by the President’s March 31 speech,³ which looks towards military de-escalation and a political settlement. The occasions for the introduction of the Lao problem into this framework are myriad, and will begin with the very first contact. If, as Hanoi insists, we are to establish arrangements for the total cessation of bombing over North Vietnam, then we must insist upon some reciprocity and a system to enforce reciprocity. The establishment of ICC teams on the passes leading into the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos would assure us whether or not that trail was being used by trucks, since the passes are few and well known. If we can expand this to include all other known logistics routes into Laos, then we would assure observation and control of all the means which sustain and support the NVN in Laos (they do not live off the country). This would mean that the NVN supply system would disappear and they would have to bring their troops home. This is obviously the cleanest, the most logical (and most typically IRG) solution. If the North Vietnamese badly enough want the bombing stopped and are prepared to give up the war, this way would be ideal because it would involve [”]invisible reciprocity.” Hanoi denies there are North Vietnamese in Laos; hence an ICC presence would be no formal embarrassment to them.

14. Another way, short of bargaining for this reciprocity, would be for the ICC, by majority vote, to move out onto the Ho Chi Minh Trail and other areas of interest in Laos. This could be done if the Indian and Canadian members were willing to take the physical chances inherent in this move. I rate the chances for this as quite limited, but given Dr. Barnard’s success with heart transplant cases, perhaps we could get him to try a spinal transplant into some pliant Indian bodies, using the ramrod vertebral columns of some of the more unbending warriors in the Pentagon.

15. Still a third way is to achieve a change of heart in the UK and USSR co-chairmen, especially the latter. It is not clear that Soviets would ever be able to influence Hanoi strongly enough to change the latter’s policy.

However, if Soviets were willing pay a great deal to support North Vietnam, if they would be willing protect it against ChiCom subversion, and if they were willing to muscle a pro-Soviet Government into power in Hanoi, they might be able to achieve our objective for us. Only way I can conceive of this happening would be in exchange for our giving them something very dear to their hearts—West Germany, for instance. The disproportions here are obviously ludicrous, but I am merely suggesting some parameters for IRG consideration.

16. Fundamentally, I conclude (and assume IRG will also) that the maneuvering room re Laos is quite limited. There are many of the old pressure points that we can re-invigorate, such as London, Moscow, Delhi, etc. There may be a few new ones we can devise in the old context, but I would doubt their efficacy in obtaining genuine results.

17. In my judgement, the major new opportunity for action re Laos arises from Hanoi’s new-found willingness to move to the conference table. No matter how they disguise this it is still a retreat from their previous cocksure ambition of winning the war militarily. Therefore, it seems to me that the best, positive contribution the IRG can make at this time is to examine realistically where Laos should fit into the negotiating picture, what elements of satisfaction can be derived from Laos from these negotiations, how those elements rate with respect to our objectives in SVN (pretty high, I would judge) and which other nations can be called on to help out in this process. The need for this sort of judgement is real and not academic.

Sullivan

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 LAOS. Secret; Priority; Nodis.
2. In these telegrams, both April 20, the Department informed the Embassy that the Department of Defense had requested “a reassessment of U.S. policy towards Laos on a formal basis through the Interdepartmental Review Group.” The Department told the Embassy that it realized that it had covered this ground before, but wished the assessment to concentrate on the political consequences of alternative policies. (Ibid.)
3. The speech in which Johnson announced his decision not to seek reelection. Text in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1968, Book I, pp. 469–476.