NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive
Such a program would not only deter the aggressive actions of the DRV but would be a source of encouragement to SVN which should significantly facilitate the counterinsurgency program in that country. To increase our readiness for such actions, the U.S. Government should establish at once the political and military bases in the U.S. and SVN for offensive actions against the North and across the Laotian and Cambodian borders, including measures for the control of contraband traffic on the Mekong.
b. In view of the current attitude of the Sihanouk Government in Cambodia, the JCS recommend authorizing now hot pursuit into that country…67/
As already noted, however, this sort of escalation had already been rejected for the time being. And in any event, there were both a new regime in Vietnam and an enlarged program of U.S. aid to support it, although not as enlarged militarily, as the JCS would wish. (That form of enlargement would not come until later.) But it was the first program since 1961 enlarged in explicit recognition that the programs preceding it had not succeeded, had indeed fallen far short of their goals. And in that sense at least it was the end of one period and the beginning of another.
