NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive
of risks and disadvantages. It reflected what was politically feasible rather than what was desirable in relation to stated objectives. The practical effect of this understandable -- perhaps inescapable and inevitable -- way of deciding upon U.S. policy was to place almost complete responsibility in the hands of the GVN for the attainment of U.S. objectives -- it being assumed that GVN's objectives were compatible with ours.
Midway through 1964 President Johnson changed the entire top level of U.S. leadership in Saigon. General Maxwell D. Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired from active military duty (for the second time) to become the U.S. Ambassador. An experienced and highly regarded career diplomat, U. Alexis Johnson, was appointed deputy to Taylor. General William C. Westmoreland stepped up from deputy to commander of U. S. military forces in Vietnam. The new "first team" was not without knowledge about Vietnam but it inescapably lacked the close personal knowledge of leading GVN figures which only time and close association can develop. It set about attempting to help the Khanh government to help itself.
General Khanh, in the event, proved unable to marshal SVN's resources and to establish his regime in a position of authority adequate either to stem or to turn the VC tide. Khanh's failure was, however, neither precipitous nor easily perceivable at the time. As the U.S. entered and passed through a Presidential campaign in which the proper policy to pursue in Vietnam was a major issue, it sometimes appeared that the GVN was making headway and sometimes appeared that it was not.
U.S. policy remained virtually unchanged during this period although significant planning steps were accomplished to permit the U.S. to exercise military pressures against NVN should it appear desirable (and politically feasible) to do so. Thanks to such planning, the Tonkin Gulf incidents of 2-4 August 1964 were answered by "tit-for-tat" reprisal raids with considerable dispatch. The cost was minimal in terms of world opinion and communist reaction. Moreover, President Johnson used the Tonkin Gulf incidents as the springboard to a broad endorsement by the Congress of his leadership and relative freedom of action. When this was followed in November by what can only be described as a smashing victory at the polls, the President's hands were not completely untied but the bonds were figuratively loosened. His feasible options increased.
LIMITED ESCALATION LEADS TO OPEN-ENDED INTERVENTION
Immediately following his election, the President initiated an intense, month-long policy review. An executive branch consensus developed for a two phase expansion of the war. Phase I was limited to intensification of air strikes in Laos and to covert actions in NVN. Phase II would extend the war to a sustained, escalating air campaign against North Vietnamese targets. The President approved Phase I for implementation in December 1964 but approved Phase II only "in principle."
The effect of this decision was to increase the expectation that the air campaign against NVN would be undertaken if the proper time arose.
