NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive
Two days later on 18 April Khanh again brought the matter up, this time with Secretary of State Rusk. Rusk replied that this was a big problem, that political preparation would be needed, and that while the U.S. was prepared to take any action necessary to win the war, it had to be very clear that such action was indeed necessary before the U.S. would embark on it. 80/
A fortnight before on 4 April 1964 W. P. Bundy had written a letter to Ambassador Lodge with enclosures which concerned a possible political scenario to support action against North Vietnam and for the earlier, so-called "Blue Annex" (considerations of extended actions to the North) completed during the McNamara-Taylor visit in March 1964. In Washington there was considerable theorizing, in this period, about the best manner of persuading North Vietnam to cease aid to the NLF-VC by forceful but restrained pressures which would convey the threat of greater force if the North Vietnamese did not end their support of the insurgency in South Vietnam. In certain circles in Washington at least, there was what appears now to have been an amazing level of confidence that we could induce the North Vietnamese to abandon their support of the SVN insurgency if only we could convince them that we meant business, and that we would indeed bomb them if they did not stop their infiltration of men and supplies to the South.
This confidence, although ultimately accepted as the basis for decision, was neither universal nor unqualified. This was evident. for instance in the meeting of 19 April, when the subject was discussed in Saigon with Rusk, Lodge, Harkins, Nes, Manfull, DeSilva, Lt. Col. Dunn, General Wheeler, W. P. Bundy, and Solbert of ISA. Much of the discussion on that occasion centered on the political context, objectives, and risks, of increasing military pressure on North Vietnam. It was understood that it would be first exerted solely by the Government of Vietnam; and would be clandestine. Gradually both wraps and restraints would be removed. A point on which there was a good deal of discussion was what contact with the DRV would be best in order to let Hanoi know the meaning of the pressures and of the threats of greater pressures. Ambassador Lodge favored a Canadian ICC man who was about to replace the incumbent. The new man he had known at the UN. While Lodge was willing to participate in discussions of the mechanisms, he was explicitly unsure of Hanoi's reaction to any level of pressure. Lodge was not always fully consistent in his views on this subject, and it is not clear that his reservations on this score led him to counsel against the move or to express other cautions. However, he did say he doubted that we could meet massive intervention by the DRV by purely conventional measures. Rusk hoped that the threatened pressures against Hanoi would induce her to end her support for the VC. Rusk emphasized the importance of obtaining the strongest possible evidence of DRV infiltration. It was during this discussion that the question of the introduction of U.S. Naval forces -- and hints of Cam Ranh Bay -- arose as a measure which it was hoped would induce increased caution in Hanoi. The presence of military power there, it was hoped, might induce Hanoi to be more restrained in its actions toward South Vietnam. There was
