THE SOVIET ROLE IN VIETNAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200300126-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 20, 1999
• Sequence Number: 126
• Publication Date: February 9, 1966
• Content Type: REPORT

Washington, February 9, 1966
THE SOVIET ROLE IN VIETNAM
President Johnson and Secretary Rusk have, in repeated statements, made it abun-
dantly clear that we have no intention of abandoning our commitment to South Vietnam
and that, while we desire peace, we intend to insist on a peace which will effectively
protect the freedom and independence of South Vietnam.
The Administration has adhered to this position with remarkable steadfastness in
the face of the monumental lack of understanding on the part of our allies, the generally
negative attitude of the U. N. majority, and the shrill clamor of our domestic minority
of left-wingers and muddle-headed isolationists and appeasers. The firmness of the Ad-
ministration resolve in the face of this international clamor was dramatically demon-
strated by the announcement that we were resuming the bombing of the North and by the
recent major offenses against the Viet Cong forces.
However, there are conflicting counsels within the Administration on certain aspects
of the Vietnam war and these conflicting counsels sometimes find expressions in appar-
ently conflicting policy. In particular it seems to me there is extreme contradiction be-
tween the firmness of our commitments to the defense of Vietnamese freedom and our
insistence on ignoring or underplaying the Soviet role in the Vietnam war.
There is a growing accumulation of evidence that Moscow has no interest in en-
couraging or permitting an honorable settlement of the Vietnam war. The USSR has given
and continues to give massive support to the Viet Cong through Hanoi, has refused to
associate itself in any way with our peace offensive and has abused us in the mor;t viru-
lent terms for our efforts in Vietnam. Despite all this, there are men in high Adminis-
trative positions who persist in believing that Soviet statements and actions in Vietnam
are a facade and that, deep down in their hearts, Kremlin leaders are as anxious as we
are to see the Vietnam war settled on terms that would be acceptable to the West.
This is an exceedingly dangerous form of wishful thinking -- all the more dangerous
because those who hold to this illusory estimate are frequently tempted to tailor the
facts to conform with their starry-eyed theories about Soviet intentions in Vietnam. For
example, not long ago, a State Department spokesman asserted that the bulk of military
equipment supplied by the Soviet Union reaches Hanoi by rail and that the significance
of Haiphong as a port of entry is rather small. This reply betrayed either an incredible
ignorance of the limited capability of the rickety Chinese railway system or else it was
an attempt to gloss over the significance of Haiphong, which thus far seems to be re-
garded as part of the "sanctuary zone. "
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