U.S. MISJUDGED HANOI'S WILL, PAPERS SHOW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000300350115-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 14, 2000
• Sequence Number: 115
• Publication Date: July 2, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

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FEELERS.
By WILLIAM 111cGAFFIN
Chicago Daily News
?
WASHINGTON --- As
-
the U. S. role in the ex-.
panding Vietn am war
deepened in the spring of
1965, the Russians worked
secretly to try to m'omote
a diplomatic solution to the
.conflict, according to the
secret Pentagon study of
the war.
, The story, as told by the Pen-
jagon analysts, involves a couple
. of instances --- one an iaitiative by
.the Soviet Union to reactivate the
1954 Geneva Conference, the ether
an informal approach. made to
Pierre Salinger, the former While
'House press secretary. ?
. .
On Feb. 17, 1965, a couple of
weeks before the U. S. unleashed
"rolling thunder," it bombing
campaign against North Vietnam,
Lord- Haskell, then Brigish am-
bassador in Washington, gave a
message to Secretary of State
Dean Rusk. ? ? ,
? THE SOVIET FOREIGN Office
had "approached the British with
the suggestion that the UK-USSR
. (British and Russian) . c o -
chairmanship of the nal Geneva
Conference Might be reactivated
in connection with the current
Vietnam crisis."
But the State Department at-
titude at that time, the emalyss
indicaed, was lukewarm. Rusk,
for example, sent. a message to
Gen. Maxwell Taylor, the U. S.
? ambassador in Saigon, reporting
the British ' approach to him
without any evident enthusiasm.
(1-1 A
?1
? .
_
themselves explore possibilities of
a solutien which we could en-
courage or otherwise as sve see
fit." .
HUSH OHS Iii) that the
British Foreign Office- "showed
itself cagey to pick up the S6vie t
hint and suggested that the 13rittsh
ambassador in Moscow, Sir
Humphrey ? Trevelyan, ? should
make' a formal proposal to the
Russians] on what was described
as the `coschah?manship gam-
bit.' "
President Lyndon B.? Johnson's
advisers were confident their air
'campaign would work,. ? the
analysts indicated, and were
afraid that the Russians] would try
to prevent them from conoinuing
the attacks in return for some.?
; moderation of Vietcong guerilla'
activity. . .
Eventually the "co-chairman
I gambit"; fell apart. But when it
; Was being pursued, word of it was
kept from the Saigon government.
1, Rusk cabled Taylor: "Nou
I should not reveal the possibility of
I this UK-USSR gambit to ? GVN
(South Vietnam) for the time
being. We naturally wish to. have
.
it appear entirely as their int-
tiative so that our reply would not
show any kind of initiative 'on our
part and would in its content make
clear how stiff our views are."
THE MUNGER. incident 0Q"
,curred after he had left his White
House job. The analysts reported
that there was "a rather puzzling
informal contact between Pierre
&stinger and two somewhat
shadowy Soviet officials in Mos-
cow. ? ?
? "On the evening of May 11. (one
full day prior to the inauguration
of a brief bombing pause)
Salinger, who was in Moscow. at
the time on private movie pro-
duction business, was invited to
dinner by ..Mikhail Sagatelyan,
whom -Salinger had known in
Washington during the Kennedy
years as the Tass bureau chief
and N\?ho was at the time assigned
to Tass (the Soviet news agency)
4i5takeleaSb`10:1011703/04
"We would stop short ourselves
of proposing formal systematic
negotiations," .he said, "but
assumption of the 1954 co-
chairmanshop by, the two coun-
tries would impApitiebsoealit
Salingee reported to U. S. Am-
bassador Foy Kohler in Moscow
who in turn relayed his story to
Rusk in Washington.
Sagatelyan, ? it Was related,
"probed Salinger hard ' as . to
whether he was on some kind of
covert mission ande seemed un-
convinced despite the hitter's
reiterated denials. In , any case,
Sagatelyan, protesting 'he was.
speaking personally, talked at,'
length aboutNietnam." .. I
SETTING FORTH a six4poinU
"hypothetical formula for, a solu- I
tion," he asked Salinger's? Opinion i
of it.
The solution Arould involve the!
United States announcing a tem-
porary suspension of the bombing.
O North Vietnam or the Soviet
Union or both hailing this as a
step toward a reasonable solution.
O The SovietUnion interceding
with the Vietcong,. to curtail
military activities. .
O 'Me accomplishment of a. 'de
facto ceasefire. .
. ..
- 0 The calling of a c?onfdronce at
which the Vietcong o..oilld have an
O Working out a new ' agree-.
. ment for a broader4based Saigon
, gOvernmenl not including direct
Vietcong pa ialcipation but ele-
ments freiensigy to them. ' .
' - - -----,
' SECRETS
By MORTON' KONDHACKLE:
? AND THOMAS 1I. ROSS
Chicago Sungi mes
. WASHINGTON ----" The
top-secret Pentagon Papers
conclude that U. S. bomb-
ing policy was based on a
"colossal misjudgment" of
Hanoi's will .and that top
U. S. civilians had no clear
idea how .many troops it
would. take. to achieve suc-.
ass in South.Vietnam.
Thero disclosures were made in
The New York Times' latest ac-
'counts, published today, ? of the
conoents of the documents, cover-
ing die period from July,. 1955 to
the fall of 1966.
Because of continually escalat-
ing demands for; men,
the Pens - story contained these new dis-
tagon study says, it is unclear closures:.
whether . U. S. military coin- 0 The Pentagon analysis
rnanders .were ? 'concealing their declares that the Johnson 'ad-
tree estimates of required man- ministrationl continuous exean-
power,or did not kno THEMSEL sion of bombing raids in North
VES. ? ? ? ? Vietnam in 1955 and 1966 was
? . - ? _ based on a "cogossal miSjudg-
"CT CAN TCE.Ilypothesi"ed," the mole of Hanoi's will and
capabilities.
that winning a meaningful victory
Would require something on the
order of 1,00,000 men..
"Knowing that this would be un-
acceptable politically, it may have
seemed a . better bargaining stra-
tegy to ask for increased deploy-
ments incrementally.
"An alternative explanation is,
that no one really foresaw what
the troop needs would be and that
the ability of the (North Viet.:
namcse and Vietcong) to build up
their effort was cansiste?tly un-
derrated." ?
The-, papers show that Gen.
William C. Westmoreland, U. S..
. military commander in Vietnam,
escalated his. troop requests from
a total -of 175,000 in Ante, 1965 to
275,050 that July, to :143,000 in De-
cember and to mom than 312,000
ia June., 1966.
WESTM:011ELAND'S requests
? and President Lyndon 33.
Johnaon's approval of all but the
last request ? -were concealed
from the American public, ac-
corticng to the Times account.
The Times account shows that
top U. S. civilians who had .re-
commended Wrlr as a strategyin
Vietnam and scounseled its
escalation, gradually :became
discouraged with the results.
Like The New York Times, The
Washington " Post .carried two
stories from the Pentagon study
today.
The first dealt NVit11- the late
President John F. Kennedy's ini-
tial Vietnam decisions in 1161. and
contained no new ? information
beyondthat disclosed by the
Chicago Sun-Times last week.
4 THE SECO'ND.Post softy, cov-
ereng'llie 1964-67 period, described
I U. S. difficulties in dealing with -a
I succession of South Vietnamese
regimes following the U. S. ? en-
couraged downfall . of President
I,NgO Dinh Diem.
The Post stooy Included a num-
ber of new details, including a se-
cret State Department cable
warning that the American people
I were "fed up" with the "insane.
'bickering" caused by Air Marshal
? (now vice president Nguyen Cao
The latest New. York Times
Times quotes the - Pentagon
analysis as saying, "that from the
outset . . some military men felt
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279 Oa
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............
hrcnic Servizes
A "famin' plan was urged
on President Lyndon B. John-
son in 1905 as a way to bring
North Vietnam to its knees.
The plan was not used.
, The. Associated Press said
this was disclosed in papers
! made public by Sen. Mike
Gravel, 3)-Alaska, who says
. he has been furnished a cop-
ion copy of the purloined
; Pentagon papers.
The famine plan was sug-
? gested by John McNaughton,
then an assistant secretary of
Defense. McNaughton said in; ?
a memo that North Vietnam's
? intricate lock and dam system
was particularly sensitive.
; Destroying it, flooding rice
fields and raising the specter
of national famine, if correct-
ly handled could "offer prom-
ise,'' McNaughlon suggested.
\ ?
'
? JA
lists concluded in Augus t, nmaist fo.fees.?
ltif30, that the bombing of the c, The, Associated press nici
STATI NTL
nam more than tripled be-
tween June, 1035, and June,
1906, because the enemy's
ability was "consistently un-
derrated."
The Times said U.S. mili-
tary commanders in 1965-66
were con liclent of victory and
Westmoreland, commander of
all U.S. forces in Vietnam,
predicted he could defeat the
Comnlunists "by the end of
1957." Westmoreland's troop
requests increased steadily,
from a total of 175,000 men in
June, .1965, to 275,010 that
July, to 113,053 in December
;and then to 512,000 the follow-
ing June.
0, The Times reported that
iii e Johnson a dm inis t ra ion
decided in 1966 to bomb Ha-
noi's oil-storage facilities de-
spite warnings from the Con- pemoranclum_ to Johnsen ln force if necessary."
tral Intelligence Agency that,/May that year opposed inten-
sified bombing. Gail. Early G.
Wheeler, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, retorted
that a cutback in the. bombing
could be interpreted as an
"aerial Dien Bien Phu," the
document said. Soon after-
ward, Johnson sided with the
chiefs and McNamara was on
his way out.
'1'0
c octuicnt, (ItiCICO las
memo as saying: "It should
be studied. ,Such destruction
does not kill or drown people.
13y shallow-flooding the rice,
-it leads after time to wide-
spread starvation of more
.than a Million unless food is
provided."
: This, the memo .added, the
United States could offer to do,
"at the ceinference table." ,
Though McNaughton's plan
was not used, American inter-
'vention escalated in 1055.
Oilier disclosures today:
0 The Washington Post said
the Pentagon told President
.John P. Kennedy in 1901 that
an escalated war in Vietnam,
including the intervention of
Ked China and Hanoi, pre-
sumably required no. more
..than 205,000 U.S. troops: Total
U.S. troop commitment in
:Vie.tnain eventually swelled to
more than half a million, even
though Pelting never did inter-
vene directly in the conflict.
The New York Times re-
-ported that Gen. William C. 0 The ? Times said the study
Westmoreland's estimates of reported thata Defense. De-
the hoopsOfilrithYed Ftikeelleiiieati611ToT/04 : CIA-RDP80-01601R000300350115-7
Ninth was having "no Inca- Johnsows advisors tcthi
suable effect.' As an alterna- Februarv, nhmn In
1,65, nuns
?defent
live, they suggested filial? 211 appears inevitable" unless the
elaborate electronic barrier ,
i. Unite.d States tool-: new action.
built along the. demilitarized Then &,alTle the full-scale U:S.
zone to inhibit troop and V obi- hombing of the North..
etc; infiltration.
0 United Press internation-
0 The Thaos said Secretary al said the Johnson adminis-
of Defense Robert S. Me- tration participated in or
Namara mace his first recom- haded a series et military
mendation againt filling a actions against North Vietnam
troop request from Con. West- during the 1951 presidential
moreland after McNamara re- election year that were kept
secret at the time. UPI based
\tiiiiieltliiiiinfli'r tabea fall of
tionS6outh
its story on documents provid-
o tIli)1:1,e' Associated
ci theategdidaoll\)),Ii'lscs;iesi Press
\ \s';ecin1,1-1 t`ezilli:neliiI:i3117),1,iiii)C3ii,1:if..nCt!li?al'e'l'l. jla.1, (2;1f:ills-As, f::\ \IN, 11:,e
Nninara and his 111 i 1 i t a r Y indications to the enemy of
an increasingly
chiefs over bombing PolieY the U.S. willingness and capa-
\vas gyo,,ving,, A McNamal:n bility to employ incresed
the raids would not "cripple
Communist military oper a-
liens." Instead, the Pentagon
analysts wrot e, Washington
apparently accepted the mili-
tary's estimate that the bomb-
ing would "bring the, enemy
to the conference table Cu'
cause the insurgency to with-
er from lack of support." But
the flow of men and supplies
to the South continued "undi-
mined," the Times said. !
0 The. Associated Press said
that when Buddhists and dissi-
dent South Vietnamese army
troops seized Da Nang and
Hue, in May, 1955, Vice-Mar-
shal Nguyen 'Otto Ky ordered
troops to squelch both upris-
ings without consulting the
U.S. embassy. (Ky is now
vice-president of South Viet-
nam). Marine Lt, Gen. Lewis
W. Walt reacted with the
threat to order U.S. jets to
shoot daWa any South Viet-
namese aircraft attacking the
dissidents.
0 The Boston Globe said
that a few days before the
Communists' Tel offensive in
late January, 1953, Gen. West-
moreland reported that "the
friendly war picture gives rise
to optimism for increased suc-
cesses in 1933." But five
weeks later, the Globe said, a
Central -Intelligence Agency
estimate nitide-te'Seeretary of
Defense Clark Clifford said
that, assuming no change in
U.S. policy or force levels, "it
is out or the cfuestion for
.S .-G V N (Government of
South Vietna m) forces to
clear South Vietnam of Com-
,
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The Pentagon papers may already have quick-
ened the pace of this country's disengagement
from Vietnam. While the documents mainly con-
firm what the public has come to think about the
'war, the intimate detail on some of the reasoning
that led to the deepening U.S. involvement, as
well' as the calculated efforts of the Johnson ad-
ministration to play down the extent of that corn-
' mitment, probably swung critical votes in favor
of the Mansfield amendment that passed the Sen-
ate last week. This amendment calls for the with-
drawal or all American forces from Indochina
? within nine months, provided this country's pris-
oners of war are released.
Whatever the immediate repercussions in Con-
gress, the papers reinforce some of the lessons
.
the country has been drawing from the painful
Vietnam experience. The papers reveal, for ex-
ample, a serious. misappraisa 1 by the President
and his closest advisers of the nature of the North
Vietnamese and of the guerrilla Movement in
South Vietnam. Despite repeated advice to the
V contrary by the Central Intelligence Agency, the
President and his .advisers naively believed that
, the Rolling Thunder air raids of early 1965 might
. ? suffice to bring an agrarian North Vietnam to its
knees and force it to call off the war in the South.
As it turned out, the air raid S only stiffened 'Ha-
noi's attitude. .?
What this brings home is a certain lack of hu-
mility in the government's perspective on 'back-
ward" places, as well as a refusal to heed its
own vast intelligence apparatus. In any future
conflict, an American government will surely
show a far greater awareness that non-Western
nations can react in unusual ways to diplomatic
and military pressures. ?
Another lesson is that the executive branch ,
needs rigorous new procedures for reviewing its
basic assumptions and objectives. The pentagon
documents show that the whole premise on which
our incredibly costly and divisive involvement in.
Vietnam was based--the domino theory?was al-
most never questioned, ?nee it had been accept-
ed. One of the dissenters was Undersecretary
of State George Ball, who in a lengthy 1965
memorandum questioned whether the downfall-.
of South Vietnam really would lead to the loss of
all of Southeast Asia, and warned against "a pro-
tracted war involving an open-ended commitment
; of U.S. forces."
The mdst obvious lesson of all is that an Amer-
ican President must never again take the nation
to war without the explicit authorization of the
Congress and the support of the American peo-
ple. In the fateful months of spring and early sum-
mer 1965, .after he had already ignored the ad-
vice of allies and decided to commit U.S. ground
troops to Vietnam, President Johnson chose to
keep both the Congress and the public in the dark
for. a dangerously long period. Shortly after he
had decided to send nearly 200,000 troops, there-
by crossing his Rubicon to an Asian land war, he
told the press that the. buildup "ddes not imply
any change in policy."
? ,,
The irony is that in mid-1965 both the public
and Congress would probably have supported the
sending of troops. The vote .in Congress might
not have been as overwhelming as in the case of
the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution the previous sum-
mer, and Mr. Johnson's options to escalate might
have been narrower. But at least there would have
been a clear mandate, and in seeking that man-
date the Johnson administration would have had
to submit its policies to much closer examination
.than they in fact received. .
The Congress, of course, is partly to blame for
allowing war,making to become an almost exclu-
sively presidential prerogative. It also failed, as
.did the press, to demand and get More informa-
tion in those fateful months of 1965. Only now is
the .Congress beginning to reassert its constitu-
tional role, as the Senate passage of the Mansfield
amendment shows. But the Pentagon papers un-
derscore the need for a permanent redressing of
the balance along the lines of several bills recently
introduced in the Senate. These would curtail the
President's power to use this country's armed
forees in future conflicts without a specific con-
gressional authorization,.and thus would bar a fu-
ture President and his ardent scenario-writers
from acting without the checks and balances that
the framers of the Constitution designed.
? d_
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STATI NTL
1/4.1 I Fl I I I `I I I-
7 rrrr-r--
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v
Notes From McNamara Memo
On Course of War in 1966
Excerpts from notes accompanying the 'Pentagon study, from a memo-
randum for President Johnson from Secretary McNamara, "Military and Political
Actions Recommended for South Vietnam,'! Dec.' 719?5 ?
? - ?,
Following are texts of key documents accoMpanying the Pen-
tagon's study of the Vietnam war, covering the period late 1965
to the summer of 1966. Except where excerpting. is specified,.
the documents are printed verbatim,, .with only unmistakable
typographical errors ..corrected.
. . . We believe that, whether Or not
'major now diplomatic initiatives are
made, the US must send a substantial
number of additional forces to VN if we
are to avoid being defeated there. (30
Nov program; concurred in by JCS)
IV. Prognosis assuming the recom-
mended deployments
Deployments of the kind we have
. recommended will not guarantee success.
Our intelligence estimate is that the
present Communist policy is to continue
to prosecute the war vigorously in the
.South. They continue to believe that
the war will be a long one, that time is
their ally, and that their own staying
lpower is,superior to ours. They recog-
nize that the US reinforcements of 1955
'signify a determination to avoid defeat,
and that more US troops can be ex-
pected. Even though the Communists
will continue to suffer heavily from GVN
and US 'ground and air action, we ex-
peet- them, upon learning of any US
intentions to augment its forces, to
boost their own commitment and to test
US capabilities and will to persevere at
higher level of conflict and casualties
'(US KIA with the recommended de-
ployments can be expected to reach
"nog a month).
If the US were willing to commit
, enough forces?perhaps 600,000 men or
more?we Could ultimately prevent the
' DRY/VC-from sustaining the conflict at
a significant level. When this point was
-reached, however, the question of Chi--
nese intervention would become critical.
(*We are generally agreed that the
Chinese Communists will intervene with
combat forces to prevent destruction of
the Communist regime in the DRY. It is
less clear whether they would intervene
to prevent a DRV/VC defeat in ? the
So
'th
that, at this stage, Hanoi and Peiping
would choose to reduce the effort in
the South and try to salvage their re-
sources for another day; but there is an
almost equal chance that they would
enlarge the war and bring in large
numbers of Chinese forces (they have
made. certain preparations which could
.point in this direction). ?
It follows, therefore, that the odds
are about even that, even with the
recommended deployments, we will be
faced in early 1957 with a military
standoff at, a much higher . level, with
pacification still, stalled, and with any
prospect of military success marred by
the chances of an active Chinese
intervention.
(memo of 24 jan 66: JCS believe that
"the evaluation set forth in Par. 7 is on
the pessimistic side in view of the con-
stant and heavy military pressure which "
our forces in SEA will be capable of
employing. While admittedly the follow- .
ing factors are .to a degree imponder-
ables, they believe that greater weight
should be given to the following:
a. The cumulative effect of our air
campaign against the DRY on morale
,a.nd DRV capabilities to provide and
move men and materiel from the DRY
to SVN. .
b. The effects of constant attack and
harassment on the ground and from the
air upon the growth of VC forces and
on the morale and combat effective
ness of VC/PAVN forces;
c. The effect of destruction of VC.
base areas on the capabilities of VC/
PAVN forces to sustain combat opera?
tions over an extended period of tirne.\
d. The constancy of will of the Hanoi
leaders to continue a struggle which
they realize they cannot win in the face
,3)
ithiMirO 1Ar-R45061.1-6111361 R0003-00-350115.7--------------
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-Ontiniod -
l'itlf0,11;CF:1:01'cr STAR
Approved For Release 2001/0-3A4Itil-CM,RDP8ci a
TIN
-ees
? ??.
The Pentagon's secret study of
,the. Vietnam War indicates that
the rapid expansion of American
forces in 1965 and 1906 occurred
? because "no one really foresaw
- that the troop needs inVietnam
would be" and because the abili-
ty of the enemy forces "to build
up their effort was consistently
underrated," the New YOrk
Times said today in its sixth
article on the study. -
.- "It would seem," the Penta-
gon ,study asserts, that. the
American planners would have
been "very sensitive to rates of
infiltration and recruitment by
the (Viet Conar and North Viet-
namese army); but very little
analysis was, in fact1 given to
the implications of the capabili-
ties of the VC-NVA in this re-
gard."
As a result of the Unanticipat-
ed enemy buildup, the Pentagon
study discloses, Gen. William C.
Westmoreland's troop requests
ee4 rueti rive:%;
) v\\
Li rat 17-1 -.S Li Li Li
June, 1965, to 275,000 that July, same "month, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff assured Defense Secretary
Robert S. McNamara that
"there is no reason we cannot
win if such is our will."
High-level civilian authorities,
including McNamara, 'began to
have serious doubts about the
effectiveness of both the air and
ground war as early as the fall
of 1005, but they continued to
recommend escalation as the
only acceptable policy, despite
their doubts. .
to 443,000 in December and to
more than snoo the following
June. -
Not Made Public
Neither the requests of the
American commander in Viet-
nam nor President Lyndon B.
Johnson's rapid approval of all
but ' the last of them was made
public at the time, the Times
says.
At the same time, the Times,
says; the Johnson administra-
tion's continual expansion of the
air war during 1965 and 1966 was
based on a "colossal misjudge-
ment" about the bombing's ef-
fect on Hanoi's will and capabili-
ties.
In -particular, ?the study dis-
closes that the administration's
decision in 1966 to bomb North
Vietnam's oil-storage facilities
was made despite repeated
warning from the Central Intern-
? A secret Defense Department
seminar of 47 scientists ?"the
cream of the ? scholarly commu-
nity in technical
fieldsl'?concluded in the sum-
mer of 1966 that the bombing of
North Vietnam had had "no
measurable effect" on Hanoi.
The scientists recommended
building an electronic barrier
b tween North and South Viet-
as an alternative to the
ombing, McNaniara successful-
jumped from a total of 175,090 in
gence Agency that such action y proposed building a barrier.
a would not "cripple ? ,
military o Comniuniatperations." other Articles
-Instead, the times says, Wash-
ington apparently accepted the
military's estirhate that the
bombing would "bring the ene-
my to the conference table or
cause the insurgency to wither
from lack of support." But the
flow' of men and supplies to the
South continued "undimin-
Med."
The Times article says that
the Pentagon study of this peri-
od of the escalation in the air
and on the ground-- from July
1965 to the fall of 1936?also
makes these disclosures:
, American military command-
ers. were confident of victory.
Westmoreland, for example, told
Washington in July 1965 that by
using a search-and-destroy steat_ material showed:
egy he' could defeat the enemy .1. The U.S. government was
the end of 1967." And, the frustrated continually in its of-
There were these other stories
based on Pentagon papers:
o The Chicago Daily News said
that as the U.S. role in the war
deepened in the spring of 1965,
the Russians worked secretly to
try to promote a diplomatic so-
lution to the conflict, according
to the Pentagon study.
The story; as told by the Pen-
tagon analysts, invOlves a couple
of instances?one an initiative in
February 1965 by the Soviet Un-
ion through Britain to reactivate
the 1954 Geneva conference, the
other an informal approach
made to Pierre Sanger, former
White House press secretary.
o The Washington Post said its
forts to strengthen 'South Viet--
nam in. 1964-67 by weak and
short-lived Saigon governments.
2. McNamara and the Joint
Chiefs of Staff told President
John F. Kennedy late in 1931 it
was ? assumed the largest U.S.
force that would be needed in ?
Vietnam should Hanoi and Po-
king intervene would "not ex-
ceed six divisions, or..about 205,-
000 men."
O The Boston Globe said that a.
few days before the Commu-
nists' Tet offensive in late Janu-
ary 1963, Gen. William C. West-,
moreland, the U.S. commander
in Vietnam, reported that "the
friendly war picture gives rise to ?
optimism for increased success-
es in 1968," . .
But . five weeks later, The
Globe said, a Central Intelli-
gence Agency estimate made to
Defense Secretary Clark Clifford'
said that, assuming no change in
U.S. policy or force levels, "its
iS out of the question for U.S.
GVN Government of South Viet-
nam forces to clear South Viet- ?
a am of Communist forces."
o The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
said a sharp dispute erupted be-
tween military and civilian offi-
cials in 1967 over a request that
85,000 to 200,000 additional
American troops be sent to.Viet- ?
nam.
The Post-Dispatch quoted the.
Pentagon study as saying there
was quick opposition from the .
late John T. McNaughton, then
assistant secretary of Defense in
charge of international security'
affairs.
MeNatighton, the newspaper'
said, sent a memoranctum to .
President . Johnson saying there
was a widespread belief that
"the establishment is cut of its .
mind" and that sending more
troops to Vietnam would add to..
this feeling. .
Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80-01601R000300350115-7