WHY WE PRINT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000300360111-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 17, 2000
• Sequence Number: 111
• Publication Date: June 29, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

2 9 JUN 1911.
Approved For Release 2001/03/04 : CIA-RDP8
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The Christian Science Monitor today
publishes a segment of the Pentagon pa-
pers. ? - .
It is a chapter, or episode, in the long
story of: the Vietnam war. Our chapter
deals with a hitherto almost unknown
phase of the story: a policy plan in July
of 1962 to phase American forces out of
Vietnam which was founded on a misread-.
.ing of the real situation in Vietnam itself
.and which ended in a total reversal in
March Of 1964. . ?
Before publishing we have carefully
examined all of the material. in our pos-
session to make sure that there is no
breach of national security and no danger
to the welfare of any American or allied
forces in Vietnam. We are satisfied that
this material is of historical interest only,
that not a word of it will be of any dam-
age to the security and welfare of the
United States. We are also satisfied that
nthe publication- of this material at this
time is a constructive aet which will
.the American people and their govern-
ment to a better knowledge of what went
wrong and hence on to changes in the
policymaking process in Washington,
'which clearly needs improving. ?
Also, it is. the nature of governments
to Cell less than the whole truth to their.
people. Special pleading, unwatched and
unchecked, leads to arbitrary government
and deprives people of. a chance to give
or withhold their consent on the basis of
full and balanced information. The proper
role of a responsible_press is to do its best
at all times to tell those things which the
? pUblic should know but governments
would prefer to withhold.
Back in 1962 when our chapter. of the
study begins, the policymakers of Wash-
ington were cheerfully doing their plan-
ning on the assumption that Viet Cong
insurgency in Vietnam would be overcome
by the end of the. year 1965. And that was
a "conservative" estimate.
This happy assunaption about the
course of American involvement in Viet-
nam emerged from a nieeting which be-
gan in Honolulu on July 23, 1962. Secre-
tary of Defense Robert McNamara had
gone there to hear various reports on the
Vietnam war at the office.- of the U.S.
. ?
Comfnander in Chief of the Pacific
(CINCPAC). At that conference the tech-
nicians and advisers to the commanding
officer painted a very rosy picture indeed.
At the end of it Mr. McNamara asked for
an estimate of how long it. would take to
eliminate the Viet Cong: The reply, from
COMUSMACV (Commander, U.S. Mili-
tary Aid Group for Vietnam), "estimated
one year from the time the RVNAF (Re..
publicof Vietnam ? Armed Forces); the
Civil Guard, and the Self-Defense Corps
became fully operational and. began to
press the VC in all areas."
Mr. l'ricNarnara. decided to play it -safe
and take a "conservative" view and Work
. with a three- instead of a one-year esti-
mate. And so the planning which began
in mid-1962 and remained in effect until
March of 1964 assumed that the American
role in Vietnam would all be over by the
end of 1935!
Yet by the end of 1905 American- escala-
tion was unrolling and the United States ?
was on the way to putting half a million ?
of its people' into Vietnam.
How wrong can .you be? -
_ _The -Monitor's papers, and other seg-
MentS from the same basic document, all
seem to indicate that there are two re-
markably accurate sources of intelligence
information and appreciation in Washing-
ton. One is the Central Intelligence Agen?
cy (CIA) and the other is an obscure and
little known section of the State Depart-
ment called the Bureau of Intelligence and
Research (INR).
Over and over through these papers
both CIA and INR seem to get their facts
and estimates, in balance and perspective
1,yhereas Department of Defense Intelli-
gence and Military Aid Group appraisals
leave much to be desired.
Not often did they underestimate the
problem as massively as in July of 1962.
But the record is less than impressive.
The policymakers were working all.
through 1932 and 1963 on information and
judgments which were totally discredited
by events. Clearly, CLA: and 1NR were
working in the right direction and the
lesson, if any, is that policymakers should
listen more to those sources and less to
others.
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STAT I NTL JTCE
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111.(1-11) LVJ eiCr ?N,T1
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IT T l-?
(L) o-C; v f/ le - f;ey
0 6
- 'So long as we retain a residual ?force ernocra s are more ank: moic. elfin:
there, if only to provide logistical supporting that they rejected the alternative (
. for the South Vietnamese Army, our men pnl.ling out of Vietnam in the Kennedy an
will be mortared, shelled or ?themes.? at-Join-15.?n administration in part because (
tacked; and that so? long as they are at- fear cf attacks from the hawks, includin
-- tacked they will counterattack with fire and Mr. Nixon.
movement, and the war will drag op, not The Pentagon papers report several lin4
- end."
- that the Central Intelligence Agency re;cni(
ed the thesis that the U.S. could not pull oi,
'without irreparably damaging U.S. wort
George W. Ball, . undersecretary of state leadership' ? .
. served on Ci3S TV: . ., mer
? . under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson oh-
The CIA also, according to govcrn
..
. papers not in the Pentagon file and disclose
.,13011 ol)servatioins
'I would say on the whole that I think in the. Chicago Sun Times' 1-';avc.'
cJ'47.
y rey.
I would hope they'll do it with an accelerated ill 1.-969.
this me advice when he became presider
the government is pulling out of Victilam.
tempo . . . because it seems to me. that Further undermining Mr. Nixon's irna.g(
publication of Pentagon papers in the Bo:
ton Globe showed it was a Johnsen deeisio
to emphasize the Vietnamization process i
1963.
In other words, the Nixon iiregiani c
Vietnamization building up the Saigo
government militarily and politically so
could stand on its own two feet ha
Democratic crigins. .
Gradually, the history of the period I
being reconstructed. A release of the fel
Pentagon papers by court order will ft'
in some gaps. Others will remain indef
nitcly. The heavy loss of Elie without visibl
victory will make Vietnam an issue
rreAintkittilities long after the last U.F:
?Ira' rdl,k4s- Southeast Asia.
By Courtney It. Sheldnn
Staff cciespondont of
The Christian Science Monitor
\I ?
there's been a full signal to the administra-
tion now that they haven't got a great deal
?-? more time to get American troops out of
this situation without a real blowup in the
'United States."
Mr. Ball was among the very few who
argued against escalation of the war from
the start.
?
Wasliing-,1en
. The Nixon administration is almost car-
tam n to be uncomfortably on the defensive
whether it wins or loses its historic battle
with the news media in the Supreme Court.
The revelations thus far of the Pentagon
secret papers raise leviathan moral ques-
tions on the origins of the Vietnam war.
They could critically impair the ability of
President Nixon to resist pi?essures to speed
UP his paced withdrawal from Vietnam.
While the Supreme Court took more time
on June 23 for a careful assessment of the
rights and responsibilities of the press
under the Constitution, it was apparent that:
O Any curb by the SiVreme, Coutt on fur-
ther publication of the Vietnam war papers
could heighten public swpieions that the
full truth is being concealed.
O A decision in favor of the newspapers
could result in disclosure of more govern-
ment papers which link. Mr. Nixon?the
vice-president under President Eisenhower,
from 1952 to 1900 and a pronounced hawk
at the time?with the actions of his predc,-
.
CeSSOrS. 7
O Any decision of the Supreme Court will
not erase tho severe mutual distrust between
the news media profession and Nixon offi-
cials. ?
On the right of newspapers under the Con.
stitittion .to publish what they wish, without
.prior restraint,.- there is almost complete
unanimity among the conservatives, moder-
ates, and radicals in the profession.
Just what Mr. Nixon will do to try to
unite .the country after the court ruling is
.
not clear. He has not held a press confer..
ence in a month. He could address the na?
tion and restate or modify priorities in
Southeast Asia. ?
The target of war critics now is' likelyto
be Mr. Nixon's announced intention of keep-
ing a residual force indefinitely in Vietnam;
or until the prisoners .of war are released
by North Vietnam. . . ? ?
? Writing in the July issue of Foreign Af-
fairs, retired Gen. Matthew H. Redgv,,ay
concluded:
.He now faults the Nixon administration
for lack of full candor in handling the Cam-
bodian and Laotian invasions, but. he ad-
vised against seeking scapegoat in any
administration.
San. Barry Goldwater (R) of Arizona, the
Republican candidate against President
Johnsen in 1964., is again saying that it is
Democrats who start wars and Republicans
who wind them down.
1-03ZOVI invinnnvi,enyea
Everyone involved is anxious to keep the
record straight from his standpoint. In an
intc.:rview (recorded in March and just now
released' over National Educational Televi!
Mon), Walt W. Rostow, chairman of the
State Department's Policy Planning Council
in the Johnson administration, reported on
President Eisenhower's advice to President
Kennedy the day before the Kennedy'inatt?
guration!
Mr. Eisenhower warned Mr. Kennedy, ac-
cording to Mr. Rostow, that the situation.
in Laos was approaching a disaster. and that
the U.S.. and its allies in the Southeast Asia
Treaty Organization might have to inter-
vene directly. If the allies were unwilling,
the 'U.S. would have to do the job alone,.
Mr. Eisenhower was quoted as urging.
The Pentagon papens? for an earlier period
show Mr. Eisenhower turning aside recom-
me.ndations to involve U.S. military forces
in Southeast Asia unless the, allies joined
in the effort. ?
Mr. Rostow and Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor,
who was interviewed at the same time, em-
phasized the conviction of all governments,
Republican or Democratic, that the prestige
and leadership of the U.S, was threatened by
Communist- subversion. '
As president since 1030, Mr. Nixon Pro-
ceeds with a policy of deeScalation,. but he
does not share the view. of war critics that
the war should never have been fought.
. .
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DODGE CITY, KANS.
GL013E
E 7,534
9 1071
Von
The Cenfral Intelligence Agency, for a
long time a chief bogey Man to the Far
Left, is emerging as more or less a "good
guy" in the current revelations concerning
the Vietnam War and how we ever got into
that mess. In its estimates of the situation
over there, it does not seem to have en-
couraged military adveniurism.
Of course, the CIA men out in the field,
when told to undertake various operations
of an underground nature to. help but in a
war which was going on, did do things
which had best he kept underground if we
wish to feel comfortable about them. But
when its ?advice was asked it counseled A
moderate course, all too often without its
advice being followed.
One tale surfacing last week says a
CIA report advised Richard Nixon. shot*
after he came into power that he. could pull
all *he U.S. troops out in the shortest. pos-
sible time and no harm to the Allied cause
.would result from it, at least. for some' years
and not necessarily then.
? This we may read with some skeptic-
ism. It was not the general concensus of
opinion at the time. In fact, some months
later when Nixon unvieled his Vieinamiza-
ii
tion plan it was denounced as unwarkable
most of all by these same critics now pre-
pared to accept this other perhaps fictional
earlier report as Gospel which President
Nixon should have acted on the instant he
hea rd t;
They don't believe it of course, even
yet. They feel the South Vietnamese army,
the Arvin, will. crumble when the North.
Vietnamese put the crunch on them, with-
out U.S. support; and, some of these critics
who loath the South. Vietnamese govern-
ment along with our involvement over there
can scarely disguise, their pleasure at this
prospect.
We have no trouble that way. As we
have throughout sad affair, we hope
the Arvin will do well, in combat and be-
lieve they will surprise many of their critics.
It is our best way out of the mess, certainly.
The morality of this bothers us perhaps'
less than it should. But anything else is like-
ly to wind up with the South Vietnamese
overrun and perhaps hundreds of thousands
of mostly innocent throats being cut?and
the morality of allowing that to happen.
eludes u5.
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GRAND ISLAND, NEBR.
INDEPENDENT
E ? 22,126
MN 29 QV
A Page Devoted to?
Speaing:.
rrirl . [ 1
h ne r eraiktoion
You can argue all day about whether
the executive branch of government (and
the military) knows best about what the ...
public shoUld be told.
At this point in history, however,
there seems little doubt that the
? American people were, told just enough -
about Vietnam to build up support for
what was an ever-widening involvement
, in Southeast. Asia.
? It was not. the first time in our
ration's history. The Spanish-American?
War might be a parallel, bririiliotit
- the disastrous results of Vietnam. s
_ But NV. 'bat about Congress? When it
w6s being taken down the same path
. in 1964 and 1965, might wiser heads have
prevailed had more facts been made
..known and a more realistic picture
painted?
? Gen. Maxwell Taylor, who moved
from a job as chairman of the joint
chiefs of staff to our ambassador in
. 'South Vietnam during the height of the
buildup, referred to that question in the
wake of the disclosures of the Pentagon
Papers' contents.
"To my knowledge, this is the first
? time in history that a government's right
?to carry on some of its business outside
the public eye has, in effedt, been
? :challenged," he said.
.? But .he denied there had been any
..deception, adding, "One of the problems
here is exactly what is meant. In the
practice of foreign policy, a President
owes a good deal to certain elements
- of Congress ? the leadership ? in the
. way of Openness. But the President does
?rot- by 'any means owe that to . all of
. Congress." ? ?
.
PC r)n
if
(3)
- ?But there's a lot of difference between the "openness" to which Taylor
refers and the way it is now apparent
'Con[,Yress was also misled in those earlier
years.
In fact, it was on Atig. 8; 1964, that
the House approved, 416-0, and the
,Senate, 83-2, a resolution whiCh . gave
President Johnson authorization to take
"all necessary measures . . . - to repel
any armed attack" against U.S. forces
and "to prevent further aggression."
That became the vehicle under which
the war was expanded.
At the time, only Sens. Wayne Morse
and Ernest Greening* voted against the
resolution. .
. ,
Over the ensuing years, others began
to speak out.
What 'might have happened, though,
in 1961 and 1965 had at - least
/
Congressional leaders kno,..vn of the .
opposition to our policies of _CIA?director '
John McCone? ,
?
are Th-equipped to fight in ,a
cooperative if not downright hostile
countryside. Once we suffer, large ,
? casualties, we will have started a well-
nigh irreversible process. Our in-
volvement:will be so great that we
cannot ?' without national humiliation
stop short of achieving our objectives.
I think humiliation would be more likely
? 'even after we have paid terrible
costs." ;
At the same time, however, that
.these misgivings were being expressed
privately, all public pronouncements
were exactly . the , ? opposite, and
presumably private, consultations with
Congressional leaders were as optimistic
as the public mouthings.
War fever, it Would seem, was built
up in part because there really wasn't
any "openness" on the part of the
executive ? even with congressional
leaders. ? ) . ,
?
None of which is to criticize the mo-
tives of our leaders, however.. They ;
obviously did what they felt best. It just
developed they were wrong.
?
Or, in 1965, if they'd have heard
some testimony from George Ball, un-
dersecretary of state, which reflected a
July 1 memo which he sent to the
President? From the viewpoint of 1971,
what he wrote six years ago is almost
uncanny:
"No one can assure you that we
can heat the Viet Cong or even force
them to the conference table on our
terms," he said, "no matter how many
hundred thousand white, foreign (U.S.)
troops we deploy. Once we deploy sub-
stantial numbers of troops in combat,
it will become- a war- between the U.S.
and a large part of the population of
South Viet Vara. U.S. troops will begin
OK, ye do have separation of the ,to take heavy castialties in a war they
two brai pmednForaftteitse --
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LEWISTON; IDAHO
TRIBUNE
- 21,770
S ? 2 2 , 4 7 7 (act
JUN 29
At least one part of the govern-
ment should welcome the publication
of the Pentagon papers. That is the
Central. Intelligence Agency, whose
judgments of the military situation in
North Vietnam and of the nature of
.the struggle in. South Vietnam prior
to 1965 have been vindicated by the
Pentagon's documents.
These papers show that the CIA,
under its director, john J. McCone,
was reporting accurately on diplo-
matic and military developments in
Southeast Asia but that its reports
were being either ignored, overlook.
ed, or misinterpreted in the highest
councils of the government in Wash-
ington. For example, the Johnson ad-
ministration continued to describe the
insurgency in South Vietnam as es-
sentially the work of the North-Viet-
namese government long after the
CIA had reported that it actually was
an indigenous movement among the
peasants of South Vietnam. President
Johnson and Secretary of State Dean
Rusk were describing the Viet Cong
as a virtual vassal .of Hanoi after the
CIA had reported that it was mainly
home-grown and representative of a
large part of the South Vietnamese
population.
The reports of the Central, Intel-
ligence Agency indicated that the con-
flict in South Vietnam was essentially
an in-country uprising. The Johnson
administration based its policy on the
assumption that it was essentially an
aggressive move against the govern-
ment of South Vietnam by the .gov-
ernment of North Vietnam. This is a
crucial difference because if the CIA
was right and subsequent events
-show that it was ?.then the Kennedy
and Johnson administrations were
basing their whole Southeast Asia pol-
icy on the wrong assumption.
After the spring of 1965, American
commanders in Saigon, together with
the American ambassador there, fair-
ly glowed with optimism in their pub-
lic statements and their briefings for
C011gr2SS111211 even though it was
known in the Pentagon that the mil-
itary situation was bad and getting
worse. Events continued to prove the
commanders wrong and the war re-
fused to go the way the Joint Chiefs
of Staff kept saying it would go. To
the public, which ,knew only what it.
read in the papers, the reason just
about had to be faulty intelligence,
and the prestige of the CIA fell sharp-
ly.
The Pentagon papers have reveal-'
ed that the optimism of the generals
and the administration did not reflect
the judgments of the CIA after all
and that the developments of the war
which seemed always to take the
Pentagon and the White. House by
surprise were being rather accurately
predicted by the CIA.
The CIA took a frightful public
drubbing after the failure in 1.961 of
the invasion of the Bay of Pigs, which
appeared to have resulted from bad
intelligence. In the light of what later
happened in Vietnam, it would he in-
teresting to see the record of the
CIA's reports at that time. It is now
possible to suspect that the CIA ac-
curately predicted what would hap-
pen and that the generals simply re-
fused to be deterred. --
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STATI NTL
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6EATTE , WASH.
TIMES
JUN 2 9 197ti
E ? 244,776
S 310,357
,
light Newspapers, Inc.
-WASHINGTON ? Barely a
year after the sustained
United States bombing of
North 'Vietnam began, De-
fense Secretary Robert Mc- ,
Namara had lost faith that it .
would achieve its objectives.
The Pentagon analyst who ,
Wrote a study entitled "The
Air War in North Vietnam"
said- it was 'a colossal mis-
judgment" to think that the
bombing would pressure Ha-
noi into calling it quits.
Previously published por-
tions of the Pentagon papers
revealed the planning that
led up to the opening of the
bombing campaign ? code -
named Operation Rolling
Thunder ? in March, 19651'
NEW DOCUMENTS made
available to Knight Newspa-
pers trace in great detail
McNamara's growing disillu-
sionment with the aiolicy he
had recommended.
By the summer of 1966, a
ferocious struggle had devel-
oped within the councils of
government over the bomb-
ing.
The struggle pitted Mc-
Namara and many of his ci-
vilian advisers, often sup-
p r te d by the Laaala A.,.
against the generals and ad-
mirals in the war zone and
on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The military loaders con-
sistently recommended more
and heavier bombing, the
documents show. Towards
the end, in 1968, the chiefs,
while conceding that the air,
raids had beein laaffeetive,
blamed it on political con-
straints that had prevented
them from attacking key tar-
gets.
JUST THREE WEEKS be-
fore President Lyndon John-
son ordered a partial bomb-
ing halt and announced he
would not seek re-election,
on March 31, 1968, a memo-
randum from the Joint
Chiefs sought permission to
attack Hanoi and the Port of
Haiphong.
McNamara, on the other
band, had been 'resisting the
escalation of Rolling Thun-
der for nearly two years be:
fore the bombing halt, the
report shows.
In January, 1965, when he
first recommended Rolling
Thunder to President John-
son, McNamara thought it
would not have to last more
than six months.
In July, 1965, realizing that
the bombing was trailing
short of its goals, Mc-
Namara urged that the raids
be stepped up and expanded
to cover most of Vietnam.
But after an inspection trip
to Vietnam in October, 1966,
he recommended a leveling
off of the United States ef-
fort and an effort to find a
diplomatic 'solution.
Instead .of escalating the
bombing, McNamara sug-
gested a barrier of fences,
mines and troops across the .
northern border of South
Vietnam and the Ho Chi -
Minh Trail through Laos.
ln addition, he recom-
mended a reduction or pause
in the bombing in an effort
to get peace negotiations
started. .
THE MILITARY leaders
argued stroagly against'
McNamara's approach. A
sharp dissenting memoran-
dum signed by Gen. Earle
Wheeler, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the
chiefs "do not concur in your
recommendation that there
should be no increase in lev-
el of bombing effort or that,
as a carrot to induce nego-
tiations, we should suspend
or reduce our bombing cam-
paign against North.
Vietnam ...
McNamara won that round
and the bombing was not es,-
ciliated that fall. The strug-
gle was resumed early in
1967. However, the. President
cventaally yielded to mili-
tary pressure to intensify,
Rolling Thunder and in June
authorized a "selected inten-
aification of the air war."
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