EXECUTIVE SECRETARIAT'S REQUEST FOR BACKGROOUND INFORMATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01720R000600030031-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 25, 2004
• Sequence Number: 31
• Publication Date: July 1, 1969
• Content Type: MF

CEN T 1- Z.-` L INT'E q E :-NCE AGENCY
1 July 1969
MEMORANDUM FOR: Mr. John P. Walsh
Acting Executive Secretary
Department of State
SUBJECT : Executive Secretariat's Request for
Background Information
1. In compliance with your request for background information
on the US negotiating position and Communist actions during the
summer and fall of 1968, we have prepared the attached memorandum
which attempts to answer the three specific questions you posed.
The attached memorandum is accompanied by an annex which analyzes
in greater detail the pullback of Communist forces that occurred
during the fall of 1968.
2. The attached papers have been carefully prepared on the
basis of all documents and information available to us. Our cable
record does not show or reflect obvious lacunae, but there may well
have been private exchanges by telephone or cable between President
Johnson and Ambassador Harriman and/or Ambassador Vance of
which we are unaware. In responding to requests of this nature, we
are obviously limited to the facts and the record known or made
available to us.
George A. Carver, Jr.
Special Assistant for Vietnamese Affairs
DCI/SAVA
Distribution
Copy No. 1 - Mr. Walsh w/atts
Copy No. 2 - Paris Negotiations w/atts
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StJ ECT: US and Communist Policies Toward Military De-escalation
This memorandum addresses three basic questions posed by the
Executive Secretariat of the Department of State:
1) Was the 1968 US delegation in Paris (the Harriman-
Vance team) officially apprised of the fact that the US
intended to maintain maximum military pressure on the enemy
in South Vietnam after the bombing halt, and did the delegation
proceed in the talks with this in mind?
2) How did the CIA assess the pullback of Communist
forces in South Vietnam last autumn, particularly the with-
drawal of NVA units from South Vietnam's northern provinces ?
3) How long were the Communists preparing for the 1969
post-Tet (22 February) offensive, and at what point did the
enemy appear to be fully committed to carrying out these plans ?
This memorandum provides the best answers we can give to these
three questions on the basis of information available to this Agency. An annex
provides a detailed examination of the late 1968 pullback of Communist
forces and the preparation for the next offensive.
I. The US Delegation in Paris and US Military Tactics
1. The record available to us indicates that Ambassadors Harriman
and Vance were generally informed about US military policy in South Vietnam
and were briefed regularly on US operations. We do not have all the pertinent
messages, and we do not know if Ambassadors Harriman and Vance were
fully apprised of the details of General Abrams' standing orders for a post-
bombing period. Anyone working closely on the Vietnam problem, however,
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was generally aware that the US intended to maintain maximum military
ors ssure on enemy forces in South Vietnam after a bombing cessation. We
cannot find any evidence that the Paris delegation was informed specifically
of the decision to divert air and naval assets formerly used against North
Vietnam to step up the war in Laos and South Vietnam. There is no evidence,
for example, that the Paris delegation ever received President Johnson's
29 October letter to Thieu in which President Johnson assured Thieu: "I have
told General Abrams, and I am sure you have instructed your forces, that
we must maintain every bit of military pressure we can summon within
South Vietnam and Laos. This is a time for more military pressure on the
enemy, not less. "
2. The record we have of negotiation developments during the fall
of 1968 suggests that the US delegation in Paris clearly understood that allied
military operations in the south were to continue at established levels after
the bombing halt. Any one studying the cable traffic of this period could
easily infer that Harriman and Vance might have had personal misgivings
about this policy, but we have no traffic in which such misgivings were
officially voiced to President Johnson or Secretary Rusk. In an October (1968)
cable, however, the Paris delegation did object to making any public statements,
following a bombing halt, that "our operations in South Vietnam will continue
on the present basis" because this would "create confusion in the minds of
the other side and appear to be a contradiction of our understanding on mutual
military restraint in the DMZ area. 'P
3. It is quite possible that Hanoi had concluded from the course of
the talks during 1968 that the US was prepared to take further de-escalatory
steps after a bombing halt if the Communists showed that they too ready
to go that route. Some US statements may have implied this, but a careful
review of our records shows that US representative-, said nothing specific to
the North Vietnamese, either in public or in private, to indicate that we
planned to scale down military operations in South Vietnam after a bombing
halt, without further negotiations. In the main, US officials simply did not
address this question in any detail.
4. When US officials expressed a hope for an early reduction in the
level of violence, such a hope was usually couched as a bid for Hanoi to join
us in de-escalating the war and moving toward a peaceful settlement. In
almost every instance, however, it was fairly clear that we intende - .._.e bombing
halt to be the first step in this direction and that what we were a:. ng for was
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reciprocal de-escalation by the Communists in response to our -move. In
private, Harriman and Vance consistently let the Communist delegates know
that this meant they were to join us in restoring the status of the DMZ and
to cease attacking the three major cities of Saigon, Hue, and Danang.
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5. Nonetheless, the Communists may well have believed that the
bombing halt would be followed by further de-escalatory moves by the US,
especially since the level of Communist-initiated violence was indeed subsiding
just as the talks were in their most critical period during late September and
early October. This impression on the part of the Communists could have
been reinforced at an important meeting on 21 October when Vance and
Harriman told Xuan Thuy that we "may want to talk about de-escalating the
fighting at an early time. " Thuy agreed that we could bring this up whenever
we wanted after the bombing stopped. in most instances when US officials
indicated we wanted to talk about de-escalation following a bombing halt,
however, it was made clear that we wanted first of all to get some firmer
commitments regarding the understanding on the DMZ and the cities.
6. Thus, as far as we can determine, nothing said by US officials in
Paris cut directly across the policy of maintaining military pressure on the
enemy in South Vietnam. In December, however, Secretary Clifford
elaborated a bit on the direction that he, if not the Administration, wanted
matters to proceed next. On 10 December he said publicly that he would
like first off to get some "definitive understandings" in Paris regarding the
DMZ and the cities, and about reconnaissance over North Vietnam. He
added that "I would hope then we would move on to lowering the level of
combat. " In another interview on 15 December, Clifford carried on this
theme by saying that so far there were no agreements on further de-escalation
an, that "the instructions we have given to our general out there is that he
shall maintain intensive pressure on the enemy. " He also said that when
we get down to substantive talks with the North Vietnamese, one of our first
objectives should be to reduce the level of violence in South Vietnam. He
noted Ambassador Harriman's influence on his own belief that Hanoi is ready
to enter into military understandings which would result in the withdrawal of
troops and a "very substantial diminution" in the fighting.
7. During the long delay in getting talks started after the bombing halt,
the Communists increasingly focused their propaganda on alleged US "intensi-
ficai:ion" of the war. The French pushed this line on 14 November, for instance,
when they told us that the Liberation Front representative in Hanoi had told
the French delegate general there that if the US continued to increase bombings
in South Vietnam the Front would be "forced" to launch a new offensive. The
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T ront official said that if the US wanted the Paris talks to succeed, it would
have to de-escalate the fighting in South Vietnam. The same Front official
Look a different tack on 10 December when he was about to leave for the
Paris talks. He told the French that the Front was not planning on any
major military initiatives, but it would continue to maintain pressure and
would "reply to any allied moves intensifying the conflict. " He also said,
however, that the Front was willing to discuss reciprocal de-escalation.
8. When the Communists finally launched their much hearldec, post-
Tet offensive in late February, they alleged US intensification of the war
justiied their own military action. Soviet Ambassador Zorin told Ambassador
Lodge on 26 February that the US could not deny that "for over three months"
the Vietnamese Communists had "committed no serious military activity. "
Zorin also claimed that Harriman had said "on many occasions" to him
(Zorin) and to the North Vietnamese that after the bombing halt the US had
in mind a lessening or decrease of military activity on both sides.
II. The Communist Pullback of Forces in the Fall of 1968
9. Our basic judgment at the time of the pullback last autumn was
that Communist forces were being withdrawn for reasons of military necessity
to rest and refit prior to the next offensive period. Ample evidence was
available to show that such a respite was needed. We also assumed throughout
this period of military retrenchment on the part of the Communists that
Hanoi might try to use the withdrawals and the reduction in the fighting to
facilitate a bombing halt and' to get us to move further down the road of
de-escalation and toward a political settlement which met their demands.
10. In retrospect these judgments still seem basically correct. We
now know that the Politburo made a whole series of crucial decisions during
the summer of 1968 which led'to major tactical changes in how the war was
to be fought, and in the Communist approach to the negotiations. One
decision was to abandon the kind of costly, all-out military tactics pursued
during the Tet offensive and again in May 1968. Another was to accept the
presence of GVN representatives at post-bombing talks in Paris. The
main thrust of these decisions probably was to see what could be obtained
through negotiations before resuming major combat operations.
11. Thus, the Communists probably hoped that the pullback of their
forces which began in.September 1968 could be used to serve political as
well as military objectives. The Communists may have hoped that the pullback
would encourage the US to stop the bombing and perhaps to move rapidly
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toward a settlement favorable to them. Although the bombing was stopped,
the talks bogged down and the Communists went ahead with the plans for
further offensives which they had developed along with their negotiating
strategy.
The Resumption of Communist Military Efforts
12. Although preparations for yenewing major Communist offensive
operations in South Vietnam obviously were in train throughout the autumn
1968 retrenchment, Communist forces during this period were usually
inactive. Infiltration of additional North Vietnamese troops was cut back
Sharply in August, September, and October and was renewed on a major
scale only at the end of November. It then surged to a record level in
December.
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13. Communist main force units which pulled out of the northern
provinces stayed out until early 1969. Communist activity in the Demilitarized
Zone was sharply curtailed and no major units crossed through the Zone
again until mid-February 1969. Small bands of enemy troops were spotted
in the DMZ throughout this period and occasional shellings were mounted
from within the Zone, but the pattern of Communist activity in that area
changed markedly after the bombing halt. Similarly, Saigon was shelled on
the eve of the bombing halt, but not again until the post-Tet offensive was
launched on 22 February. Hue was shelled lightly twice in early February,
but otherwise the three major cities were not shelled between the bombing
halt and the post-Tet offensive.
14. Communist military activity in the period September through
November strongly suggested that Hanoi was waiting to find out what we
would do before proceeding with its own military plans. When it became
clear that we intended to keep up the pressure in the south, and when the
talks were delayed for weeks, first by Saigon's refusal to attend and then by
a series of procedural obstacles, the Communists almost certainly concluded
that they should go ahead with these military plans because there was not
going to be any early breakthrough in the talks.
15. Indications of Communist plans for a "winter-spring campaign"
appeared in captured documents and agent reports throughout the autumn of
1968. Most of these suggested that the first phases of the campaign were
scheduled to start in some areas as early as December 1968.
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15. Communist forces in III Corps were the first enemy units to
terminate their withdrawal phase and redeploy to active combat sectors.
Beginning in late November, major combat elements in that sector began
a slow but relatively steady movement from border sanctuaries toward
sta-'ng areas enroute to Saigon. Allied spoiling operations and intensive
4, 1 B-52 strikes in most cases stalled the southerly movement of Communist
troops and supplies in III Corps and caused considerable slippage in
Communist plans for December attacks.
17. By that time, however it was quite clear from all inteiii Bence
retorting that the Communists were increasingly committed to another
major offensive, and Communist forces were moving inexorably in that
direction. When the Nixon Administration took office on 20 January, it
was quite clear that the Communists were in the advanced stages of preparations
for an offensive. North Vietnam appeared to be trying, through increased
infiltration, new troop deployments, and stepped-up harassing attacks, to
project an image of Communist strength and to convince the new American
leadership that any delay in reaching a settlement would not result in a
better bargain for the allied side.
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The Communist Military Pullback in Late 1968 and Preparations for he
Early 1969 Offensive
A review of the enemy's large-scale withdrawal of main force units
from active combat sectors of South Vietnam during the fall of 1968 suggests
that it was a move dictated at least as much by tactical necessities as by
diplomatic considerations. There is ample evidence in agent reports,
prisoner-defector interrogations, and captured documents that enemy forces
were sorely in need of a prolonged respite following the heavy losses of
manpower and materiel sustained during their three major offensives
earlier in 1968. There is also ample evidence that this respite was
designed to be used to prepare for a "Fourth General Offensive" or "Winter-
Spring Campaign" to be launched as early as December 1968. On the other
hand, the timing, duration and scope of the pullback, particularly in the
northern provinces, strongly suggested that Hanoi hoped these moves might
be exploitable in a way that could facilitate the negotiations in Paris and
lead to a curtailment of the allied military effort.
1. Communist military activity during the fall and early winter
months of 1968 was dominated by the tactical disengagement of a large
number of enemy main force units from three of South Vietnam's four corps
areas. (Communist units in the Mekong Delta were the only ones that did
not make significant withdrawals.) This disengagement began in some
sectors as early as mid-August. It continued through November when more
than 50 percent of the enemy's main force regiments -- 30 out of 56 -- as
well as important regional and "front" headquarters command elements
were redeployed from high priority target objectives to remote in-country
base areas, border sanctuaries, or out-of-country safe havens.
2. The major unit withdrawals were most pronounced in the northern
I Corps provinces of Quang Tri and Thua Thien and in the area of the
Demilitarized Zone. In Thua Thien Province, the senior Communist regional
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headquarters as well as its five subordinate North Vietnamese reirnents
(the 6th, 9th, 29th, 90th, and 803rd) redeployed from the Hue-A Shau Valley
area westward deep into Laotian snactuary. Components of this senior
headquarters, along with the 29th, 90th, and 803rd regiments, subsequently
deployed to. southern North Vietnam where they were joined in December
by the 8 1 2th Regiment from Quang Tri Province.
3. In the northern Quang Tri Province-DMZ area, tactical
disengagements were highlighted by the September withdrawal of the North
Vietnamese 320th Division as far north as the Vinh area of North Vietnam.
Sev;:ral additional North Vietnamese infantry and artillery regiments, as
well as the B-5 Front -- the senior enemy command headquarters in the
DMZ area - - pulled back to base areas in southern North Vietnam from
previous operating positions within and south of the DMZ. Moreover, prior
to the spate of redeployments from September to November, the North
Vietnamese 304th and 308th divisions had withdrawn in early summer from
the Khe Sanh area to garrison locations deep in North Vietnamese territory.
4. Thus, by November 1968, the North Vietnamese had withdrawn
the bulk of their forces from the two northernmost provinces of South
Vietnam, including the DMZ area, to safe havens in Laos and, in some
cases, in North Vietnam. By these withdrawals, the Communists had
significantly weakened their tactical posture against allied strong points
between lateral Route 9 and the DMZ and along the populous coastal plain
from Hue to Quang Tri City.
5. In central and southern I Corps, however, no significant main
force troop withdrawals occurred during this period, as major elements of
Front 4 and the North Vietnamese 2nd Division continued to threaten allied
positions in Quang Nam Province and the North Vietnamese 3rd Division
remained targeted against Quang Ngai Province.
6. Communist major unit withdrawals in the II and III Corps areas,
while quantitatively impressive, were not nearly as significant in terms of
distance as those undertaken in northern I Corps. In virtually every case,
they involved relocations to well established base areas along the Cambodian
border, positions from which the units could quickly redeploy for strikes
against major objectives.
7. The repositioning of enemy forces in central Vietnam was high-
lighted by the shift of the North Vietnamese 1st Division and two independent
Communist regiments from the western highlands of II Corps southward to
III Corps. Meanwhile, those forces remaining in the highlands -- two
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infantry regiments, an artillery regiment, and the senior Communist
command authority for the area (B-3 Front Headquarters) -- retired co
traditional Cambodian redoubts astride the Pleiku, Kontum, and Quan: :Duc
Province borders. The withdrawal seriously weakened enemy strength -'n
II Ccrps and left only two North Vietnamese main force regiments -- ,hc
18th in Binh Dinh and the 95B in the Pleiku-Binh Dinh border area --
available for offensive operations.
8. In the aftermath of their costly offensive of May 1968, t .e
Communists withdrew the bulk of their main force units (three divisions)
then operative in III Corps to remote base areas along the Cambodian border
for an extended period of refitting and reinforcement. The Viet Cong 9th
Division retired to the western Tay Ninh Province border; the North
Vietnamese 7th Division to the northern Binh Long Province border; and
t e Viet Cong 5th Division to redoubts along the Tay Ninh, Binh Long, and
13-nh Duong Province borders. Except for a brief return by some regular
units for a series of attacks in late August, most remained out of combat
through November. It was during this term of regroupment that the North
Vietnamese 1st Division was integrated into the enemy's burgeoning III Corps
force structure, a process also undertaken in border sanctuaries.
9. In the IV Corps area, no major withdrawals to border sanctuaries
or out-of-country safe havens were evidenced on the part of the 25 or so
Viet Cong main and local force battalions then operative in the delta, although
a number did retire at least temporarily to traditional in-country base areas
distant from prime allied targets.
10. Tactical military considerations provide ample reasons for the
widespread repositioning of Communist forces in the I, II, and III Corps
areas during the fall of 1968. In northern I Corps, for example, allied
spoiling operations against forward and rear enemy base areas, coupled with
the damaging effects of exceptionally severe monsoon weather, appear to have
rendered the Communists' logistics situation untenable, thus forcing the
enemy to at least temporarily abandon large-scale operations in the region.
in the DMZ area, seasonal rotational factors may also have played a role.
in previous years, for example, division-level Communist forces frequently
suspended combat operations below the buffer zone during the months of
October, November and December while retiring to base areas in the southern
DRV for refurbishment prior to returning to the southern battlefield in
January and February.
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I 1. Communist withdrawals in the II and III Corps areas aiso
appear to have been dictated largely by widespread allied spoiling operations
including massive B-52 strikes -- as well as by the heavy expenditures of
men and materiel during the three major offensives of 1968. Perhaps
equally as important, the enemy's local infrastructure and logistics
cache network -- so vital to staging major operations against the populated
sectors of South Vietnam controlled by the allies had been badly disrupted
and partially destroyed.
12. In addition to the tactical necessities outlined above, there is a
convincing body of evidence -- agent reports, prisoner-defector statement-s,
captured documents, intercepted messages -- which indicates that the
Communists planned to use this fall 1968 period of combat standdown and
troop regroupment to prepare for another major offensive -- the so-called
"Winter-Spring Campaign" -- phases of which were scheduled for initiation
in some areas as early as December 1968.
13. Finally, authoritative justification for the tactical pullback in
South Vietnam was provided as early as mid-September by no less a figure
than North Vietnamese Politburo member Truong Chinh. In a major position
paper broadcast by Hanoi, Chinh, speaking on behalf of the Politburo, noted
that "at times, under circumstances, we must shift to the defensive to gain
time, dishearten the enemy and build up our forces. " He went on, however,
to state flatly that the purpose of such a shift is to "prepare for a new
offensive. "
14. From the standpoint of the Paris talks, Hanoi may have deemed
it desirable to scale down the level of its military activity in the South in the
hope that this would help bring about a bombing halt and enable the negotiators
to explore the possibilities of moving toward a settlement which met minimum
Communist objectives. The Communists may also have hoped their pullback
might prompt or otherwise produce a curtailment of allied military efforts.
These considerations may well have dictated the timing, scope, and duration
of the pullback. The evidence here is inconclusive, however. The Commu-
nists seem to have done nothing to discourage press stories or speculation
suggesting the Communist pullback was a "signal" or conciliatory gesture,
but they never officially directed US attention to the pullback. Since they did
officially, if somewhat obliquely; direct US attention to a much less widespread
pullback in June 1968, it would appear that the lack of official Communist
reference to the fall 1968 pullback was deliberate. In short, while Hanoi
seemed willing to have others read the fall pullback as a "signal, " Hanoi care-
fully avoided lending any official endorsement to this thesis. On balence,
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it seemed to us at the time -- and still seems today -- that Communist
military movements in the fall of 1968 were dictated at least as much by
tactical military necessity as by political considerations.
15. Communist forces in III Corps were the first enemy units o
terminate their withdrawal phase and redeploy to active combat sectors.
Commencing in late November-early December 1968, combat elements from
the Communists' 1st, 5th, 7th, and 9th Divisions began a slow, deliberate,
but relatively steady movement out of their border sanctuaries toward forward
staring positions from which past offensives against the Saigon area had
been launched. Paralleling these troop movements was a maximum logistics
effort by the enemy to preposition battlefield hardware and other supplies
in these staging areas and along well established infiltration corridors
leading to Saigon.
16. In most cases, the southerly movement of Communist troops and
sup-plies was frustrated or stalled by the strategic deployment of allied forces
(including the shift of the US 1st Air Cavalry Division from I to III Corps),
coupled with relentless spoiling operations and sharply expanded B-52
strikes against forward and rear enemy base areas and along known infiltration
routes to the Saigon area. In addition to forcing a serious slippage in the
Communists' well documented December timetable for attacks in the III
Corps-Saigon area, these allied countermeasures resulted in the loss of
extensive quantities of war materiel earmarked for use in the Communists'
winter-spring campaign. Enemy units in the subregions surrounding Saigon
were particularly hard-hit, suffering heavy losses of key cadre, munitions,
and other supplies.
17. In spite of the difficulties and setbacks encountered by the
Communists in this sector in their winter phase, they nonetheless continued
to press forward with preparations for another offensive campaign -- an
effort which culminated in the 22-23 February post-Tet 1969 attacks.
18. The next enemy units to return to action in South Vietnam were
those in the western highlands of II Corps. Following a four-month period
of refurbishment in Cambodian base areas, the North Vietnamese 24~--th and
66th Infantry Regiments and the 40th Artillery Regiment relocated, to traditional
operating areas in Kontum and Pleiku provinces where they remained
relatively inactive until the post-Tet offensive.
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19. North Vietnamese forces in the northern I Corps provwnco of
Qu Lng T ri and Thua Thien and in the DMZ area were the last to ma kc their
rea,:)-oearnace in South Vietnam. To this day, however, only a few of those
main force units withdrawn in the summer and fall of 1968 have rcsurncci
active combat operations in the South. As pointed out earlier, the No-:h
Vietnamese had withdrawn the bulk of their forces in this sector to sanctuary
in North Vietnam and Laos by 1 November. Between 1 Nov:.rnber and early
February 1969, only very small groups of enemy military personnel we e
detected moving in and through the DMZ, apparently engaged in reconnaissance
and logistics missions and possible limited infiltration efforts. A1thouuh the
90th Regiment is known to have moved from sanctuary north of the D1\/1Z
southward through Laos to Quang Nam Province during this period, there
is no hard evidence of any attempt by the enemy to deploy significant
numbers of troops southward through the zone.
20. By mid-February 1969, however, there was evidence that up to
three North Vietnamese infantry regiments had once again become active
within and south of the DMZ. Action picked up in the DMZ area on the night
of 22-23 February, but at nowhere near the pace set by the post-Tet offensive
in other sectors of the country.
21. In sum, the February 1969 attacks were clearly planned as early
as November 1968 and there is some evidence that at least some of these
attacks were originally scheduled for December 1968. There is no evidence
whatsoever suggesting that the decision to launch the post-Tet attacks was made
after 20 January 1969.
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