—
Page 178
SIGNIFICANCE OF BOMBING CAMPAIGN IN NORTH TO OUR OBJECTIVES IN VIETNAM
The bombing of North Vietnam was undertaken to limit and/or make more difficult the infiltration of men and supplies in the South, to show them they would have to pay a price for their continued aggression and to raise the morale in South Vietnam. The last two purposes obviously have been achieved.It has become abundantly clear that no level of bombing can prevent the North Vietnamese from supplying the necessary forces and materiel necessary to maintain their military operations in the South. The recent Tet offensive has shown that the bombing cannot even prevent a significant increase in these military operations, at least on an intermittent basis.
The shrinking of the circles around Hanoi and Haiphong will add to North Vietnam’s costs and difficulty in supplying the NVA/VC forces. It will not destroy their capability to support their present level of military activity. Greater concentration on the infiltration routes in Laos and in the area immediately North of the DMZ might prove effective from the standpoint of interdiction.
Strikes within 10 miles of the center of Hanoi and within four miles of the center of Haiphong have required initial approval from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretaries of State and Defense, and, finally, the President. This requirement has enabled the highest level of government to maintain some control over the attacks against targets located in the populous and most politically sensitive areas of North Vietnam. Other than the Haiphong Port, no single target within these areas has any appreciable significance for North Vietnam’s ability to supply men and material to the South. If these areas of control were reduced to circles ‘having a radii of 3 miles from the center of Hanoi and 1-1/2 miles of the center of Haiphong, some minor fixed targets not previously authorized would be released for strike. More significant is the fact that the lines of communication lying within the area previously requiring Washington approval would be open for attack by shrinking the control areas around Hanoi and Haiphong. The question would simply be whether it is worth the increase in airplane and pilot losses to attack these lines of communication in the most heavily defended part of North Vietnam where our airplane loss ratio is highest.
The remaining issue on interdiction of supplies has to do with the closing of the Port of Haiphong. Although this is the route by which some 80% of North Vietnamese imports come into the country, it is not the point of entry for most of the military supplies and ammunition. These materials predominantly enter via the rail routes from China.
Moreover, if the Port of Haiphong were to be closed effectively, the supplies that now enter Haiphong could, albeit with considerable difficulty, arrive either over the land routes or by light rail, which has been so successful in the continued POL supply. Under these circumstances, the closing of Haiphong Fort would not prevent the continued supply of sufficient materials to maintain North Vietnamese military operations in the South.
Accordingly, the only purpose of intensification of the bombing campaign in the North and the addition of further targets would be to endeavor to break the will of the North Vietnamese leaders. CIA forecasts indicate little if any chance that this would result even from a protracted bombing campaign directed at population centers.
A change in our bombing policy to include deliberate strikes on population centers and attacks on the agricultural population through the destruction of dikes would further alienate domestic and foreign sentiment and might well lose us the support of those European countries which now support our effort in Vietnam. It could cost us Australian and New Zealand participation in the fighting.
Although the North Vietnamese do not mark the camps where American prisoners are kept or reveal their locations, we know from intelligence sources that most of these facilities are located in or near Hanoi. Our intelligence also indicates that many more than the approximately 200 pilots officially classified by us as prisoners of war may, in fact, be held by North Vietnam in these camps. On the basis of the debriefing of the three pilots recently released by Hanoi, we were able to identify over 40 additional American prisoners despite the fact that they were kept in relative isolation. Heavy and indiscriminate attacks in the Hanoi area would jeopardize the lives of these prisoners and alarm their wives and parents into vocal opposition. Reprisals could be taken against them and the idea of war crimes trials would find considerable acceptance in countries outside the Communist bloc.
Finally, the steady and accelerating bombing of the North has not brought North Vietnam closer to any real move toward peace. Apprehensions about bombing attacks that would destroy Hanoi and Haiphong say at sometime help move them toward productive negotiations. Actual destruction of these areas would eliminate a threat that could influence them to seek a political settlement on terms acceptable to us.
—
Page 173
The JCS bombing paper began with a discussion of the history of the air war and offered some explanations for its seeming failure to date:
1. The air campaign against North Vietnam is now entering the fourth year of operations. Only during the latter part of the past favorable weather season of April through October 1967, however, has a significant weight of effort been applied against the major target systems. During this period, even though hampered by continuous and temporarily imposed constraints, the air campaign made a marred impact on the capability of North Vietnam to prosecute the war. Unfortunately, this impact was rapidly overcome. The constraints on operations and the change in the monsoon weather provided North Vietnam with numerous opportunities to recuperate from the effects of the airstrikes. Facilities were rebuilt and reconstituted and dispersal of the massive material aid from communist countries continued.
2. There is a distinct difference between the North Vietnam that existed in early 1965 and the North Vietnam of today. The difference is a direct result of the material aid received from external sources and the ability to accommodate to limited and sporadic air strikes. The Hanoi regime throughout the air campaign has not shown a change in national will, but outwardly displays a determination to continue the war. The viability of the North Vietnam military posture results from the availability of adequate assets received from communist countries which permits defense of the homeland and support of insurgency in the South.
—
Page 177
The ISA memo on bombing policy, drafted in Warnke’s own office, tersely and emphatically rejected all of these JCS recommendations for expanding the air war, including mining the harbor approaches. The case against further extension of the bombing was made as follows:
The Campaign Against North Vietnam: A Different View Bombing Policy
It is clear from the TET offensive that the air attack on the North and the interdiction campaign in Laos have not been successful in putting a low enough ceiling on infiltration of men and materials from the North to the South to prevent such a level of enemy action. We do not see the possibility of a campaign which could do more than make the enemy task more difficult. Bombing in Route Packages 6A and 6B is therefore primarily a political tool.The JCS recommend a substantial reduction in previous political control over the attacks in the Haiphong and Hanoi areas. Except for General Wheeler, we do not recommend such a reduction.
It is not until May that more than four good bombing days per month can be anticipated. The question arises as to how best to use these opportunities. We believe the political value of the attacks should be optimized. The effective destruction of clearly important military and economic targets without excessive population damage would seem indicated. Excessive losses in relation to results would have an adverse political effect. The airfields (perhaps including Gia Lam) would meet the criteria. The Hanoi power plant would probably meet the criteria. There are few other targets of sufficient importance, not already authorized, to do so.
In particular, this view opposes the proposal to define only 3-mile and 1-1/2-mile “closed areas” around Hanoi and Haiphong respectively. Individual targets within Hanoi and Haiphong and between the 10- and 3-mile circles far Hanoi and the 4 and 1-1/2 mile-circles for Haiphong, should be considered an a case-by-case basis in accordance with the above criteria. However, blanket authority far operations up to the 3-mile and 1-1/2-mile circles, respectively, appears to’ take in only small targets having no appreciable military significance; on the other hand, experience has indicated that systematic operations particularly against road and rail routes simply and slightly to the repair burdens, while at the same time involving substantial civilian casualties in the many suburban civilian areas located along these routes.
In addition, a picture of systematic and daily bombing this close to Hanoi and Haiphong seems to us to run significant risks of major adverse reactions in key third nations. There is certainly some kind of “flash point” in the ability of the British Government to maintain its support for our position, and we believe this “flash point” might well be crossed by the proposed operations, in contrast to operations against specified targets of the type that have been carried out in the Hanoi and Haiphong areas in the past.
Mining of Haiphong
We believe it to’ be agreed that substantial amounts of military-related supplies move through the Port of Haiphong at present. Nevertheless, it is also agreed that this flow of supplies could be made up through far greater use of the road and rail lines running through China, and through lightering and other emergency techniques at Haiphong and other ports. In other words, even from a military standpoint the effect of closing the Port of Haiphong would be to impose an impediment only for a period of time, and to add to difficulties which Hanoi has shown in the past it can overcome. Politically, moreover, closing the Port of Haiphong continues to raise a serious question of Soviet reaction. Ambassador Thompson, Governor Harriman, and others believe that the Soviets would be compelled to react in some manner — at a minimum through the use of minesweepers and possibly through protective naval action of some sort. Again, we continue to believe that there is some kind of “flash point” both in terms of these likely actions and their implications for our relation with the Soviets in other matters, and for such more remote — but not inconceivable — possibilities as Soviet compensating pressure elsewhere, for example against Berlin. Even a small risk of a significant confrontation with the Soviets must be given major weight against the limited military gains anticipated from this action.Finally, by throwing the burden of supply onto the rail and road lines through China, the mining of Haiphong would tend to increase Chinese leverage in Hanoi and would force the Soviets and the Chinese to work out cooperative arrangements for their new and enlarged transit. We do not believe this would truly drive the Soviets and Chinese together, but it would force them to take a wider range of common positions that would certainly not be favorable to our basic interests .
Expanded Naval Operations (SEA DRAGON)
These operations, expanded north along the coast to Haiphong and to other port areas, would include provision for avoiding ocean-going ships, while hitting coast-wise shipping assumed to be North Vietnamese. We believe this distinction will not be easy to apply without error, and that therefore the course of action involves substantial risks of serious complications with Chinese and other shipping. In view of the extensive measures already authorized further south, we doubt if the gains to be achieved would warrant these risks.Surface-to-Air Missiles
As in the past, we believe t4is action would involve substantial risk of triggering some new form of North Vietnamese military action against the ships involved. Moreover, another factor is whether we can be fully certain of target identification. The balance on this one is extremely close, but we continue to question whether expected gains would counter-balance the risks.It is interesting that the entire discussion of bombing on both sides in the DPM is devoted to various kinds of escalation. The proposal that was eventually to be adopted, namely cutting back the bombing to the panhandle only, was not even mentioned, nor does it appear in any of the other drafts or papers related to the Clifford Group’s work.
The fact may be misleading, however, since it apparently was one of the principle ideas being discussed and considered in the forums at various levels. It is hard to second-guess the motivation of a Secretary of Defense, but, since it is widely believed that Clifford personally advocated this idea to the President, he may well have decided that fully countering the JCS recommendations for escalation was sufficient for the formal DPM.
To have raised the idea of constricting the bombing below the 19th or 20th parallel in the memo to the President would have generalized the knowledge of such a suggestion and invited its sharp, full and formal criticism by the JCS and other opponents of a bombing halt. Whatever Clifford’s reasons, the memo did not contain the proposal that was to be the main focus of the continuing debates in March and would eventually be endorsed by the President.
—
Page 185
2. The New Hampshire Primary
In the days immediately following the early March deliberations, the President, toiling over the most difficult decision of his career, was faced with another problem of great magnitude — how to handle the public reaction to Tet and the dwindling public support for his war policies. From this point of view probably the most difficult week of the Johnson Presidency began on March 10 when the New York Times broke the story of General Westmoreland’s 206,000 man troop request in banner headlines. The story was a collaborative effort by four reporters of national reputation and had the kind of detail to give it the ring of authenticity to the reading public. In fact, it was very close to the truth in its account of the proposal from wiCV and the debate going on within the Administration. The story was promptly picked up by other newspapers and by day’s end had reached from one end of the country to the other. The President was reportedly furious at this leak which amounted to a flagrant and dangerous compromise of security. Later in the month an investigation was conducted to cut down on the possibility of such leaks in the future.The following day, March 11, Secretary Rusk went before Fulbright’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the first time in tyro years for nationally televised hearings on U.S. war policy. In sessions that lasted late that Monday and continued on Tuesday, the Secretary was subjected to sharp questioning by virtually every member. While he confirmed the fact of an “A to Z” policy review within the Administration, he found himself repeatedly forced to answer questions obliquely or not at all to avoid compromising the President. These trying two days of testimony by Secretary Rusk was completed only hours before the results from the New Hampshire primary began to come in to the shock and consternation of official Washington, the President had defeated his upstart challenger, Eugene McCarthy, who had based his campaign on a halt in the bombing and an end to the war, by only the slenderest of margins. (In fact, when the write-in vote was finally tabulated later that week, McCarthy had actually obtained a slight plurality over the President in the popular vote.) The reaction across the country was electric. It was clear that Lyndon Johnson, the master politician, had been successfully challenged, not by an attractive and appealing alternative vote-getter, but by a candidate who had been able to mobilize and focus all the discontent and disillusionment about the war . National politics in the election year 1968 would not be the same thereafter.
Critics of the President’s policies in Vietnam in both parties were buoyed by the New Hampshire results. But for Senator Robert Kennedy they posed a particularly acute dilemma. With the President’s vulnerability on Vietnam now demonstrated, should Kennedy, his premier political opponent on this and other issues, now throw his hat in the ring? After four days of huddling with his advisers, and first informing both the President and Senator McCarthy, Kennedy announced his candidacy on March 16. For President Johnson, the threat was now real McCarthy, even in the flush of a New Hampshire victory, could not reasonably expect to unseat the incumbent President.
But Kennedy was another matter. The President now faced the prospect of a long and divisive battle for renomination within his own party against a very strong contender, with the albatross of an unpopular war hanging around his neck. For the moment at least, the President appeared determined. On March 17, he spoke to the National Farmers’ Union and said that the trials of American responsibility in Vietnam would demand a period of domestic “austerity” and a “total national effort.” 53/ Further leaks, however, were undercutting his efforts to picture the Administration as firm and resolute about doing whatever was necessary. On March 17, the New York Times had again run a story on the debate within the Administration. This time the story stated that the 206,000 figure would not be approved but that something between 35,000 and 50,000 more troops would be sent to Vietnam, necessitating some selective call-up of reserves. Again the reporters were disturbingly accurate in their coverage. Criticism of the President continued to mount. Spurred by the New Hampshire indications of massive public disaffection with the President’s policy, 139 members of the House of Representatives co-authored a resolution calling for a complete reappraisal of U.S. Vietnam policy including a Congressional review.
3. ISA Attempts to Force a Decision
The President’s reluctance to make a decision about Vietnam and the dramatic external political developments in the U.S. kept the members of the Administration busy in a continuing round of new draft proposals and further meetings on various aspects of the proposals the President was considering. Within ISA at the Pentagon, attention focused ways to get some movement on the negotiations in the absence of any decisions on forces or bombing. On March 11, Policy Planning produced a lengthy draft memo to Clifford outlining the history of Hanoi’s positions on “talks”, “negotiations”, “settlement”, and “no advantage” provision of the San Antonio formula. Its conclusion was that Hanoi had indicated “acceptance of the operative portion of the San Antonio formula,” if we really wished to acknowledge it. Policy Planning suggested testing this by asking them to repeat recent private assurances about not attacking Khe Sanh, the cities, across the DMZ, etc. In an effort to move the Administration to a more forthcoming interpretation of the San Antonio formula, this memo proposed discussions with GVN to define what constituted North Vietnamese acceptance.The memo which Warnke signed the next day went to both Clifford and Nitze and began with the statement: “I believe that ‘de should begin to take steps now which will make possible the opening of negotiations with Hanoi within the next few months. I believe that such negotiations are much much in our interest…”
—
Page 187
Attached to Harnke’s memo were separate supporting tabs outlining Hanoi’s public and private responses to the San Antonio formula and arguing that Hanoi’s conception of an acceptable negotiated settlement, as revealed in its statements, embodied a good deal of flexibility.
On the same day, Warnke signed a memo to the Director of CIA requesting a study of seven alternative bombing campaigns for the future. For unknown reasons, the memo was apparently never sent. The options for examination in this memo were all taken from the earlier draft memo with twelve options. Options 1-3 were all reduction or half options, but the wording of them suggests again that ISA was not aware of the high level attention being focused on a complete bombing halt north of 200.
Neither Clifford’s nor Nitze’s reaction to Warnke’s memo is available in the files, but two days later the Policy Planning Staff drafted a memorandum to the President for Clifford’s signature which recommended a leveling off of our effort in the war — i.e., no new troops and a reconcentration of the bombing to the panhandle area. The memo went through several drafts and is probably typical of efforts going on simultaneously in other agencies. In its final form it urged the retargeting of air strikes from the top of the funnel in North Vietnam to the panhandle with only enough sorties northward to prevent the DRV from relocating air defenses to the south. 60/ A more detailed discussion of the bombing alternatives was appended to the memo and included consideration of four alternative programs. The first two were (1) a continuation of the current bombing program; and (2) an increase in the bombing including the reduction of the restricted zones and the mining of Haiphong. These two were analyzed jointly as follows:
The bombing of North Vietnam was undertaken to limit and/or make more difficult the infiltration of men and supplies in the South, to show Hanoi that it would have a price for its continued aggression, and to raise morale in South Vietnam. The last time purposes obviously have been achieved.
It has become abundantly clear that no level of bombing can prevent the North Vietnamese from supplying the forces and materiel necessary to maintain their military operations in the South at current levels. The recent Tet offensive has shown that the bombing cannot even prevent a significant increase in these military operations, at least on an intermittent basis. Moreover, the air war has not been very successful when measured by its impact on North Vietnam’s economy. In spite of the large diversion of men and materials necessitated by the bombing, communist foreign aid and domestic reallocation of manpower have sharply reduced the destruction effect of our air strikes.
The other two alternatives considered were a partial and a complete cessation of the bombing. Here is how ISA presented them:
3. A revision of the bombing effect in North Vietnam so that a maximum effort is exerted against the LOC’s in Route Packages 1, 2, and 3 with bombing north of the 20th parallel limited to a level designed to cover only the most significant military targets and prevent the redistribution southward of air defenses, e.g. 5% of the attack sorties.
This reprogramming of our bombing efforts would devote primary emphasis on the infiltration routes south of the 20th parallel in the panhandle area of North Vietnam just to the north of the DMZ. It includes all of the areas now within Route Packages 1, 2 and 3. This program recognizes that our bombing emphasis should be designed to prevent military men and materiel from moving out of North Vietnam and into the South, rather than attempting to prevent materiel from entering North Vietnam. Occasional attack sorties north of this area would be employed to keep enemy air defenses and damage repair crews from relocating and to permit attack against the most important fixed targets. The effort against this part of North Vietnam through which all and infiltration passes would be intensive and sustained. Yet it provides Hanoi with a clear message that for political reasons we are willing to adjust our military tactics to accommodate a constructive move toward peace. A distinct benefit of this decision would be the lower plane loss rates which are realized in the southern areas of North Vietnam. (In 1967 the joint loss rate per thousand sorties in Route Packages 1, 2 and 3 was 1.36, while it was 5.73 in the more heavily defended Route Package 6 in which Hanoi and Haiphong are located.)
4. A complete cessation of all bombing in North Vietnam.
It would be politically untenable to initiate a complete cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam at a time when our forces in the northern provinces of South Vietnam are seriously threatened by large forces of North Vietnamese regulars, unless we were confident that these attacks would cease. Nevertheless, we must recognize that our intelligence analysts have advised that in spite of our significant bombing effort over the last 2-1/2 years, Hanoi retains the capability and the will to support the present or an increased level of hostilities in South Vietnam. On the other hand, they inform us that:“If, however, the U.S. ceased the bombing of North Vietnam in the near future, Hanoi would probably respond more or less as indicated in its more recent statements. It would begin talks fairly soon “would accept a fairly wide ranging exploration of issues, but would not moderate its terms for a final settlement or stop fighting in the South.”
As discussed elsewhere in this memorandum, a cessation of the bombing by us in North Vietnam is the required first step if a political solution to the conflict is to be found. We may want to seek some assurance from Hanoi that it would not attack from across the DMZ if we halt the bombing. Alternatively, we could stop all bombing except that directly related to ground operations and indicate that our attacks are in the nature of returning fire and will be halted when the enemy halts its attacks in the area.