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3. The Fallout
This bombing controversy simmered on for the next few months and when a major secret peace attempt associated with the San Antonio formula failed, the President authorized most of the 57 unstruck targets the JCS had recommended and which the Stennis report had criticized the Administration for failing to hit. In addition, the Chairman of the JCS was thereafter asked to attend the Tuesday policy luncheon at the White House as a regular participant.The Stennis hearings also created considerable confusion and controversy within the Pentagon over the target classification and recommendation system. The Senators had been at pains to try to establish whether targets recommended by the military were being authorized and struck or conversely to what extent the military was being ignored.
In trying to respond to the question McNamara discovered a great deal of fluidity in the number of targets on JCS lists over time, and in the priority or status assigned to them. He therefore set out to reconcile the discrepancies. The effort unearthed a highly complex system of classification that began with the military commands in the Pacific and extended through the Joint Staff to his own office. Part of the problem lay with the changing damage assessments and another part with differing categories at different echelons. To untangle the process, reconcile past discrepancies and establish a common basis for classification and recommendation, McNamara, Warnke, the ISA staff and the Joint Staff spent long hours in September and October in highly detailed target by target analysis and evaluation. After much wrangling they did achieve agreement on a procedure and set of rules that made it possible for everyone to work with the same data and understanding of the target system. The procedure they set up and the one that operated through the fall and winter until the March 31 partial suspension was described in a memo from Warnke to incoming Secretary Clark Clifford on March 5, 1968:
Twice a month the Joint Staff has been revising the Roiling Thunder Target List for the bombing of North Vietnam. The revisions are forwarded to my office and reconciled with the prior list. This reconciliation summary is then forwarded to your office.
Every Tuesday and Friday the Joint Staff has been sending me a current list of the authorized targets on the target list which have not been struck or restruck since returning to a recommended status. After our review, this list also is sent to your office.
In the normal course of events, new recommendations by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for targets lying within the 10 and mile prohibited circles around Hanoi and Haiphong, respectively, or in the Chinese Buffer Zone have been submitted both to the Secretary of Defense’s office and to my office in ISA. ISA would then ensure that the State Department had sufficient information to make its recommendation on the new proposal. ISA also submitted its evaluation of the proposal to your office. On occasions the Chairman, would hand-carry the new bombing proposals directly to the Secretary of Defense for his approval. Under those circumstances, the Secretary, if he were not thoroughly familiar with the substance of the proposal, would call ISA for an evaluation. State Department and White House approval also were required before the Chairman’s office could authorize the new strikes.
The Stennis report also raised a furor by exposing the policy rift within the Administration. In an attempt to dampen its effect the President called an unschedule news conference on September 1 to deny differences among his advisors and to generally overrule his Secretary of Defense on the bombing. More stinging for McNamara, however than this oral repudiation must have been the subsequent escalatory decisions against his advice. On September 10, for instance, North Vietnam’s third port at Cam Pha, a target he had specifically counseled against in his testimony was struck for the first time. In McNamara’s year-end resignation seems in retrospect the only logical course for someone who found himself so far out of line with the direction of Administration policy.
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With the failure of the peace initiative in Paris, these escalatory pressures could no longer be resisted. As it became evident that peace talks were not in the offing, the President approved six new targets on October 6 (including 5 in or near Haiphong). Secretary Rusk in his October 12 news conference strongly questioned the seriousness of North Vietnamese intent for peace and finally on October 20 the Paris contacts here closed in failure. The Tuesday lunch on October 24 would thus have to make important new bombing decisions. The day before, Warnke outlined current JCS recommendations for Secretary McNamara, including Phuc Yen. The White House meeting the following day duly approved Phuc Yen along with a restrike of the Hanoi power transformer and the temporary lifting of the Hanoi restrictions. On October 25, the MIGs at Phuc Yen were attacked for the first time and Hanoi was struck again after the long suspension.
The Tuesday luncheon at which the Phuc Yen decision was made was a regular decision-making forum for the air war and one that came to public attention as a result of the Stennis hearings. Indicative of the public interest in these gatherings is the following impressionistic account by CBS newsman Dan Rather of how they were conducted:
First Line Report, 6:55 a.m.
WTOP Radio, October 17, 1967Dan Rather: This is Target Tuesday. Today President Johnson decides whether North Vietnam will continue to be bombed. If it is, how much and where. These decisions are made at which Washington insiders call, for short, the Tuesday lunch. This is the way it goes.
At about 1:00 in the afternoon Defense Secretary McNamara , Secretary of State Rusk, and Presidential Assistant Walter Rostow gather in the White House second floor sitting room. They compare notes briefly over Scotch or Fresca. President Johnson, walks in Press Secretary George Christian. McNamara, Rusk, Rostow, Christian, and the President– they are the Tuesday lunch regulars. The principal cast far Target Tuesday.
Sometimes others join. Chairman of the Military Joint Chiefs, General Earle Wheeler, far example. He’s been coming mare often recently, ever since the Senate Subcommittee an Preparedness Committee griped about no military man being present many times when final bombing decisions were made. Central Intelligence Director Richard Helms seldom comes. Vice President Humphrey almost never.
Decision making at the tap is an intimate affair. Mr. Johnson prefers it that way. He knows men talk mare freely in a small group.
After a bit of chatter aver drinks in the sitting room, the President signals the move to the dining room. It is semi-oval, with a huge chandelier, a mural around the wall-brightly colored scenes of Cornwallis surrendering his sword at Yorktown. The President sits at the head, of course. Sits in a high back stiletto swivel chair. Rusk is at his right, McNamara at his left, Rostow is at the ether end. Christian and the extras, if any, in between. Lunch begins, so does the serious conversation. There is an occasional pause, punctuated by the whirl of Mr. Johnson’s battery-powered pepper grinder. He likes pepper and he likes the gadget.
Around the table the President’s attention goes, sampling recommendations, arguments, thoughts. It is now, the time for a bombing pause. How about just a bombing reduction? Laos, Haiphong, Hanoi, everything around population centers, confined bombing to that tiny part of North Vietnam bordering the Demilitarized Zone. McNamara long has favored this. He thinks it worth a try. Rusk has been going for some indication–the slightest hint will do–that a bombing pause reduction will lead to meaningful negotiations. Rostow least known of the Tuesday lunch regulars also is a hard-liner. He more than Rusk is a pour-it-on man. Christian doesn’t say much. He is there to give an opinion when asked about press and public reaction. The military representative, when there is one, usually speaks more than Christian, but less than McNamara, Rusk, and Rostow.
McNamara is the man with the target list. He gives his recommendations. If bomb we must, these are the targets he suggests. His recommendations are based on, but by no means completely agree with these of the military Joint Chiefs.
Their recommendations, in turn, are based on those of field commanders. Field commanders are under instructions not to recommend certain targets in certain areas– Haiphong docks, the air defense command center in Hanoi, and so forth. There is much controversy and some bitterness about these off-limit targets. There have been fewer and fewer of them since July. Some new ones went off the list just last week.
The luncheon meeting continues over coffee until 3:00, 3:30, sometimes even 4:00. when it is over, the President goes for a nap. The bombing decisions have been made for another week.
In thinking about Target Tuesday and the White House luncheon where so many decisions are on the menu, you may want to consider the words of 19th Century writer F. W. Borma: “We make our decisions, and then our decisions turn around and make us .”
Even before the Phuc Yen decision was taken, the Chiefs had sent McNamara for transmittal to the President a major memo outlining their overall recommendations for the air war as requested by the President on September 12. The President had asked to see a set of proposals for putting more pressure on Hanoi. On October 17 that was exactly what he got and the list was not short. The Chiefs outlined their understanding of the objectives of the war, the constraints within which the national authorities wished it to be fought, the artificial limitations that were impeding the achievement of our objectives and a recommended list of ten new measures against North Vietnam. Since the memo stands as one of the last major military arguments for t he long-sought wider war against North Vietnam before the trauma of Tet 1968 and the subsequent U.S. de-escalation, and because of its crisp, terse articulation of the JCS point of view, it is included here in its entirety.
—/end post 1 of 3
Download these two specific volumes:
[Part IV. C. 7. a.]
Evolution of the War. Air War in the North: 1965 – 1968. Volume I (41 MB)
[Part IV. C. 7. b.]
Evolution of the War. Air War in the North: 1965 – 1968. Volume II (38.8 MB)
You can freely download the entire 48 volume set of the Pentagon Papers from the National Archives in Adobe Acrobat format.