NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET - Sensitive
(5) What help should be sought from SEATO nations in relation to the situation (a) in Laos? (b) in SVN?" [95]
Just prior to the conference, the JCS also submitted their views, to which General Taylor did not subscribe. [96] Expressing concern over "a lack of definition" of U.S. objectives, the ICS asserted that it was "their first obligation to define a militarily valid objective for Southeast Asia and then advocate a desirable military course of action to achieve that objective." With its basis identified as "military considerations," they then made the recommendation that:
"...the United States should seek through military actions to accomplish destruction of the North Vietnamese will and capabilities as necessary to compel the Democratic Government of Vietnam (DRV to cease providing support to the insurgencies in South Vietnam and Laos. Only a course of action geared to this objective can assure that the North Vietnamese support of the subversive efforts in Laos and South Vietnam will terminate." [97]
However, the JCS went on to note that "some current thinking appears to dismiss the objective in favor of a lesser objective, one visualizing limited military action which, hopefully, would cause the North Vietnamese to decide to terminate their subversive support.." Drawing a distinction between destroying DRV capability to support the insurgencies and "an enforced changing of policy...which, if achieved may well be temporary," they stated their opinion that "this lesser objective" was inadequate for the current situation They agreed, however, to undertake a course of action to achieve this lesser objective as an "initial measure."
What the JCS proposed as this "initial measure" were a pair of sustained attacks to destroy target complexes directly associated with support of the communist efforts in Laos and South Vietnam. Military installations at Vinh, which served as a major resupply facility for transshipping war materiel into Laos, and a similar facility at Dien Bien Phu were recommended. In support of these operations, which would require U.S. participation to achieve "timely destruction" as necessary to achieve the objectives, the JCS stated a need to demonstrate forcefully that our pattern of responses to Hanoi's aggression had changed. They argued:
We should not waste critical time and more resources in another protracted series of "messages," but rather we should take positive, prompt, and meaningful military action to underscore our meaning that after more than two years of tolerating this North Vietnamese support we are now determined that it will stop. [98]
Aside from the JCS, whose views were not shared by their spokesman at Honolulu, the main voices in support of the idea of attacking the North in early June 1964 seemed to come from Saigon. But this source of advocacy
