Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET - Sensitive
THE ROLLING THUNDER PROGRAM BEGINS
SUMMARY and ANALYSIS
The United States decisions, in the early months of 1965, to launch a program of reprisal air strikes against North Vietnam, evolving progressively into a sustained bombing campaign of rising intensity, were made against a background of anguished concern over the threat of imminent collapse of the Government of South Vietnam and of its military effort against the Viet Cong. The air war against the North was launched in the hope that it would strengthen GVN confidence and cohesion, and that it would deter or restrain the DRV from continuing its support of the revolutionary war in the South. There was hope also that a quite modest bombing effort would be sufficient; that the demonstration of US determination and the potential risks and costs to the North implicit in the early air strikes would provide the US with substantial bargaining leverage; and that it would redress the "equation of advantage" so that a political settlement might be negotiated on acceptable terms.
Once set in motion, however, the bombing effort seemed to stiffen rather than soften Hanoi's backbone, as well as to lessen the willingness of Hanoi's allies, particularly the Soviet Union, to work toward compromise. Moreover, compromise was ruled out in any event, since the negotiating terms that the US proposed were not "compromise" terms, but more akin to a "cease and desist" order that, from the DRV/VC point of view, was tantamount to a demand for their surrender.
As Hanoi remained intractable in the face of a mere token demonstration of U.S. capability and resolve, U.S. policy shifted to a more deliberate combination of intensified military pressures and modest diplomatic enticements. The carrot was added to the stick in the form of an economic development gesture, but the coercive element remained by far the more tangible and visible component of U.S. policy. To the slowly but relentlessly rising air pressures against the North was added the deployment of US combat forces to the South. In response to public pressures, a major diplomatic opportunity was provided Hanoi for a quiet backdown through a brief bombing pause called in mid-May, but the pause seemed to be aimed more at clearing the decks for a subsequent intensified resumption than it was at evoking a reciprocal act of de-escalation by Hanoi. The U.S. initiative, in any event, was unmistakably rebuffed by North Vietnam and by its Communist allies, and the opposing positions were more hopelessly deadlocked than ever before.
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