Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part V. B. 2. b.djvu/69

Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011

 

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major non-Communist base areas in this quarter of the world--Japan, India, and Australia--depends in a large measure on the denial of Southeast Asia to the Communists. If Southeast Asia is lost, these three base areas will tend to be isolated from one another;

d. The fall of Indochina would undoubtedly lead to the fall of the other mainland states of Southeast Asia. Their fall would:

(1) Require changing the Philippines and Indonesia from supporting positions in the Asian offshore island chain to front-line bases for the defense of the Western Hemisphere. It would also call for a review of the strategic deployment of United States forces in the Far East; and

(2) Bring about almost immediately a dangerous condition with respect to the internal security of the Philippines, Malaya, and Indonesia, and would contribute to their probable eventual fall to the Communists;

e. The fall of Southeast Asia would result in the virtually complete denial to the United States of the Pacific littoral of Asia. Southeast Asian mainland areas are important in the conduct of operations to contain Communist expansion;

f. Communist control of this area would alleviate considerably the food problem of China and would make available to the USSR important strategic materials. In this connection, Soviet control of all the major components of Asia's war potential might become a decisive factor affecting the balance of power between the United States and the USSR. "A Soviet position of dominance over Asia, Western Europe, or both, would constitute a major threat to United States security"; and

g. A Soviet position of dominance over the par East would also threaten the United States position in Japan since that country could thereby be denied its Asian markets, sources of food and other raw materials. The feasibility of retention by the United States of its Asian offshore island bases could thus be jeopardized.

3. In the light of the foregoing strategic considerations pertaining to the area of Southeast Asia, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from the military point of view, concur In the conclusions in NSC 64.

4. Military forces of both Franco and the United Kingdom are now actively opposing communism in Southeast Asia. Small indigenous