This page needs to be proofread.
Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
| Page | ||
| and of 4,000 in the past three months. While only 10–20% of this strength consists of cadres infiltrated from North VN, the remaining 80–90% includes remnants of the approximately 10,000 stay-behind personnel who went underground during the 1954–1955 regroupment and evacuation of Vietnamese communist army units following the Indo-China War. Though some weapons and equipment have been infiltrated into South VN, there has been no positive identification of Communist Bloc-manufactured military equipment in South VN. SNIE 53-2~61, 5 October 1961 | 291 | |
| 31. | The JCS feel the time is now past when actions short of intervention by outside forces can reverse the rapidly worsening situation in Southeast Asia. They consider the execution of SEATO Plan 5, or a suitable variation thereof, to be the military minimum commensurate with the situation. JCS Memorandum for Secretary of Defense, JCSM 704-61, 5 October 1961 | 295 |
| 32. | It is the opinion of the JCS that the use of SEATO forces at the greatest possible number of entry points along the whole South VN border, i.e., over several hundred miles, is not feasible. Further, the alternative of using SEATO forces to cover solely the 17th parallel is militarily unsound. "What is needed is not the spreading out of our forces throughout SEA, but rather a consolidated effort in Laos where a firm stand can be taken…" A limited interim course of action is provided herewith in the event SEATO Plan 5 is considered politically unacceptable. JCS Memorandum for Secretary of Defense, JCSM 716-61, 9 October 1961 | 297 |
| 33. | "For what one man's feel is worth, mine -- based on very close touch with Indo-China in the 1954 war and civil war afterwards until Diem took hold -- is that it is really now or never if we are to arrest the gains being made by the Vietcong." Bundy suggests that an early, hard-hitting operation has a 70% chance of success. "The 30% is that we would wind up like the French in 1954; white men can't win this kind of fight. On a 70-30 basis, I would, myself, favor going in." Bundy memorandum for Secretary McNamara, 10 October 1961 | 312 |
| 34. | It is estimated that the Communist Bloc would not commit North Vietnamese or Chinese Communist forces to a large-scale military attack against South VN or Laos in response to an assumed SEATO action to patrol the GVN coast | |
vii
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
