Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
consultations were held frequently, but were attended by relatively low-ranking U.S. officers, carefully instructed on limits of their planning flexibility. At the SEATO conference in Bangkok in February 1955, the U.S. position on military arrangements under the pact was to avoid discussion of permanent formal organization. A Defense Department memorandum on the U.S. stance again recommended that the ANZUS pact be used as a model:
- "The U.S. desires to make no commitments of U.S. forces for use under the Manila pact. (This view has not been conveyed to the other powers.)
- "With regard to military machinery for the coordination of measures to combat overt aggression, the U.S. is opposed to the establishment of formal military machinery or of a permanent SEATO staff. Instead, the U.S. supports the establishment of military advisors, who would meet periodically, formulate their own rules of procedure and any necessary organizational arrangements, designate planning assistants to work on specified projects, and insure that military planning activities are coordinated with those designed to counter subversive activities.
- "While not explicitly so stated, the U.S. position is one of confining its activities and commitments to the scope of those made under the ANZUS Fact. Such apparent concessions to the other powers as have been made in the Working Group papers do not alter the fact that the U.S. is unwilling to commit any forces to the defense of Southeast Asia, opposes any military organizational arrangement which would require the integration of U.S. and allied war plans, and prefers to deal with its allies bilaterally rather than multilaterally."42 [Emphasis added]
The U.S., although it refused to become deeply committed in advance to a military organization styled along NATO lines, was well aware of the necessity to be prepared to fight in the SEATO area. U.S. unilateral plans and preparations had been set in motion when, in January, 1955, the Secretary of Defense requested the JCS to provide "a concept of the possible application of U.S. military power in the implementation of Article IV of the Manila Pact" under two different assumptions: (1) prohibition of nuclear weapons; (2) permission to employ nuclear weapons. Requirements were established for:
- "1. Broad outline plans for U.S. action...to deter or counter overt aggression by Communist China or, where applicable, by Viet Minh, against each of the Southeast Asian nations which are parties to the Manila Pact or against the free areas of Indochina which might be covered by the Pact. [Emphasis added]
