Memorandum for Secretary of State Henry Kissinger Regarding the Next Steps on Vietnam
This item is a National Security Council memorandum from W. R. Smyser to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
Images (18)
Document
| id |
id
7367437
|
|---|---|
| contentType |
contentType
document
|
| source |
source
import
|
| identifierLocal |
identifierLocal
032400079-001
|
Source image fields (6)
Extracted text
OCR Page 1 of 18Digitized from Box 19 of the NSA. Presidential Country Files: East Asia and the Pacific at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library 4a
MEMORANDUM
1968-X
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
SDERET/SENSITIVE/EYES ONLY
URGENT ACTION
March 31, 1975
MEMORANDUM FOR:
SECRETARY KISSINGER
FORD
FROM:
W. R. SMYSER
SUBJECT:
The Next Steps on Vietnam
The first purpose of this memorandum is to review what we have done
about Vietnam over the last few weeks,to assay its impact, and to
consider what we do next.
Its second purpose is to relate our actions to the President's upcoming
speech and to tie it all together with the domino theory. We need to
think of all these things together if we are to have a good idea of what
the President should say and of how we should prepare for his remarks.
A S you know, we have done and said relatively little about the current
NVA offensive, for three principal reasons:
1. We got started slowly because of: uncertainty about Thieu's
policy, the widespread view (buttressed by the CLA estimate) that
Danang would hold; and, general bureaucratic resistance (shown in
the WSAG meetings).
2. We have let our inability to act frustrate our power to speak.
Since Congress has imposed a number of restrictions upon the exercise
of American power in Indochina, we have hesitated even to say anything
to other countries or -- for that matter -- to the American public. You
have made a positive statement in your press conference, as has the
President. But there has been no speech and no declaration that would
bring home that we regard this as an item of potentially major consequence.
3. We have considered each possible action in a separate context
and have not always looked at the total impact of all actions in Vietnam
and here. For example, we have sent no messages to Hanoi and to its
major allies because we could not follow them up with actions; for the
same reason, we have had no Asian or other diplomatic campaign;
because of the economic message, there has not yet been a Presidential
speech on Vietnam; there is so far no public Presidential letter to
Thieu because the ones we did send, largely under Graham Martin's
influence, were designed for internal impact. Charity compels me
not to comment on the U.S. Navy's effort to help move the refugees,
SDCRET/SENSITIVE/EYES ONLY - XGDS
DECLASSIFIED
B.O. 12958, Sec. 3.5
NSC Memo, 11/24/98, State Dept. Guidelines CIA
By KBH NARA, Date 2/9/00 Review