Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part IV. C. 1.djvu/11

 First, the air campaign against NVN (ROLLING THUNDER) did not appear to be shaking the DRV's determination. Second, ARVN experienced a series of disastrous defeats in the spring of 1965 which convinced a number of observers that a political-military collapse within GVN was imminent.

As the debate in Washington on next steps revealed, something closely akin to the broad objectives stated over a year earlier in NSAM 288 represented a consensus among U.S. policymakers as a statement of proper U.S. aims. The domestic political situation had changed materially since early 1964. President Johnson was now armed with both a popular mandate and broad Congressional authorization (the extent of which would be challenged later, but not in 1965). Palliative measures had not been adequate to the task although they had continued and multiplied throughout the period. As General Taylor wryly remarked to McGeorge Bundy in a back channel message quoted in the following paper, the U.S. Mission in Saigon was charged with implementing a 21-point military program, a 41-point non-military program, a l6-point USIS program, and a 12-point CIA program "…as if we can win here somehow on a point score."

As fears rose in Washington it must have seemed that everything had been tried except one course -- active U.S. participation in the ground battle in SV¥. Palliative measures had failed. ROLLING THUNDER offered little hope for a quick decision in view of the rapid deterioration of ARVN. The psychological barrier against the presence of U.S. combat units had been breached. If the revalidated U.S. objectives were to be achieved it was necessary for the U.S. to make quickly some radical departures. It was politically feasible to commit U.S. ground forces and it seemed desirable to do so.

Secretary McNamara met in Honolulu on 20 April with the principal U.S. leaders from Saigon and agreed to recommend an enclave strategy requiring a quantum increase above the four Marine battalions. An account of the rapidity with which this strategy was overtaken by an offensively oriented concept is described in another volume in this series. The present volume describes the situational changes, the arguments, and the frustrations as the U.S. attempted for over a year to move toward the realization of ambitious objectives by the indirect use of very limited resources and in the shadow of a Presidential election campaign. Rh