Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part IV. C. 1.djvu/97

 4. Remove inhibitions on the use of Asian intelligence agents in Cambodian-Laos border areas. 82/

By the end of another fortnight Khanh's mood had turned much more strongly toward insistence upon his march to the North. On the morning of 4 May 1964, Khanh asked Lodge to call; and Khanh began by asking if he should make a declaration putting the country on a war footing. This, he said would involve getting rid of "politicians" in the government and having a government composed frankly of technicians. It would involve suspension of civil rights ("as had been the case under Lincoln in your civil war"). There would be a curfew^ Saigon would cease to be a city of pleasure, and plans laid to evacuate the diplomatic corps and two million people. Khanh then said that an announcement should be made to Hanoi that any further Interference with South Vietnam's internal affairs would lead to reprisals, and Khanh specifically asked if the U.S. would be prepared to undertake tit-for-tat bombing each time there was such interference.

Continuing, Khanh talked further, somewhat wildly, of defying Cambodia and breaking diplomatic relations with France; and he even mentioned a declaration of war against the. DRV at one point. He conveyed the impression of a desperate desire to press for an early military decision by outright war with the DRV. Lodge sought to discourage this sort of adventurism, but acknowledged that if the DRV invaded South Vietnam with its Army, that act would raise a host of new questions of acute interest to the U.S. Possible entry of Chinese forces would have to be considered. The question then would be whether such an Army could be made ineffective by interdicting its supply lines. He could not envision the U.S. putting into Asia an Army the size of the U.S. Army in Europe in World War II. Khanh said that he understood this but that an "Army Corps" of U.S. Special Forces numbering 10,000 could do in Asia as much as an Army group had done in Europe. "One American can make soldiers out of 10 Orientals." [Sic!] It was illogical, wasteful, and wrong to go on incurring casualties "just in order to make the agony endure."

Near the end of his report of this conversation, the Ambassador inserted this comment; "this man obviously wants to get on with the job and not sit here indefinitely taking casualties. Who can blame him?"' Then he added; as a further comment:

"His desire to declare a state of war…seems wholly in line with our desire to get out of a 'business as usual' mentally. He is clearly facing up to all the hard questions and wants us to do it, too. 83/"

Lodge's report of Khanh's impatient wish to strike north drew an immediate flash response from Rusk, which began with a statement that made it clear that the message had been considered carefully at the White House. Extremely grave issues were raised by the conversation, and reactions had Rh