BOMBING HOTLY DEBATED IN THE JOHNSON PERIOD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000300350080-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 13, 2000
• Sequence Number: 80
• Publication Date: April 17, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

STATINTL
1-13174 Approved For. Rele@ewaftQJWJ0A1; QAPJ-&gg R0003
pean and Pacific theaters of World War
II.
This is also unconstitutional, because
it exceeds the President's constitutional
powers. Any possible authorization for
a new war in North Vietnam by the
President was withdrawn with the Gulf
of Tonkin resolution by the Congress.
I have tried during the past 2 years
to make these views known both by pub-
lic statements and by my votes on the
various resolutions designed to provide
for withdrawal of our troops, and the re-
turn of our prisoners of war, and a ter-
mination of our participation in this
war.
I shall this w(~,ek participate in those
activities in Congress which are designed
to remove the United States from the
war in Vitnam. This is the only way I
know to stop further killing of Ameri-
cans and Vietnamese and the horrible
devastation of the whole Vietnam coun-
tryside. This will also achieve the release
of our prisoners of war.
- I have this day communicated these
views by letter to the President of the
United States.
Whether Cambodia, Laos, and Viet-
nam will be under one form of govern-
ment or another will be decided by the
people indigenous to those areas as was
true in the beginning, is now and ever
shall be.
Mr. HARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I
am pleased to join in this special order
because it is essential at this time to
demonstrate that there are people within
the American Government who have not
lost all connection with the reality that
exists in Southeast Asia today.
By ordering one of the most massive
air?armadas in human history to resume
the bombing of North Vitanam, the ad-
ministration has. destroyed the last
vestige of pretense that it is interested in
getting out of our military involvement
in Indochina. It has demonstrated beyond
dispute that Vietnamization is a fraud;
that neither in the White House nor in
Saigon is there any serious intention of
withdrawing our massive military pres-
ence from Indochina. If there were any
who failed to perceive the growing gap
.between the rhetoric of Vietnamization
and the reality of our involvement in
the fighting, they must now see that the
President has no more intention of with-
drawing from Indochina than he has of
withdrawing from Florida or California.
The tragic fact is that the President-
ignoring the overwhelming lesson of the
past 10 years-remains determined to im-
long as we fail to exercise our unquestion- the people and the laws of the United
ed right to end our participation in the States cannot be countenanced.
war. The reckless and senseless reesca- As I have pointed out time and time
lation of the bombitlg should bring home again since I stood on this very floor and
to all of us the need for legislating an end cast my vote against the very first appro-
to the war immediately; Our obligation as priation bill to support American mili-
the representative branch of Government tary intervention in Indochina in May
cannot be met by anything else. of 1965, it is the Congress which has the
Mr. RYAN. Mr. Speaker, the Presi- constitutional responsibility over war and
dent's Vietnamization program has not peace, And the Congress must exercise
only been a failure-it has been a fraud. that responsibility-now.
While the President has attempted to re- We are the elected representatives of
assure the American people with a scene the.American people. This House cannot
of a war dwindling away, the truth is close its eyes to their desires any longer.
that the administration is engaged in a This House cannot close its eyes to,the
massive escalation of the war in South- horrors of war any longer.
east Asia. This House cannot shirk its responsi-
Behind the facade of such terms as bilities any. longer.
"Vietnamization" and "protective reac- The war must end, And we must end
tion," the facts of Vietnam remain as it.
brutal and ugly as ever.
No amount of Presidential rhetoric can
mask the fact that the President's policy
is not one of peace-but of continued
death and destruction.
We have not prevented a bloodbath in
Vietnam. We have created one.
This dreadful war has drained our re-
sources. and stained our conscience. It
has sacrificed thousands of our most
precious possessions-our young mien-to
the jaws of death. It has warped our
priorities. It has brought the twin
plagues of unemployment and inflation
to our economy. It has brought aliena-
tion, division, and bitterness to our peo-
ple.
The President's policy of'military ad-
venturism is in direct violation of the
will of the people and the letter of the
law. -
Section 601 of the ? Military Procure-
ment Act of 1971-Public Law 92-156-
declares it to be the policy of the United
States to terminate at the earliest prac-
ticable date all U.S. military operations
in Indochina and to provide for the with-
drawal of all U.S. military forces at a
date certain subject to the release of all
American prisoners of war.
Not only has the President ignored
this-the law of the land-but he has
embarked upon a policy in direct opposi-
tion to it.
As we meet here today, American war
planes are ravaging Southeast Asia,
spreading the conflict to the North In-
cluding Hanoi and Haiphong. An Ameri-
can armada is being assembled off the
coast of North Vietnam. As the Washing-
ton Post editorialized in this morning's
paper: sponsored by the Democratic and Liberal
What President Johnson and his predeces- Clubs of Manhattan's West Side and Repro-
pose a political settlement of his own sors steadfastly tried not to do over 15 years sentative William F. Ryan, demand the im-
devising in South Vietnam. Ten years, or more, President Nixon has managed to do mediate cessation of all American bombing
more than $100 billiOri, the lives of more almost overnight: he has brought the war in in South East Asia, the immediate resurnp-
than 50,000 young Americans liv and mile Indochina to the brink of a head-on con- tion of the Paris peace talks, the immediate
frortation with the Soviet Union. end of all American military adventurism,
lions of Asians have failed to impress and the immediate withdrawal of all Aineri-
this administration. Not until the Amer'i- The people of this Nation have re- can forces from South East Asia.
can Government accepts the fact that the peatedly demonstrated their steadfast Representative WILLIAM F. RYAN.
future political complexion of South Viet- opposition to such a policy: in the public (Member of Congress on behalf of par-
narm is beyond our capacity to determine opinion polls, in the voting booth, and ticipants of the 12th Annual West Side
will there be an end to the war in Indo- in the streets. They want peace, and the Community Conference and himself.)
China, and it is now clear beyond any dis- want it now. YT Mr. MATSUNAGA. Mr. Speaker, the
pute that not until the Congress of the Yet the President-as deaf as his so- recent U.S. air strikes on Hanoi and
United States asserts its constitutional called majority is silent--continues to Haiphong are strange phenomena, in-
right as a coequal branch- will be Govern- fuel the fires of conflict, involving its deed. On the one hand, the Congress and
ment take that position. over deeper in the devastation of Viet- the public have been informed by the
As Members of Congress; we are com- nam, Laos, and Cambodia. Nixon administration that the so-called
plicit in the devastation of Indochina as Such callous disregard for the will of Vietnamization program has been highly
Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80-0160`1 R000300350080-6
We have an obligation to our country
and to ourselves to do everything within
our power to bring, the bloodshed and
devastation in Vietnam to an immediate
halt. I call upon my colleagues to join
with me in demanding that the President
order an Immediate halt to all American
air strikes in Southeast Asia; that he
immediately order a resumption of the
Paris negotiations and instruct our dele-
gates to offer a commitment for the total
withdrawal of all American troops by a
prompt date certain in return for the re-
lease of our prisoners of war. And I ask
my colleagues to join with me, in sup-
porting.any and all legislation to cut off
funding for this immoral and brutal war.
As I stated on May 5, 1965:
We cannot bomb people into democracy,
nor can we bomb people into negotiations.
It is high time that our policy in
Southeast Asia reflect this fact.
The President's policy is only perpetu-
ating the mistakes of the past, the hor-
rors of the past. That policy must change.
And it is the Congress that must change
it.
On Saturday, April 15, I sent a tele-
gram to the President on behalf of my-
self and the over 1,000 citizens participat-
ing in the Twelfth Annual West Side
Community Conference which I spon-
sored. I include the text of that telegram
at this point in the RECORD.
HousE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
Washington, D.C., April 15, 1972.
The PRESIDENT,
The White House,
Washington, D.C.:
 NEW Y.U.H. 11.~=i
117 APR 1T,
Approved For Release 200 /03/04: A-RDP8O-01601 R
Bombing Hotly Debate'
I the Johnson Period
By TERENCE SMITH
Special to The New York Times
ule malts or the air war over eluded that this situation was (harbor is' so strong that a ma-
North
North Vietnam, and particular- "not likely to be altered by, jority would back the Govern-
question whether to reducing the present geographic) merit in rejecting that course."
bomb targets in the Hanoi- constraints, mining Haiphong; Mr. Bundy's successor as na-
Haiphong area, were fiercely and the principal harbors ofI tional security adviser, Walt
debated within the Johnson Ad- North Vietnam or otherwise' W. Rostow, picked up the de-
ministration from the outset of expanding the U.S. air offensive ibate in a subsequent mernoran-
the air strikes lathe spring of along the lines now contem- dum entitled "United States
1965, plated in military recommends- strategy in Vietnam," which cir-
The Pentagon's history of tions and planning studies." culated throughout the top level
the Vietnam war reveals that Joint Chiefs Disagree of the Administration. Sensitive
there was a constant tugging to the criticisms of the bomb-
match at the highest levels in In a memorandum to Mr. Mc- 'ling, Mr. Rostow wrote oi; the
the Administration between Namara, the Joint Chiefs of North Vietnamese:
those who doubted the value Staff took direct objection to "We have never held the view
of the bombing and feared its this assessment and to his rec- that bombing of the Hanoi-Hai-
political repercussions and ommendations. They argued phong area alone would lead
those who regarded it as an that "to be effective, the air them to abandon their effort in
invaluable weapon that should ? campaign should be conducted
be employed to the fullest, with only those minimum con-
The Pentagon history, an ac- straints necessary to avoid in.
count of which wis published discriminate killing of popula-
by The New York Times in a tion."
series of articles last year, dis- Specifically, the Joint Chiefs
closed that the intelligence recommended an expansion of
community was generally skep. the campaign that "would de-
tical about the efficacy of the crdase the Hanoi and Haiphong
bombing, while the military and sanctuary areas, authorize at-
others supported it and urged tacks against the steel plant,
its expansion. I the Hanoi railyards, the thee.
Ultimately, President Lyndon i mal power plants, selected areas
B. Johnson resolved the debate within Haiphong port and other
by suspending the entire bomb- I ports."
ing campaign, known as Opera The Joint Chiefs maintained
tion Rolling Thunder, on Oct. that the air campaign was "an
31, 1968. integral and indispensible part
The Central Question of our over-all war effort."
h4r. McNamara was not per.
q;
The
uesti
h
q
on w
ether to
I
at Hanoi and Haiphong,
,the so-called " top of the fun-
nel" through which North Viet-
nam's war materiel flowed, was
always at the center of the
debate.
As early as October, 1966,
Robert S. McNamara, then Sec-
retary of Defense, was urging
that the United States end its
bombing bf.North Vietnam or
at least shift the targets from
the capital and its port to the
staging areas and infiltration
routes to the south.
In a memorandum to the
President on Oct. 14, he argued
that shifting the targets "would
narrow the bombing down di-
rectly to the objectionable in-
filitration areas and would re-
duce the international heat on,
the' U. S."
To support his argument,
Mr. McNamara appended an
appraisal of the bombing by the
Central Intelligence Agency and
the Pentagon's Defense Intel-
ligence Agency that asserted:
"As of July
1966 the US
,
,..
bombing of North Vietnam had
had no mess Wft#l
on Hanoi's a
support military operations in
the South."
the President a month later, oni !ties a nd even consider a block-
Nov. 17, 1966, he observed that;
"at the scale we are now oper
sting, I believe our bombing is
yielding very small marginal re-
turns, not worth the cost in
pilot lives and aircraft."
Another significant voice in
the debate was that of Mc-
George Bundy, the President's
national security adviser, who
was not opposed to the bomb-
ing, but objected to its expan-
sion. He argued in a memoran-
dum to the President in May,
1567, that the real value of the
the view that bombing Hanoi.
Haiphong ? would directly cut
back infiltration. We have held
the view that the degree of
military and civilian cost felt in
the North and the diversion of
resources to deal with our
bombing could contribute mar-
ginally-and perhaps signifi-
cantly-to the timing of a
decision to end the war."
Three Options Cited
As, Mr. Rostow saw it the
United States had three options.
"Closing the top of the fun-
nel" was the first. He wrote
that "under this strategy, we
would mine the major harbors
and perhaps bomb port facili-
ade.
STATINTL
McNamara Notes the Cost
Mr. McNamara. rejected the
vdrious suggestions for expand-
ed air activity as involving un-
acceptable risk and urged, once
again, a staged reduction of the -
bombing of North Vietnam.
,above the 20th Parallel in an
effort to persuade' Hanoi 'to
compromise. He argued,
"The air campaign against
heavily defended areas costs us
one pilot ih every 40 sorties. In
addition, an important but
hard-to-measure cost is domes-
tic and world opinion: there
may be a limit beyond which
many Americans and much of
the world will not permit the
United States to go. .
"The picture of the world's
,greatest superpower killing or
seriously injuring 1,000 non-
combatants a week, while try-
ing to pound a tiny backward
nation into submission on an
issue whose merits are hotly
disputed, is not a pretty one."
"Attacking what is inside the
funnel," was second. This op-
tion included continued bomb-
ing of the Hanoi-Haiphong area,
which was under way at the
time.
"Concentration on route
packages I and 2"-the infil-
tration routes to the south.
Mr. Rostow rejected No. 1
as incurring too many risks
with too little return and urged
the adoption of No., 3, while
holding open the option of raids.
H
"
anoi and Haiphong
when
campaign had been its detri- on
mental effect on North Viet- they make sense."fle added the
namese infiltration and benefi- comment, "I believe we are
cial effect on South Vietnamese
morale and concluded that "Ho
Chi Minh and his colleagues
simply are not going to change
their policy on the basis of
losses from the air in North
Vietnam."
Noting that "there is cer-
tainly a point at which such
bombing does increase the risk
of conflict with the Soviet
wasting a good many pilots in
the Hanoi-Haiphong area with-
out commensurate results."
Secretary McNamara's disen-
chantment with the bombing
campaign continued to grow..
In a draft memorandum writ-
ten for Mr. Johnson in 1967, he
observed, "There continues to
be no sign that the bombing
has reduced Hanoi's will to re-
sist
e-rra>'1~0o3oo3soo8o-6
against going after Haiphong