KEY TEXTS FROM PENTAGON'S VIETNAM STUDY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000300360106-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 17, 2000
• Sequence Number: 106
• Publication Date: July 5, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

?? STATINTL 111341Z Y.Q1314
Approved For Release 2001/03/00 ileAspiDP80-
STATINTL
Following are the texts of key documents accompanying the
Pentagon's study of the Vietnam war, covering events in
? the Truman, and Eisenhower Administrations. Except where
excerpting is specified, the documents appear verbatin't, with,
only unmistakable typographical errors corrected.
, ?
Report r Tio9 s Appeals to U.S.
'46 to Support Independence
Cablegram from an American diplomat in ganoi, identified as Landon, to
State Department, Feb. 27, 1946, as provided in the body of the Pentagon study.
Ho Chi Minh handed he 2 letters ad-
dressed to President of USA, China,
...Russia, and Britain identical copies of
e which were stated to have been for-
warded to other governments rfamed.
In 2 letter i to Ho Chi Minh 'request -
( es one of United Nations to sup-
port idea of Annamese. independence
accordth,s? to Philippines example, to
examine the case of the Annaelese, and
:to take steps necessary to maintenance
" of world peace which is being endan-
gered by French efforts to reconquer
: Indochina. He asserts that Annarnese
will fight until United Nations inter-
fered in support of Annamese independ-
ence. The petition addressed to major
. United Nations contains:
; A. Review of French relations with
Japariese where French Indochina al-
legedly aided Japs:
B. Statement of establishment on 2
September 1945 of PEN1,V Democratic
Repubic of Viet Minh:
C. Summary of French conquest or
Cochin China began 23 Sept 1945 and
still incomplete:
D. Outline of?accoMplishments of An-
namese Government in Tonkin includ-
ing popular elections, abolition of un-
desirable taxes, expansion of education
and resumption as far at. possible of
normal economic activities:
E. Request to 4 powers: (1) to inter-
vene and stop the war in Indochina in
order to mediate fair settlement and
(2) to bring the Indochinese issue be-
fore the United Nations organization.
The petition ends with the statement
that Annamese ask for full independ-
ence in fact and that in interim while
awaiting UNO decision the .Annamese
will continue to fight the reestablish-
ment of French imperialism. Letters and
petition will be transmitted to Depart-
ment soonest.
1952 Policy Statement by U.
On, Goals in Southeast Asia
Staternent of Po/icy by the 'National Security Council, early 1952; on "United
States Objectives and Courses of Action With Respect to Southeast Asia."
:According to a footnote, the doeurnent defined Southeast .Asia as "the area
embracing Burma, Thailand, Indochina, Malaya and Indonesia." ? ?
? ; seriously endanger in ? the short term,
Objective ? ! and critically endanger in the longer
term,- United States security interests.
a. The loss of any of the countries
of Southeast Asia to communist agg,res, .
sion would have critical psychological,
political and economic consequences. In
the absence of effective and timely
counteraction, the loss of any single
the free world.
country would probably lead to rela-
tively swift submission to or an align-
4 blif
20eivatun. b
2. Communis ?mina ion, b? v countries ot tnirrrbtfp. FurEaTcrfnurall-..
o
ever means, of all Southeast Asia would
. . . . alignment with communism of the rest e.f!
, I. To prevent the countries of South-
? east Asia from passing into the com-
munist orbit, and to assist them to de-
,? velop will and ability to resist corn-
( munism from within and without and
`see' to contribute to the strengthening of
General omlid2rathni
Sout
long(
, the
Pa icp.
probs
wide
the sI
b. (
east
In the
cario
funcla
the F
C. S
and I:
source
produc
.tegical
rice ex
critical
and Ho
signific
imports
d. TE _ ..... 4.31.JC.
daily of Malaya and Indonesia, could re-
sult in such economic and political pres-
sures in Japan as to make it extremely
difficult to prevent Japan's eventual ac-
commodation to communism. '
3. It is therefore imperative 'that an
overt attack on Southeast Asia by the
Chinese Communists be vigorously op-
posed. In Order to pursue the military
courses of action envisaged in this paper.
to a favorable conclusion Within a
reasonable period, it will be necessary to
divert military strength from other areas
thus reducing our military capability in
those areas, with the recognized in-
creased risks involved therein, or to in-
crease our military forces in being, or
both.
? 4. The danger of an overt military
attack against Southeast Asia is in-
herent in the existence of a hostile and
aggressive Communist China, but such
an attack is less probable than con-
tinued communist efforts to achieve
domination through subversion. The
'primary threat to Southeast Asia accord-
ingly arises from the possibility that the
situation in. Indochina may deteriorate as
a result of the weakening of the resolve
of, or as a result of the inability of
the governments of France and of the
Associated States to continue to oppose
the Viet Minh rebellion, the millitary
strength of which is being steadily in-
creased by virtue of aid furnished by
the Chinese Communist regime and its
allies. ,
5. The successful defense of Tonkin
is critical to the retention in non-Com-
munist hands ot mainland Southeast
Asia. However, should Burma come un-
der communist domination, a communist
10-64601R0 P
00800 (94124and
a
might make Indochina, mc udurg'Torkin
militarily indefensible. The execution of
? STATINTL ..3EwswEEK
Approved For Release 2001/0p/9k,c1.-RDP8.0-01601
Thf
1
e
t was, 'sighed one Federal appeals judge
last week, like asking the courts to
"ride herd on a swarm of bees with a
pencil." The matter at hand was the
government's unprecedented attempt to
suppress publication of data from the top-
secret Pentagon study of the war in Viet-
nam. But even as the case labored up-
ward to a momentous showdown in the
Supreme Court, the bees got loose?at
least ten more newspapers and one con-
gressman joined The New York Times
ancl The Washington Post at
spilling secrets?and the Nix-
on Administration got stung.
It had, for its pains, succeed-
ed mainly in making-, itself
look .at once oppressive (for
breaching the ancient Ameri-
can taboo against censorship
in advance) and inept (for
picking_ a fight it could not
win whatever the verd:ct).
The nine Justices assembled
in extraordinary session at
the weekend. But the great
Constitutional collision had
by then dissolved into fiasco,
and the Administration was
already looking for graceful
ways out.
The dawning discovery
was that the whole exercise
had been not only legally
shaky but politically, bootless
as well. A NEWSWEEK poll,
conducted by The Gallup Or-
ganization, showed a wide-
spread feeling that both the
press and the government
sometimes go too far in the
continuing contest over secret
information?and that, in a
' crunch, . Americans worry
more about national security
? than freedom of the press
(page 18). But, by 48 to 33
; per cent, they disapproved
of the. Administration's at-
tempt to. bottle up the Pen-
tagon papers by court order.
Worse still, the court fight
shifted the focus of controversy away
from the mistakes and, deceptions of the
.1(ennedy-Johnson war years?and onto
Mr. Nixon's misadventures at censorship.
Some Administration insiders thereupon
began offering the line that it was .Attor-
. ney General John Mitchell's fault----that
he had given the President bad advice
and that the White House was taking
Political charge of the matter. The new
management quickly began de-escalat-
ing. The main object now, said one Nixon
1
,
.1 it
\\fq Pi
res
? ? -
The government had little choice but to
press its two original cases through the
U.S. Courts of Appeals (where it lost a
round to the Post and won a partial vic-
tory against the Times) and on to the
dramatic denouement in the Supreme
Court in the last days of its term. And
Mitchell's men dutifully got a third court
order against The Boston Globe when it
too began printing stories out of the Pen-
tagon archive. But their taste for combat
flagged when still more papers from Mi-
4.40 4
C
,
....
potentially explosive select-committee in-
quiry into the history of the war this fall.
The President himself sought to mollify
tempers by sending Congress two copies
of the 47-volume study, though with the
understanding that it would still be kept W
secret. The White House, meanwhile,
disclosed that Mr. Nixon had issued a
Jan. 15 order (itself secret till now) di-
recting all agencies to review their classi-
fication procedures with an eye toward
makina more information public. The
.1'
Pentagon said it was reread-
ing the Vietnam history in
light of that directive and.
would declassify some of it
within 90 clays; in court, gov-
ernment lawyers halved the.
time, to 45 days.
? Secrets: The din of com-
bat stole the headlines from
what the . papers disclosed
---,and, truth to tell, none
of the new secrets quite
matched the first eyebrow-
raising inferences in the
Times that ? the Johnson Ad-
ministration had planned all
its escalations months in ad-
vance and had lied to Con-
gress ? and the public about
them. Several of the new
leaks (page 19) documented
how Kennedy Administra-
tion officials at points encour-
aged and in the end acqui-
esced in the coup in which
South Vietnam's President
Ngo Dinh Diemwas over-
thrown and murdered ? in
1933. The Los Angeles Times
disclosed that a State De-
partment expert on Vietnam
had advised earlier that year
that the U.S. "get out honor-
ably" while it still could; Rob-
ert Kennedy took up this line
later, according to Rep. Paul
McCloskey, who had his own
cache of secrets, but both
doubters were overridden,
The Boston Globe discov-
ered that, when Lyndon Johnson an-
nounced his abdication in March 1968,
be was already working on: plans for a
Vietnamization policy much like the one
Mr. Nixon- began instituting a year later.
None of this was very surprising. But
just as the store of secrets seemed to be
running .thin, Daniel Ellsberg,? the 40-
year-old former Pentagon analyst sus-
pected of leaking them to the Times in
the first place, suddenly resurfaced for a
taped interview with CBS-TV's Walter
- ".ta get. out..of_the_linc_of_fire.".' classified. files .could.safely be made.pub?......Cronkite?and ventured that the most
It was too late to get all the Nva, out, lie), and the Senate eared up for a painful revelations were 'even yet to
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,
? - ? . ? .0.--Iterblock, In The Washington Post
'Follow That Car?And That One?And That One?'
ami to Los Angeles splashed their own
WET SECRETS; the government did get.
an order against The St. Louis Post-Dis-
patch but ignored most or the others.
At the same time, Mr. Nixon moved
to quiet the rising furor over the study
and its top-secret classification. .Capitol
Hill was angry at having seen it first in
the papers; a House subcommittee be-
gan hearings last week on secrecy in
government (one early witness ventured
that 995 per cent of all the Pentagon's