JOHNSON PREPARED VIETNAMIZATION GLOBE RUNS END OF VIET STUDY

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP88-01314R000300380075-0
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 16, 2016
Document Release Date: 
September 8, 2004
Sequence Number: 
75
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
June 22, 1971
Content Type: 
NSPR
File: 
AttachmentSize
PDF icon CIA-RDP88-01314R000300380075-0.pdf69.81 KB
Body: 
Approved For Release 2004/09/28: CIA-RDP88-01 . 51,1Il GTON DAILY NEVS 22 JUN 1971 :' Jou'ison prepared Vie namizafion . BOSTON {UPI) - The Boston Globe today .published the concluding part of the secret Pentagon study. The segment says President Johnson decided to support South Vietnam but reduce American troops, a policy President Nixon would name Vietnamization. President Johnson made the decision just .before he announced. March 31, 1968, that he would not seek another term, The Globe said. Globe officials said sections of the study, which The New York Times and The Washing- ton Post have been' restrained from publishing,. came to them yesterday. They.did not mention the source or whether they had further docu- ?ments. The sections include, besides the Johnson do- Cuments: o A recommendation to President Kennedy from Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, that 8,000 U.S. ground combat troops be sent into Vietnam in the guise of flood control units. The Globe said President Kennedy did not approve Gen. Tay- lor's request. o A request to the Soviet Union in May, 1965, asking them to inform Hanoi officially that the United States would temporarily stop bombing North Vietnam as a peace feeler. The Soviets refused, The Globe said, because they felt China would charge collusion with the United States. e A report of a June 2, 1964, meeting in` Honolulu where Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara raised the possibility of using nu- clear weapons "at some point if Chinese forces entered the ground war. According to The Globe, the January, 1968, Tet offensive shook Washington's confidence in an eventual end to the war ?and "altho it had been predicted, took the U.S. command and the?public by surprise and its strength, length, and intensity prolonged this shock." At this point, the study said, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended refusing requests for additional combat troops because the reserves - needed in case of domestic disorders - were becoming too thin. The Globe said .an analyst said in the epi- logue: "The possibility of military victory had, seemingly become remote and the cost had- became too high both in political and economic terms. Only then was it realized that a clear= cut military victory was probably not possible ? or necessary ..." Gen, Taylor's cable, sent in late October, 1961, recommended that the United States "in- itiate guerrilla action, including United States: advisers if necessary," in the Sepone area of Laos, and send troops to support the govern nient of Ngo Dinh Diem. "My view is that we should put in a task force consisting largely of logistical troops for, the purpose of participating in flood relief and at the same time of providing a United States military presence," the study said Gen. Taylor wrote. Approved For Release 2004/09/28 CIA-RDP88-01314R000300380075-0