NSC MEETING OF MAY 13, 1975 10:15 A.M.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: Library of Congress
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): LOC-HAK-455-7-4-5
• Release Decision: RIPLIM
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: January 11, 2017
• Document Release Date: October 21, 2009
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: May 29, 1975
• Content Type: MEMO

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NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
TOP SEOT/SENSITIVE
May 29, 1975
MEMORANDUM FOR: SECRETARY KISSINGER
FROM: W. R. SMYSE
SUBJECT:
NSC Meeting of May 13, 1975
10:15 a.m.
Attached are the minutes of the National Security Council Meeting
held May 13, 1975, at 10:15 a. m.
Attachment
cc: General Scowcroft
OSD REVIEW COMPLETED.
JCS review completed.
NSC Review Completed
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NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL MEETING
Date: Tuesday, May 13, 1975
Time: 10: 22 a. m. to 11:17 a. m. - u~rvticv~
Place: Cabinet Room, The White House
Subject: Seizure of American Ship by Cambodian
Authorities
. IF
WASHINGTON
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MINUTES
P, rip-gwsl8
The President
The Vice President
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Joseph Sisco
Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger
Acting .Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff General David C. Jones
Director of Central Intelligence William Colby
Other A ede~-ges
DOD: Deputy Secretary of Defense William Clements
Donald Rumsfeld
Robert Hartmann
John Marsh
NSC: Lt. General Brent Scowcroft
W. R. ?Smyser
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Ergside nt2 Bill, will you please bring us up to date.
olb The Mayaguez is at anchor just off Koh Tang
Island, about 30 miles southwest of Kompong
Soma
Until late yesterday evening, the ship was
being held near where it was seized in the
vicinity of Poulo Wei Island, about 40 miles
further to the southwest.
Shortly after midnight, however, an American
reconnaissance aircraft observed the ship at
Koh Tang Island.
At least two U. S. reconnaissance aircraft
have reported receiving small arms fire from
a gunboat, and from the Mayaguez itself.
The latest U. S. reconnaissance flights observed
the crew being transferred from the ship via a
tugboat to Koh Tang and then being led off toward
the interior of the island.
Scowcrofta Do we know it is the crew?
S sin
Colby:
No.
Although the men could be moved to the main-
land at any time, the Khmer Communists may
intend to keep them on the island until some
final decisions are made regarding the crew
and vessel.
So far, the Khmer Communist government has
not made a public statement regarding the
.Mayaguez, andPrince Sihanouk today in
Peking denied any knowledge of the incident.
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In the event of a U. S. military effort, the
Cambodian Communists would have limited
means of reacting.
They would attempt to resist a recapture of
the ship, an attack on the accompanying
patrol craft, or a landing on Koh Tang. They
presumably have few troops or weapons to
meet. any such effort, however.
The Cambodian Communists have no capability
to thwart a mining effort against Kompong
Som, and the harbor defenses are not
impressive. The port and military camp
are exposed and separate from the town.
Presidents It looks like a very open port. Is that true?
Colby: There is an island off it.
President Is it a very busy port? Are there any ships
in it now?
Schlesingg A recent photo of ours showed no ships at the
dock. There may perhaps have been one
vessel around.
Vice Pet: Is this the principal port of entry for Cambodia?
Schles inter:
There has been no.action at this port for a
considerable length of time. It was closed
because the route to Phnom Penh was closed.
For a long time, U. S. aircraft were delivering
everything to Phnom Penh.
Vice PrglLd t: But several years ago it was a principal
port of entry. I remember there was some
dispute about what was coming in through
this port. The CIA said that there was not
a great deal, but in fact it turned out that it
was a principal port of supply for the Viet Cong.
So it must be an important port to them.
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Schleeing It is not very much used now.
Vice President
But this is their port of entry. It would be
a major contact with the outer world, especially
if they do not work with the Vietnamese; it was
built originally in order to give them indepen-
dence of the Melding River which was patrolled
by the Vietnamese.
President: We used to complain about supplies coming
into Sihanoukville. One reason why Sihanouk
was asked to leave in 1970 was because he
turned his face away from the movement of
supplies into that port.
Vice Preident:
One of the purposes of our entry into Cambodia
was to get this material that had been delivered
there.
There is one thing that was a big mistake
yesterday. You got the information that the
American ship was already in the harbor in
Kompong Som. This denied you one option,
which would have been to try to prevent the
ship from being taken into the harbor. But
you were told that the ship was already in the
port.
Schlesinr: I did not say that it was already in the port.
I said it might be.
Vice Preaident~ I do not want to argue, but you said that it was
President:
known that when you left your department it
was one hour away from the port and by the
time you arrived here, it would already be in
the port.
I do think we have to be certain of our facts.
Overnight, Brent gave me a series of different
reports that we were getting about the ship' s
location and about what was happening. We
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have to be more factual or at least more
precise in pointing out our degree of
knowledge. What do we know now? How
certain are we of the facts with which we
are dealing?
running it.
We think that the ship is off the island as I
pointed out. We understand that people are
being off-loaded. We have seen it.
I talked to the commander in Thailand who
was in contact with our reconnaissance
aircraft. Through this commander, I
have the following report from the aircraft.
He said that the ship had one anchor up,
and one down. We are not sure whether
the boiler was up. Infrared photography
showed that the chimney was hot. This
could, however, be residual heat. If the
chimney heats up further and if smoke comes
out, we know that the boiler is being heated
up. Our experts tell us that it is very improb-
able that the Cambodians can run this ship,
so that if there is any indication that the ship
is moving, it must be the Americans who are
Rurnsfeldr How do we know these things? How do we
know that it was the Mayaguez that your
reconnaissance aircraft saw?
The aircraft read the name on the vessel.
is a positive identification. As I said, the
anchors are up and down. There is no smoke.
We think the boiler is not up but we are not
sure. Some boats have come alongside.
Through fighter runs, we kept them off.
Some, however, did get to the boat. We
appeared to be Caucasians.
saw some people getting off and going to the
island. Then we saw them on the island. They
had their heads between their legs. They
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Presides Was all this in daylight?
Jones
This was just before it grew dark over there.
Even in the dark, we can still use the infra-
red. We can see quite a lot. This is the
sort of thing we use with our gunships and
we can get a lot of information from it.
The instructions we have to our commanders
are not. to let the ship go to port. They are
to take any action not to include sinking. We
should know when it moves, when it raises
anchor, and when it raises the boiler.
We can, if necessary, disable the ship. We
can hit it abeam, just off the stern. We will
not hit people that way. We can do that with
pretty high confidence that we can stop the
ship from sailing under its own power. Of
course, if it is not sailing under its own
power, we would make the tug boat the target.
President- How big is the ship?
Rumsfeld:
The ship is about 500 feet long. The tug boat,
of course, is rather small. But it would be
moving very slowly. It would be a very
vulnerable target.
Of course, we cannot guarantee that we could
stop it, but we think that there is a good
chance that we could keep it from going into
the harbor without sinking it. We would use
gunships. They are very precise.
Do we know where the crew, the Americans
and the Vietnamese, are?
We saw people coming off the ship. They had
been on the deck of the ship. We saw them go
to the island.
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President:
Jones?
President:
2U.9-8-
P r a S i4siLtJ
Jones:
If they try to move the ship, we must take
steps to stop it, without sinking it.
And with minimum loss of life. We would
know in advance, when they are going to
move the ship.
How would this information come to us? Whom
does the plane contact?
The 7th Air Force Support Group at NKP.
We would have a report in minutes.
So that, within 10 minutes, any movement
would be detected and available to us here.
Of course, they can do things below the deck
that we would not see, but we should know if
anything important is going on. One problem,
of course, is that if the weather turns bad, this
would have some effect on our coverage.
President And you have people on the ball in, the Pentagon?
Jones: Quite a few.
President:: How do you get the information to Brent and
then to me?
Scowcroft: Last night, there were long time lags before
we got the information, and there was a lot
of confusion about its accuracy.
Prede~ I am very concerned about the delay in reports.
We must have the information immediately.
There must be the quickest possible commu-
nication to me.
c?mw
Presidents
We must get the information to the NSC and
to me.
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Jim, will you now please give us your report
on the other options.
Schlesinnger: We have reviewed the options. The option to
take Kompong Som requires many troops.
There are about 1700 KC Is in the area. So
our first objective today is to. keep the ship
out.
If we want to take the ship, there are two
options:
Jones:
Vice Pre ent:
- We can use the Marines and the choppers
that are at Utapao. We can take off tomorrow.
-- Or, we can wait until the USS HOLT
arrives, which should be around 8:00 p. m.
tomorrow night, or about 12 hours later.
It is arriving at 0530 our time. That is when
the HOLT will get there.
That would make it the morning of our time,
not the evening.
President; I have a question about that from my World
War II experience. That destroyer would have
been operating at flank speed for about 36 hours.
In those days it would not have much fuel left
when it arrived at its destination. We would
not want it to be dead in the water.
HshLga
sm
It will. not be in that condition. In any case,
the carrier will arrive the following morning
and it will be able to refuel.
The Navy people are trained in boarding. It
might be preferable to wait for the HOLT because
it will be manned and able to do it. We will
then have the dominant force in the area. But,
of course, this may give the Cambodians time
to change the situation or to try to prepare
themselves. Therefore, it may be better to
go by first light tomorrow.
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Rumsfeld:_ That would be this evening, at 6:00 P.M.
Washington time.
Schlesinger,: It may be preferable.to go in quickly. We
have instructions to use gunfire to keep
personnel away from the anchor chain on
deck.
Vice President:
Even if they are Americans?
Schlesinger: - I do not think they have Americans on board
President
Schlesinger.
'resident:
]Rrelident,o.
Jones
except for people to man the bes L ler. I
think they have the other Americans on the
island.
Our force to take the island is now in Okinawa.
In twelve hours, we can have the Marines there.
Twelve hours from now?
Twelve hours from your order. We already
have 125 Marines at Utapao.
They would be intended to take the ship. How
about the Marines from Subic Bay? How soon
can we get them there?
They are coming from Okinawa. They could go
by 1844 or 1900 or the second light tonight.
One day later, we could have the Marines at
Utapao. We could use large choppers.
They could be used on the island.
This would be about 1, 000. We do not know
what is on the island.
For the island operation, I think it is preferable
to use the CORAL SEA. It gives us dominance
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Scowcrof:
over the area. Also, we have its forces
and helicopters.
The danger for the Americans on the island
is that we do not know what the Cambodians.
would do. I think there is less danger if we
have the dominant force. We will have
Cambodians on the choppers who will be able
to say that we can take the island unless they
give us the Americans or the foreigners.
This message would be bull-horned from
the choppers at a time when we are ready
to act.
This means that the force of 1, 000 Americans
from Utapao would be for operation to take
the island, not the ship.
Schlesinger: Right.
We should realize that the Cambodians are
tough fellows. We know that they took a
Vietnamese ship and killed seven people
without thinking any more about it.
Schlesinger.: When cornered, they could execute the
Americans.
Hartmann: Do we know why they took off the Americans?
Sonea:
President:
Preside
Are we keeping gunboats and other boats
from the ship?
We have not opened fire on them. We have
scared some of them away by making passes
at them. One boat is tied alongside the ship.
Are there quite a number around?
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We have had reports on boats, sometimes
two or more. We hope to have better
intelligence soon.
President;
Jon es:
President:
Jones:
Pre ident-
Scowcroft:
Vice President:
Vice Presi .ent:
S hlesin r:
Isn't it dark now?
We, can get the information from infra-red.
We took a lot of pictures. We are now reading
them out in Thailand. We hope to have a better
readout after we have finished.
I would like to see the pictures.
They are processed there.
Anything on the diplomatic side?
Not yet.
May I say something?
Yes.
I do not think the freighter is the issue. The
issue is how we respond. Many are. watching
us, in Korea and elsewhere. The big question
is whether or not we look silly. I think we
need to respond quickly. The longer we wait,
the more time they have to get ready. Why
not sink their boats until they move? Once
they have got hostages, they can twist our
tails for months to come, and if you go ashore,
we may lose more Marines trying to land than
the Americans who were on the boat originally.
Why not just sink their ships until they respond?
We have several objectives.
First, to stop the boat from being taken into
the port.
Second, to get our people back.
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Third, to attack and sink the Cambodian
Navy, later, after we have our ship-and our
people out, in order to maximize the punish-
ment.
We do not know their motive. If we sink
their vessels, it might precipitate sinking
of the freighter and jeopardize getting the
Americans out. It seems to me that that is
the sequence of priorities. Starting that way,
their reaction would be prudent.
Vice President: I do not think the Communists respond this
way. I remember the story by Mao Tse Tung
about sticking a blade in until you hit steel
and then you pull out your sword. If you do
not meet steel, you go in further.
I think you should do everything you can as
soon as possible. Later, you can destroy
the port as retaliation.
Schlesin r: I would prefer for us first to get the ship,
and then to proceed against the island.
President: Brent, what are your views?
Sgowcroftt I see two operations.
-- The first is against the ship.
The second is against the island.
The urgency of the island operation is to stop
the Americans from going to the mainland.
On the ship, it is to stop it from going to
Kompong Som.
The optimum situation with the ship is to get
the HOLT between that ship and Kompong Som.
We cannot do that until tomorrow.
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TOP SEC ,MJJSENSITIYE_ 13
If we do not have that time, if they start to
move, do we try to take the ship? Or do we
wait until the HOLT gets there and we have
things our way?
Jones: We have ways of stopping them from getting
it into Kompong Som. But they can scuttle
it. We have to judge this.
Rumsfeld: Can they get the Americans to the mainland?
Preside They can be doing it tonight, their time.
Jones As the Vice President said, if we wish to
assure that the Americans are not taken to
the mainland, we would have to knock out
their boats.
President: Can we knock them out?
s:
Xone
With gunships.
Vice President: The longer we take, the worse it gets. If the
communists do not think that you will react
strong and fast, they will keep on doing this.
We must do it as the Israelis do; we need to
respond fast.
Scowcr We must recognize that we have a problem
with regard to Thailand. They have called
in our .Charge and they have told him that
they do not want Thai bases used in connec-
tion with operations to release our ship.
President:
Are we running our reconnaissance and our
freighters from Thailand?
So far it has been OK. But if we use force,
we may be in jeopardy.
Schlesi,n There is the possibility of the opposite reaction.
If they see us acting, they may change their
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TOP SECRF.rTI ENSITIVE 14
attitude. Publicly, they may protest, but
privately, they may agree. They have done
this before.
Vice President: I agree with that.
?
Jones
Earlier, we had no forces to operate to free
the ship. As we discussed yesterday, we
had to get our assets into place. We have
them.
?residents Let me review the sequence:
-- First, we would use the aircraft to
stop any boats leaving the island. You do
not sink them, necessarily, but can you
take some preventive action?
Jones?
President:
Probably. With the infra-red, we have some
information as to what they are doing. We
also have searchlights and flares. We will
want to see if there are any Americans on
board. We will need to decide whether to
fire across the bow or to sink it. We would
have some time. They are slow boats. That
is one point. We could, with some confidence,
interdict the island.
-- Second, I think you should stop all boats
coming :to the island.
-- Third, I think we should be prepared to
land on the ship tomorrow morning.
This is not an easy operation.
.On a container ship, we can only land our
helicopters one at a time. There is not much
space. The containers are aluminum. They
would not be strong enough to support the
helicopters, so we would have to rope people
down. They would come down three at a time
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and they would have to drop 20 feet to the
deck. Of course, we would have helicopters
alongside to keep heads down as we land.
Still, it would be very tricky.
President: But we could have gunships as well.
-- Fourth, to have the Marines from
Utapao, 1, 000 strong, go to the island. How
soon could they get there?
Jones: They can launch within ten hours after I leave
here. They could launch at the second light.
Rumsfeld: The President wanted it tonight.
Jones . Right.
President: So the landing on the ship can take place tonight.
What about the island?
It could be 24 hours later. We would not have
the force until then. They were not on alert.
It would be some hours before the launch.
President: If they were to go on the island at dusk, tomorrow,
you would have 18 hours.
Runzsfeld: Let's put all this on a piece of paper, with the
exact times, so that we all know what we are
talking about.
Jone At the second light,there?
Rum. sfeid: That would be 7:00 p.m. D. C. time. I suggest
we stick to one set. of times.
Presiident When does the destroyer get there?
Schlesinng2r_: Eight o'clock (p.m.)
President: Dusk, tomorrow night, their time?
Schlesinger: Yes.
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President-, Same time as the Marines?
Schlesin&er: No.
Scowcroft: Let's use one time for all this.
Schlesinger: At 7: 00 p.m. tonight, Washington time, we
can have some Marines ready.
At 8:00 a. m. tomorrow, Washington time,
the HOLT will be in position.
Somewhere between that time, the additional
Marines will be in Utapao.
Ruxnsfeld: This is a different set of times from what we
were given earlier.
Scowc roftx. Right.
President I have to go to meet with some Congressional
people. Can somebody please put all this
down so that we have it in writing?
(Schlesinger showed the schedule to the
President. )
*resident: The CORAL SEA gets in at 8:00. What about
the HOLT?
Jones; We are trying to speed it up.
PresiRde= I think the first two steps can be done. Let
us take them. I would like to have the next
steps written in sequence as to when they can
take place.
Vice President: I think we have some questions about operating
Marsh:
on land against the Cambodians.
Also, there is. a war powers requirement.
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President:
Scowcroft:
Jones:
Schlesingear:
First, I want to know the times. There should
be a logical sequence so we can have a chance
to decide. Let us do it one and two and
three, etc.
on
I have reservations about landing the ship.
Landing on the ship is to send them a signal.
If we start to hit the boats, they know we are
up to something. They could kill the Americans,
but I doubt it. We have the element of surprise.
President; But they can take the people out.
Viceent: I agree.
President: Let's get the facts on the times lined up.
Vice Presi ent: We do not want a land war in Cambodia.
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