0 - The Black Vault

THE BDM CORPORATION
The US effort received little more thar, lip service
from other nations. It did, however, provoke a rather interest;ng move by
the Soviet Union, A Soviet friendship delegation, which was in Nou.th
Vietnam ostensibly to increase its military support to the DRV,
reportedly
attempted to exert some influence on Hanoi to seek a negotiated settlement
with the US.57/ The DRV would riot budge, and on January 4 released the
following statement:
The United States authorities' talks about peace are
in complete contradiction with their war schemes and
actz. While making noise about its "peace efforts", he
United States is making feverish preparations to double
the United States military strength in Vietnam.58/
President Johnson responded du.ring his i2 January 1966,
State of the Union Aadress, when he pledged that the US would stay in RVN
"until the aggression has stopped." He added, "We will meet at any conference
table, we will discuss any proposals--Four points or fourteen or
forty--and we will consider the views of any groups. We will work for a
ceasc-fire now or once discussions have begun. We may have to face
long hard combat or a long, hard conference, or even both, at once ."59/
Furthermore, during the ;peech, Johnson noted that the bombing pause, then
twenty days old, had not yet produced any response from the North Vietnamese.60/
The ruh toward: nare ,frinn the 3 7 -dra, hnmhing h.1t
was not a well-coordinated effort. US actions in the combat arena (where
the decreased VC/NVA activity following the bombing pause gave the appearance
of tacit reciprocity) served to mitigate against the peace gestures
and pronouncements. Eleven thousand more US comoat troops landed in RVN
during the period and a large combined combat operation was launched in
the so-called Iron Triangle, a 1C stronghold near Saigon.
Shortly thereafter,
an even larger search and destroy operation was laLnched by the US
First Cavalry Division and US Marines in the II Corps Tactical Zona.
Whetrer intentionally or not--there is some evidence that US leaders knew
what they were doing 61/--the deployment hintEd at a tenaency that would
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