Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
Chapter Ten
Sullivan's Answer to westmorelandD
The action against the North Vietnamese at Plei Me, in the Central Highlands,
was not the first test of US ground forces in South Vietnam. As early as
August 1965, the US 7 th Marine Regiment had battled the Viet Cong I" Regiment
in the first major American combat action against the communists in
South Vietnam. In November, elements of the 1" Cavalry Division engaged
three NVA regiments in a bloody action in the Ia Drang Valley in the Central
Highlands. US firepower turned the balance in both these actions, but Hanoi
continued to pour reinforcements down the Ho Chi Minh TraiJ.30
Ambassador Sullivan despaired of closing the trail complex with any foreseeable
concentration of forces, even including the three-division task force
earlier suggested for deployment along Route 9. Such a move, in his view,
would "do nothing more than spread a thin picket of men along horrendous
terrain, and expose them ... to the bloodletting of concentrated enemy attacks
at places and times of the enemy's choosing." Instead, Sullivan proposed a US
amphibious invasion of the Vietnamese Panhandle, cutting North Vietnam in
two at Vinh, well above the 17'h parallel, and effectively shutting down the
infiltration of men and supplies to the South. 37 0
Sullivan pointed out that, with 185,000 US troops already in South Vietnam,
the idea was much less radical than when first advanced. At least one of
his Washington colleagues agreed: two weeks earlier, Assistant Secretary of
State Bundy had proposed exactly the same thing. But their superiors did not
adopt it; it seems likely that they saw an unacceptable risk of Chinese intervention.
US airstrikes in the Corridor were intensified, but the United States
continued to avoid major escalation. 38 D
The continuation of the status quo generated new tension between the
ambassador and the US military. Sullivan derided SHINING BRASS, the US
Special Forces-run cross-border program, as "an Eagle Scout program," one
whose scheme he had to shoot down because the military hierarchy abdicated
its professional responsibility to disapprove fanciful proposals emanating
from lower levels. And Westmoreland was unhappy with Sullivan. The
ambassador declined to expand the bombing zone along the Trail complex in
36 Harry G Summers, Jr., Vietnam WarAlmanac. Chronology of ground action in South Vietnam
is taken from Summers. unlessotherwise specified.D
)7 Vientiane Embassy Telegram 651,15 December 1965, FRUS /964-/968, 424-26. Concerned
to avoid presenting himself as an amateur strategist, Sullivan attributed theidea to the then JCS
chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, who.in a meeting in McNamara's office ln. 1962.had offered it as a
possible response to a considerably lesser threat. Other US officials, and Sen. Stuart Symington
(D-MO),still thought that bombing wouldbring Hanoi to its knees. (See Vientiane Embassy Telegram
713, 5 January 1965,FRUS /964-/968, 434-36.n
n Information Memorandum From Assistant Secreta;y7State (Bundy) to Secretary of State
Rusk, "Eacalation of US Activities in Laos," 3 December 1965,FRUS /964-/968, 418-20.D
SEC~T/IMR
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