Death Zones and Darling Spies: Seven Years of Vietnam War Reporting

Appendix 2: Author’s 1966 New York Herald Tribune Series (Inserted into the Congressional Record by Senator Mike Mansfield)

273 Appendix 2 Author’s 1966 New York Herald Tribune Series (Inserted into the Congressional Record by Senator Mike Mansfield) congressional record — senate January 20, 1966 Vietnam, Past and Prospect Mr. mansfield. Mr. President, in a series of four newspaper articles, Miss Beverly Deepe has recently reviewed the war as it has evolved in Vietnam during the past year. Miss Deepe is eminently qualified by experience to report on this critical area. Miss Deepe writes from Vietnam, from the delat [sic], from Saigon, from the coastal bases, from the highlands. And the picture which emerges from the four articles is a vivid and accurate summary of the situation which confronts us in Vietnam. These articles, Mr. President, make highly informative and highly useful reading. For the benefit of the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the four articles which appeared in the New York Herald Tribune, in the issues of January 16–19 inclusive be included at this point in the record. There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in the record, as follows: From the New York Herald Tribune, January 16, 1966 New Series: Vietnam, Past and Prospect by beverly deepe pleiku, south vietnam—Amid mortar craters and charred aircraft here on the morning of February 7, 1965, three figures in the war against 274 appendix 2 the Communist in South Vietnam met in a gleaming c-123 transport. Before they emerged, the nature of the war had changed. One was McGeorge Bundy, special assistant to President Johnson for national security affairs, who took time before the meeting to survey Pleiku’s blasted airplanes and helicopters and the billets where shortly before 8 Americans had died and 125 had been wounded in a Vietcong guerrilla raid. With Mr. Bundy was Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the American commander, who provided the c-123, called the White Whale, and the only wall-to-wall carpeted airplane in South Vietnam. The Vietnamese commander in chief, Lt. Gen. Nguyen Khanh, had arrived earlier. Meanwhile, in Saigon U.S. Ambassador Maxwell D. Taylor conferred by telephone with the highest ranking American officials in Washington. General Khanh, Mr. Bundy, and General Westmoreland escaped inquisitive reporters inside the White Whale. Soon, the key decision was told to General Khanh and within hours 49 U.S. planes from three 7th Fleet aircraft carriers sped north of the 17th parallel to bomb the military barracks at the North Vietnamese city of Dong Hoi. At first, the bombing of North Vietnam was a policy of tit-for-tat—if you destroy our installations, we’ll destroy yours. But it soon gave way to general retaliation, and then to regular and continual bombing. In the beginning, the policy was officially proclaimed an inducement to the north to negotiate. High ranking American officials said hopefully: “We’ll be at the conference table by September.” But Hanoi did not negotiate. The new official objective was to hit the military installations and communication routes which allowed Hanoi to pour men and material into South Vietnam. By the year’s end, however , official estimates said North Vietnamese infiltration had more than doubled—to 2,500 men a month. Superficially, bombing North Vietnam failed. It did not force Hanoi to negotiate; it did not stop the infiltration. But actually, the policy half succeeded. By the end of the year, the bombing had partially paralyzed the economic capacity and manpower reserves of North Vietnam. appendix 2 275 If the bombing did not stop Hanoi’s aggression, in official eyes, it would at least make it more expensive and painful for North Vietnam to continue. Escalation was accompanied by a little noticed policy of expansion, Laos was known to be subject to American bombing raids throughout the past year. By the beginning of 1966, the air war threatened to spread to Cambodia, and then would engulf the whole Indochinese Peninsula. Ground War The air war over North Vietnam, however, did not abate sharp deterioration in the allied ground efforts in South Vietnam, which had been worsening since the fall of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime in November 1963. The repercussions of the coup against Diem badly damaged the Government’s administrative and intelligence apparatuses. Amid Government instability in Saigon swirled whirlwind changes of officials at every level. The strategic hamlet program, formulated and nurtured by the Diem regime, collapsed as the Vietcong regained one Government hamlet after another, leaving behind their...