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1. We Cannot Enforce What We Would Like
- The University Press of Kentucky
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chapter 1 We cannot enforce What We Would Like on January 23, 1961, during his first White house meeting devoted to Laos, President Kennedy voiced concerns about the weak military position of the Far; the reinforcement potential of neighboring china and north Vietnam; and the lack of political support, locally and internationally , for the government of General Phoumi nosavan, the nominal deputy premier and defense minister, and his front man, Prince Boun oum. an interagency report prepared for the meeting observed that the military situation was “deteriorating progressively,” the British were unwilling to support Seato intervention, and the French were “working against us” by providing covert support to Kong Le’s neutralist forces. Kennedy told his advisers that he couldn’t “quite see how the united States alone could solve the problem,” and he wondered aloud “how specifically we planned to save Laos.”1 a neutral Laos was the “optimum,” if possibly unattainable, goal for the united States, according to dean rusk.2 Success in negotiating a neutral political settlement would depend on right-wing victories on the battlefield. Kennedy, seeking to strengthen the bargaining position of the rLG, approved a uS-backed Far offensive to retake the Plaine des Jarres, a strategically important region in northern Laos where the kingdom ’s principal north-south and east-west roads intersected. Kennedy’s Laos task force, composed of representatives from the White house, State department, Pentagon, cia, and international cooperation administration , concluded that Pathet Lao–Kong Le control of the plain threatened both Vientiane and the royal capital of Luang Prabang. Moreover, antigovernment forces could cut the country “in half by a thrust to the Mekong river.”3 16 So Much to Lose The gap between uS aspirations for Phoumi’s offensive and the capabilities of his army was considerable. richard M. Bissell Jr., the cia’s deputy director of plans (operations) and the agency’s representative on the Laos task force, recalled a uS military briefing for Kennedy on the proposed February offensive. Listening to General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff describe the plan, he “could not help but feel that it had very little likelihood of success. in fact, it was impossible . having recently returned from Vientiane, i was convinced by my brief contact with reality in the field that we were dealing with a situation a million miles from the precision, order, and purposefulness of the department of defense.”4 Bissell did not volunteer his doubts about the Far offensive to President Kennedy, just as General Lemnitzer and the chiefs “chose to remain silent about their reservations” with the cia’s plan for overthrowing cuba’s Fidel castro. “This was quite simply the etiquette of bureaucracy,” according to Bissell, who apparently was a better judge of Pentagon-supported operations in Laos than his own agency’s paramilitary plan for invading cuba. Phoumi’s slow-moving February advance toward the Plaine des Jarres bogged down. deputy national Security adviser Walt rostow informed Kennedy that the Far had been “stopped by a better organized and better equipped opposition than anyone had calculated.” rostow added that the Lao army was “a relatively weak reed for an offensive against determined and well-armed opposition.”5 on March 3 the president asked the Pentagon to prepare a plan to seize the Plaine des Jarres—“within the present level of military escalation in Laos.”6 in other words, uS assistance to the Far would be largely clandestine. Six days later, Mcnamara, Lemnitzer, and admiral harry d. Felt, commander of uS forces in the Pacific, presented a “concept” for recapturing the plain that would require six to eight weeks to organize and execute. The plan included the use of uS helicopters, transport aircraft, and sixteen cia and uS air Force (uSaF) B-26 bombers that were “sanitized”—that is, information identifying the nationality of the aircraft would be disguised or removed. The B-26s, armed with machine guns, rockets, high-explosive bombs, and napalm, would attack antigovernment troop concentrations, supply dumps, and other targets on the plain. cia-controlled hmong tribesmen would conduct guerrilla operations against enemy command posts, troop convoys, and supply points. [3.237.0.123] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 12:47 GMT) We cannot enforce What We Would Like 17 on d-day more than fourteen battalions of Far ground troops would attack the plain from the west and south. Five days later, hmong guerrillas and Far regulars airlifted by helicopters would conduct harassing and interdiction...