259. Memorandum From the Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (Cumming) to the Acting Secretary of State1
SUBJECT
- Communist Reaction to US Military Intervention in Laos
Dispatching US troops to help the RLG, whether under US, SEATO or UN auspices, would probably lead to a marked augmentation of North Vietnamese participation in the Pathet Lao insurrection. Hanoi and Peiping—and to a lesser extent Moscow—have deeply committed their prestige in the Laos situation, and both the North Vietnamese and the Chinese Communists have warned several times that any foreign military intervention in Laos would be considered as a “direct threat” to their national security. Hanoi and Peiping have a large vested interest in protecting the communist apparatus in Laos, which probably figures prominently in the Communist bloc’s plans for further subversion of other Southeast Asian countries. The Chinese Communists would probably be concerned by the reaction of other Asian nations if such a US move were not counteracted.
There would of course be a spate of propaganda statements and diplomatic moves by the communists, possibly including an attempt to recovene the 1954 Geneva Conference or to obtain UN condemnation of US “aggression.” The communists, however, would expect that such moves would not in themselves be sufficient.
Depending partly on the nature of the US military move, the communist military reaction initially would probably take the form of further covert Hanoi intervention rather than overt invasion, although there might be less effort than at present to camouflage this intervention. If such action were sufficient to prevent the RLG/US measures from destroying communist strength in Laos, the communists would probably be prepared for a protracted indecisive struggle, hoping that eventually the RLG/US position would become less tenable both within Laos and internationally.
If US military moves in Laos were sufficiently effective as to pose a relatively immediate threat to communist assets in Laos, the communist bloc would face the difficult decision of whether or not openly to commit North Vietnamese or Chinese Communists troops to the fighting in Laos. The communists would be unlikely to take such a step if [Page 602] they calculated that the fighting would be likely to spread into North Vietnam or Communist China or that the prospects of some fairly immediate military success were small. Moreover, Moscow would be reluctant to give its blessing to overt military action by Peiping if it felt that this would seriously risk Soviet involvement in the hostilities. On the other hand, the Soviet leaders might not regard such risk in this situation as prohibitive, as they have recently shown increased confidence in the USSR’s ability to deter military action by the US. Since the communists would be most reluctant to allow this setback to their strength and prestige, the possibility cannot be excluded that they would estimate that a quick massive intervention would make it difficult for the US to dislodge them from Laos or those portions of the country which they would then control.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 751J.00/9–559. Secret. This memorandum was originally to go to Parsons, but Cumming changed the addressee by hand. A handwritten note on the source text indicates that Dillon saw this memorandum on September 5.↩