428. Memorandum From Michael V. Forrestal of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)0
SUBJECT
- U.S. Strategy on Viet Minh Presence in Laos
At the staff meeting this morning1 you asked what we proposed to do in the way of protest against continuing Viet Minh presence in Laos.
We have collected and are continuing to collect sanitized evidence of such presence. We have already presented the first bill of particulars to the RLG through Phoumi and Ngon Sananikone. They intend to take the matter up with the RLG Cabinet and the RLG cease fire committee. Simultaneously, we have presented the same evidence to the Canadian member of the ICC. If the RLG Cabinet requests an investigation (unlikely event) under the Accords the ICC is supposed to conduct it. If the RLG Cabinet is stalemated by Souphanouvong’s people, then the Canadian member proposes an investigation by the ICC sua sponte. Such an investigation can be carried out by the vote of a simple majority of the Commission members, Canadian and Indian. There is reason to believe that the Indian will cooperate.
If an investigation by the ICC is then blocked by the refusal of the Pathet Lao to permit access to its territory, it is supposed to report such fact to the Co-Chairmen. Any member of the Geneva Conference (including the U.S.) can then raise the issue with the Co-Chairmen (i.e. we go back to Khrushchev).
All this takes time, but that is what we have really bought in Geneva.
- Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda Series, Staff Memoranda, Michael V. Forrestal, 6/62–10/62. No classification marking.↩
- The White House daily staff meeting. (National Defense University, Taylor Papers, White House Daily Staff Meetings, October 1962 to February 1963, T–222–69)↩