Ford UFO Files

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5TH DISTRICT RADIO tAPE
It also should be remembered that North Vietnamese soldiers are
slipping into South Vietnam at the rate of 4,500 a month.
Mark this well! President Johnson did not begin to cope with the
Vietnam situation until February, 1965, when all of Southeast Asia was
about to go down the drain.
It will be said that hindsight is always better than foresight, and
this I must agree with. It is easy to say that we should have acted more
quickly and decisively to meet the Vietnam situation.
That brings up the question: What do we do now?
I do not like second-guessing the President on day-to-day military
decisions. He has all possible information at his disposal; I do not.
Our top Air Force men hav~ey could end the Vietnam war in
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~ weeks if the President would allow them to carry out attacks on all
significant military targets in North Vietnam, would let them knock out
Vietnaa's war-making potential, would let them pull the teeth of the tiger.
I don't know if this is so, but I do feel we should not be sending any
more of our men to Vietnam. We must find another way to bring to an
honorable conclusion a war that under present strategy gives the appearance
of dragging on for years and years.
The Administration reportedly is prepared to send as many men to
South Vietnam as it had in Korea at the peak of the war there. The Korean
figure was in excess of 470,000 men, including support troops in Japan.
Counting the 60,000 support troops in our offshore forces, the comparabl'e ,.-
Vietnam figure currently is about 300,000.
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