214 e lusive v ictories
year, marked by a series of negative indicators—ongoing political
turmoil among South Vietnamese leaders, loss of government control
over the rural population, increasing VC guerilla attacks, and wors-
ening ARVN combat performance. Further, the Vietcong began to
strike American installations more frequently, inflicting significant
casualties and prompting further retaliatory U.S. air strikes against the
North. Th e president approved a sustained bombing campaign, Oper-
ation Rolling Th under, against targets in North Vietnam, and raids
commenced on March 2, 1965. It marked another turning point in the
war, but still the administration made no public announcement.
Th at month General Westmoreland requested deployment of two
battalions of U.S. Marines to protect the major American base at
Danang. Soon thereafter, he asked for substantial ground troop rein-
forcements, two full divisions, to make possible off ensive operations in
South Vietnam, warning that otherwise the government faced probable
military defeat. His bleak assessment of the situation was confi rmed by
the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in June 1965: the Chiefs recommended
even larger reinforcements and concluded the United States would need
to assume the primary combat role while the ARVN was rebuilt and
retrained. Westmoreland outlined his requirements to McNamara when
he visited the following month—some 175,000 men by the end of the
year and another 100,000 in 1966—and the defense secretary forwarded
the request to the president on July 20, 1965.
A week of intensive discussions within the administration and
between the president and leading politicians followed, but the die had
already been cast. Johnson would Americanize the war. With each new
proposal to take the next step deeper into the war—to move from spe-
cifi c retaliation for VC attacks on American installations to a sustained
air off ensive, to use American troops not just to defend the bases but
take the war to the enemy—presidential advisors reenacted their now-
familiar roles. George Ball, seeing Saigon as hopeless, urged the pres-
ident to cut his losses by seeking a political settlement that would put
the best face on defeat. In July he found more support within the
administration: Clark Cliff ord darkly predicted the war would generate
heavy losses to no gain, and both he and Vice President Humphrey
warned the American public would never support the kind of war
Johnson proposed to fi ght. Th e president would listen attentively and