Vietnam Commander Gives His Formula For Victory

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31480, 21 September 1967, Page 13

Vietnam Commander Gives His Formula For Victory

(N.Z.P.A. -Reuter —Copyright,

WASHINGTON, September 20. Admiral Ulysses Sharp, the over-all United States commander in Vietnam, has laid down a basic Vietnam victory plan involving the closure of Haiphong Harbour, destruction of six major North Vietnamese target systems and more American troops in the South.

In testimony released today, Admiral Sharp also proposed that bombing raids on the North be concentrated on the HanoiHaiphong areas and the China-North Vietnam border zone.

The admiral, the immediate superior of the United States commander in Saigon, General William Westmoreland, detailed his victory strategy before the Senate Military Preparedness Sub-Committee when its members asked what he would do if President Johnson gave him a free hand in Vietnam.

His plan was therefore theoretical. He said that even under present ground rules imposed by Washington it would not necessarily take five years, as one Senator suggested, to force Hanoi to halt its activities in the South.

The war would be shortened without doubt if Soviet military supplies to the North could be cut off, he asserted.

The Pentagon censor blacked out Admiral Sharp’s

replies to questions on whether he support destruction of Soviet weapons as they reached North Vietnamese ports and whether he had requested bombing of North Vietnam’s dams and dykes. All military complexes, power plants, air defence installations, oil storage, transport and industrial facilities were the six North Vietnamese targets the admiral wanted to destroy. He produced a table showing that of 436 separate targets in these six systems, 252 had been struck and 184 left untouched. An Administration ban on raids on 107 of the targets was in effect as of last July 30 The testimony of Admiral Sharp and other military leaders, given in strict secrecy on August 9 and 10, recently prompted the Preparedness Sub-Committee to demand expansion of the air war and to attack the Defence Secretary, Mr Robert McNamara, for claiming that Hanoi could not be bombed to the negotiating table. Admiral Sharp was strongly opposed to a halt in the bombing. He said it would be “a great mistake” because “you would J>e creating a

sanctuary In the most Important area of North Vietnam, and it would just prolong the war.”

A cessation of the bombing would immediately create a demand for more United States troops in the South because Communist soldiers would receive more supplies than ever before, he said. In general, Admiral Sharp argued against the Johnson Administration’s stated policy of limiting the tempo of air and ground hostilities. “The more troops you have in South Vietnam—the faster the war is going to get over,” he claimed, saying that 45,000 extra men being sent to Vietnam were needed for search-and-destroy operations rather than rural pacification work. Sanctuary Areas

He complained that the North Vietnamese took advantage of “sanctuary” areas around Hanoi, Haiphong and the Chinese border zone which were off-limits .io United States bombers. Some of the curbs have apparently been lifted since his appearance before the sub-committee.

At one point Senator Strom Thurmond, of South Carolina, asked if there were any rea-

son why the United States did not notify Hanoi it would be bombed into bringing the war to a close if necessary, much as happened to Germany in the Second World War. “I think that would be one thing that would bring it to an end,” the admiral replied. But his aides said firmly that the Air Force or Navy had never bombed indiscriminately in Vietnam.