Editing Robert McNamara (section)

====Laos====
{{main|Laotian Civil War}}
{{see|Operation Barrel Roll|Operation Steel Tiger}}
Initially, the main concern of the new Kennedy administration was Laos, not South Vietnam. In February 1961, McNamara spoke in favor of intervention in Laos, saying that six [[North American T-6 Texan|AT-6]] planes owned by the Central Intelligence Agency could be fitted to carry 200-pound bombs in support of General [[Phoumi Nosavan]]'s forces.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=123}} Rusk shot down that proposal, saying his World War II experiences in Burma had taught him that bombing was ineffective in the jungles and six planes were not enough.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=123}} In the spring of 1961 Kennedy seriously considered intervening in Laos where the Communist Pathet Lao, supported by North Vietnam, were winning the civil war.{{sfn|Kaplan|Landa|Drea|2006|pp=241–242}} At one point, the Joint Chiefs of Staff advised sending 60,000 U.S. troops into Laos.{{sfn|Kaplan|Landa|Drea|2006|p=242}} However, Laos appeared to be an undeveloped, landlocked country with barely any modern roads and only two modern airfields which were both small by Western standards and would have caused logistical problems.{{sfn|Kaplan|Landa|Drea|2006|p=241}} Furthermore, memories of the Korean War were still fresh, and it was generally accepted if the United States sent in troops into Laos, it was almost certain to provoke Chinese intervention and lead to another confrontation with the country.{{sfn|Kaplan|Landa|Drea|2006|p=233}} The [[Southeast Asia Treaty Organization]] (SEATO) was split with its European members such as [[France]] and [[United Kingdom|Britain]] in opposition to the intervention and its Asian members such as [[History of Thailand (1932–1973)|Thailand]] and the [[History of the Philippines (1946–1965)|Philippines]] in support.{{sfn|Kaplan|Landa|Drea|2006|p=234}} McNamara noted to Kennedy it was quite possible that the two airfields in Laos could be seized by the Communist forces, which would cut off any U.S. forces in Laos and turn the intervention into a debacle.{{sfn|Kaplan|Landa|Drea|2006|p=242}} At a meeting on 29 April 1961, when questioned by the Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, McNamara stated that "we should take a stand in Thailand and South Vietnam", pointedly omitting Laos from the nations in Southeast Asia to risk a war over.{{sfn|Kaplan|Landa|Drea|2006|p=242}}

McNamara soon changed his mind about Laos. On 1 May 1961, he advised Kennedy to send in ground troops into Laos, saying "we must be prepared to win", and advising using nuclear weapons if China should intervene.{{sfn|Kaplan|Landa|Drea|2006|p=242}} On 2 May, McNamara, using more strong language, told Kennedy that the United States should definitely intervene in Laos, even though he was very certain that it would lead to Chinese intervention, concluding that "at some point, we may have to initiate the use of nuclear weapons to prevent the defeat of our forces".{{sfn|Kaplan|Landa|Drea|2006|pp=242–243}} Kennedy, who was distrustful of the hawkish advice given by the Joint Chiefs of Staff after the failure of the [[Bay of Pigs invasion]], instead decided to seek a diplomatic solution to the Laos crisis at a peace conference in Geneva in 1961–62 that ultimately led to an agreement to make Laos officially neutral in the Cold War.{{sfn|Kaplan|Landa|Drea|2006|pp=243–244}} The problems posed by the possibility of a war with China and the logistical problems of supporting a large units of troops in Laos led McNamara ultimately to favor an alternative strategy of stationing a small number of U.S. Army Special Forces in Laos to work with American allies such as the Hmong hill tribes.{{sfn|Kaplan|Landa|Drea|2006|p=233}} On 29 September 1961, the Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated to McNamara that if Chinese forces entered Laos, then SEATO forces would need at least 15 divisions consisting of some 278, 000 men to stop them.{{sfn|Kaplan|Landa|Drea|2006|p=251}} At the same time, the Joint Chiefs also estimated that the two airfields in Laos were capable of landing some 1,000 troops a day each, which would give the advantage to the Chinese.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=123}} Such dire assessments led Kennedy to ignore McNamara and the Joint Chiefs, and to favor a diplomatic solution to the Laos crisis.{{sfn|Kaplan|Landa|Drea|2006|p=251}}

Though McNamara had supported plans to intervene in Laos in 1961, by 1962 he had changed his mind. During a discussion with General [[Lyman Lemnitzer]], the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, McNamara had asked them what the United States would do with a hypothetical North Vietnamese intervention in the event of an American intervention into Laos, but none of them could provide an answer. The inability of the Joint Chiefs to answer McNamara's questions about what the United States should do if North Vietnam should stage a major offensive down the Mekong river valley from Laos into Cambodia and finally South Vietnam persuaded McNamara that the Joint Chiefs had no vision of the issues and were merely advocating intervention in Laos to avoid looking weak.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|pp=178–179}}

Operation Barrel Roll was a covert interdiction and close air support campaign conducted in Laos by the US Air Force and US Navy between 5 March 1964 and 29 March 1973. On 6 June 1964 (5 June in Hawaii) a Navy reconnaissance pilot, [[Charles Klusmann]], was shot down<ref group=Note>The downing of Klusmann's aircraft was in large measure the result of McNamara's insistence that the reconnaissance flights be conducted at the same time each day: [[#Micromanagement|"The proclivity of Secretary McNamara and his staff to designate TOTs [times-over-targets] plagued our armed forces for years"]].</ref>{{sfn|Tierney|1999|p=1157}} over the Laotian [[Plain of Jars]]. McNamara ordered that no rescue attempt be made. Admiral [[Harry D. Felt]] called McNamara from Honolulu and told him he had no authority to issue such an order, that only the Commander-in-Chief could, and he repeatedly "asked" McNamara to put Lyndon Johnson on the line despite the 1:00 AM Washington time and McNamara's reluctance to do so. Johnson quickly came on-line and countermanded McNamara's order, but the delay resulted in the capture of Klusmann. Klusmann escaped three months later despite torture and starvation and was rescued, becoming the only American captured in Laos to be returned.{{sfn|Tierney|1999|p=1157}}