Operation Menu
Encyclopedia
Operation Menu was the codename of a covert United States Strategic Air Command
(SAC) bombing campaign conducted in eastern Cambodia
and Laos
from 18 March 1969 until 26 May 1970, during the Vietnam War
. The supposed targets of these attacks were sanctuaries and Base Areas of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and forces of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam
(NLF or Viet Cong), which utilized them for resupply, training, and resting between campaigns across the border in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam).
The campaign failed in its objective of preventing North Vietnamese offensives, which continued during Operation Menu. In the aftermath of the operation, details surrounding it became known by the United States Congress
and the US public, leading to dire consequences for the Nixon administration.
An official United States Air Force
record of some US bombing activity over Indochina
from 1964 to 1973 was declassified by US president Bill Clinton
in 2000. The data reveals the true extent of the bombing of Cambodia, as well as Laos and Vietnam. According to the data, the Air Force began bombing the rural regions of Cambodia along its South Vietnam border in 1965 under the Johnson administration. This was four years earlier than previously believed. A report by historian Ben Kiernan and Taylor Owen states 2,756,941
tons of ordnance were dropped in 230,516 sorties on 113,716 sites. Just over 10 percent of this bombing was indiscriminate, with 3,580 of the sites listed as
having “unknown” targets and another 8,238 sites having no target listed
at all. The Menu bombings were an escalation of these air attacks. Nixon authorized the use of long-range B-52 bombers to carpet bomb the region. Historians now classify the campaign as a mere fourteen month phase in an extensive series of secretive bombing raids that spanned a period of eleven years.
in the early 1960s, Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk
had maintained a delicate domestic and foreign policy balancing act. Convinced of the inevitable victory of the communists in Southeast Asia and concerned for the future existence of his government, Sihanouk swung toward the left in the mid-1960s.
In 1966, Sihanouk made an agreement with Zhou En-lai of the People's Republic of China that would allow PAVN and NLF forces to establish Base Areas in Cambodia and to use the port of Sihanoukville
for the delivery of military material. The US, heavily involved in South Vietnam, was not eager to openly violate the asserted neutrality
of Cambodia, which had been guaranteed by the Geneva Accord of 1954
.
Cambodian claims of neutrality, however, did not prevent President Lyndon B. Johnson
from authorizing covert
reconnaissance
operations by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group
beginning in 1967. The mission of the highly-classified
unit was to obtain military intelligence
on the Base Areas (Project Vesuvius) that would be presented to Sihanouk in hopes of changing his position.
By late 1968, Sihanouk, under pressure from the political right at home and from the US, agreed to more normalized relations with the Americans. In July 1968, he had agreed to reopen diplomatic relations and, in August, formed a Government of National Salvation under the pro-US General Lon Nol
. Newly-inaugurated President Richard M. Nixon, seeking any means by which to withdraw from Southeast Asia and obtain "peace with honor", saw an opening with which to give time a safety for the US withdrawal, and time to implement the new policy of Vietnamization
. Before the diplomatic amenities with Sihanouk were even concluded, Nixon had decided to deal with the situation of PAVN troops and supply bases in Cambodia. He had already considered a naval blockade of the Cambodian coast, but was talked out of it by the Joint Chiefs of Staff
(JCS), who believed that Sihanouk could still be convinced to agree to ground attacks against the Base Areas.
On 30 January 1969, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Earle Wheeler
had suggested to the president that he authorize the bombing of the Cambodian sanctuaries. He was seconded on 9 February by the US commander in Vietnam, General Creighton W. Abrams, who also submitted his proposal to bomb the Central Office of South Vietnam (COSVN
), the elusive headquarters of PAVN/NLF southern operations, located somewhere in the Fishhook
region of eastern Cambodia.
On 22 February, during the period just following the Tết
holidays, PAVN/NLF forces launched an offensive. Nixon became even more angered when the communists launched rocket and artillery attacks against Saigon, which he considered a violation of the "agreement" he believed had been made when the US halted the bombing of North Vietnam
in November 1968.
Nixon, who was enroute to Brussels
for a meeting with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) leaders, ordered his National Security Advisor, Dr. Henry Kissinger
, to prepare for airstrikes against PAVN/NLF Base Areas in Cambodia as a reprisal. The bombings were to serve three purposes: it would show Nixon's tenacity; it would disable PAVN's offensive capability to disrupt the US withdrawal and Vietnamization; and it would demonstrate the US' determination, "that might pay dividends at the negotiating table in Paris." He then cabled Colonel Alexander Haig
, a National Security Council staff aide, to meet him in Brussels along with Colonel Raymond B. Sitton, a former Strategic Air Command
officer on the JCS staff, to formulate a plan of action.
By seeking advice from high administration officials, Nixon had delayed any quick response that could be explicitly linked to the provocation. He decided to respond to the next provocation and didn't have to wait long. On 14 March, communist forces once again attacked South Vietnam's urban areas and Nixon was ready.
In his diary on 17 March 1969, Haldemann wrote:
Historic day. K[issinger]’s “Operation Breakfast” finally came off at 2:00 pm our time. K really excited, as is P[resident].
And the next day:
K’s “Operation Breakfast” a great success. He came beaming in with the report, very productive. A lot more secondaries than had been expected. Confirmed early intelligence. Probably no reaction for a few days, if ever.
The bombing began on the night of 18 March with a raid by 60 B-52 Stratofortress
bombers, based at Andersen Air Force Base
, Guam
. The target was Base Area 353, the supposed location of COSVN
in the Fishhook
. Although the aircrews were briefed that their mission was to take place in South Vietnam, 48 of the bombers were diverted across the Cambodian border and dropped 2,400 tons of bombs. The mission was designated Breakfast, after the morning Pentagon
planning session at which it was devised.
Breakfast was so successful (in US terms) that General Abrams provided a list of 15 more known Base Areas for targeting. During the next 14 months the operation continued. The five remaining missions that made up the operation and their targets were: Lunch (Base Area 609), Snack (Base Area 351), Dinner (Base Area 352), Supper (Base Area 740), and Dessert (Base Area 350). SAC flew 3,800 B-52 sorties against these targets, and dropped 108,823 tons of ordnance during the missions. Due to the continued reference to gastronomic situations in the codenames, the entire series of missions was referred to as Operation Menu. Assessment of bomb damage to the targets was difficult to obtain, due to the covert nature of the operation. Instead of utilizing Air Force aircraft for the missions, SOG
forward air controllers were tasked with obtaining intelligence on target damage.
Nixon and Kissinger went to great lengths to keep the missions secret. The expansion of the US effort into "neutral" Cambodia was sure to cause serious debate in the US Congress, negative criticism in the media, and were sure to spark anti-war
protests on US college campuses. In order to prevent this, an elaborate dual reporting system covering the missions had been formulated during the Brussels meeting between Nixon, Haig, and Colonel Sitton.
, the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), in Honolulu. McCain forwarded it to the Joint Chiefs in Washington DC, who, after reviewing it, passed it on to Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird (who might consult with the president). The Joint Chiefs then passed the command for the strike to General Bruce K. Holloway
, Commander of SAC, who then notified Lieutenant General Alvin C. Gillem, Commander of the 3rd Air Division on Guam
.
During this time Air Force Major Hal Knight was supervising an MSQ-77 Combat Skyspot radar site at Bien Hoa Air Base
, RVN. "Skyspot
" was a ground directed bombing
system which directed B-52 strikes to targets in Vietnam. Each day a courier plane would arrive from SAC's Advanced Echelon Office at Tan Son Nhut Air Base
near Saigon. Knight was given a revised list of target coordinates for the next day's missions. That evening, the coordinates were fed into Olivetti
Programma 101
computers and then relayed to the aircraft as they came on station. Only the pilots and navigators of the aircraft (who had been personally briefed by General Gillem and sworn to secrecy) knew of the true location of the targets. The bombers then flew on to their targets and delivered their payloads.
After the air strikes, Knight gathered the mission paperwork, computer tapes etc., destroying them in an incinerator. He then called a special phone number in Saigon and reported that "The ball game is over." The aircrews filled out routine reports of hours flown, fuel burned, and ordnance dropped. This dual system maintained secrecy and provided Air Force logistics
and personnel administrators with information that they needed to replace air crews or aircraft and replenish stocks of fuel and munitions.
On 9 May 1969, an inaccurate article by military reporter William Beecher describing the bombing was run in the New York Times. Beecher claimed that an unnamed source within the administration had provided the information. Nixon was furious when he heard the news and ordered Kissinger to obtain the assistance of Federal Bureau of Investigation
Director J. Edgar Hoover
and discover the source of the leak. Hoover suspected Kissinger's own NSC aide, Morton Halperin
, of the deed and so informed Kissinger. Halperin's phone was then illegally tapped for 21 months. This was the first in a series of illegal surveillance activities authorized by Nixon in the name of national security. The administration was relieved when no other significant press reports concerning the operation appeared.
By the summer, five members of the United States Congress
had been informed of the operation. They were: Senators John C. Stennis
(MS) and Richard B. Russell, Jr. (GA) and Representatives Lucius Mendel Rivers (SC), Gerald R. Ford (MI), and Leslie C. Arends (IL). Arends and Ford were leaders of the Republican minority and the other three were Democrats on either the Armed Services or Appropriations committees.
For those in Washington who were cognizant of the Menu raids, the silence of one party came as a surprise. The Hanoi
government made no protest concerning the bombings. It neither denounced the raids for propaganda purposes, nor, according to Kissinger, did its negotiators "raise the matter during formal or secret negotiations." North Vietnam had no wish to advertise the presence of their forces in Cambodia, allowed by Sihanouk in return for the Vietnamese agreeing not to foment rebellion in Cambodia.
(D, WI), asking for "clarification" as to U.S. policy on the bombing of Cambodia. Knight, who had become concerned over the legality of his actions, had complained to his superior officer, Colonel David Patterson. He then received several bad efficiency reports, which ruined his career, and he had been discharged from the Air Force.
Proxmire's further questioning led to hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which eventually demanded that the Department of Defense
turn over all records of U.S. air operations in Cambodia. When they arrived, the records did not even mention the Menu strikes. The committee was not convinced and the investigation continued. Less than two weeks later, it opened hearings on the nomination of General George S. Brown for the position of chief of staff of the Air Force. As commander of the Seventh Air Force
in South Vietnam, Brown had been privy to Menu and disclosed as much to the committee.
For the next eight days the committee listened to the testimony of administration officials and the Joint Chiefs, who tried to justify their actions. The committee uncovered excuses and deceptions that were perhaps more alarming than those occurring simultaneously in the Watergate hearings. The Menu revelations raised "fundamental questions as to military discipline and honesty, of civilian control over the military and of Congressional effectiveness." It was basically agreed, both by Congress and concerned military officers, that the deception employed during Menu went beyond covertness. According to Air Force historian Captain Earl H. Tilford: "Deception to fool the enemy was one thing, but lying to Congress and key members of the government, including the chief of staff of the Air Force and the secretary of the Air Force, was something else."
The result of the attacks themselves are still debated among participants and historians. As for preventing further North Vietnamese offensives, they failed. In May 1969, PAVN/NLF launched an offensive similar in size to that of the mini-Tet offensive of the previous year. It certainly cost North Vietnam the effort and manpower to disperse and camouflage their Cambodian sanctuaries to prevent losses to further air attack. President Nixon claimed the raids were a success, since air power alone had to provide a shield for withdrawal and Vietnamization
. They certainly emboldened Nixon to launch the Cambodian Campaign of 1970.
William Shawcross
and other commentors asserted that the bombings caused the domino effect in Cambodia that the Vietnam War had been intended to prevent, claiming that there was no doubt they helped set Cambodia on the road to an abyss of violence that Sihanouk had worked for ten years to avoid. While out of the country on 18 March 1970, the prince was deposed by the National Assembly and replaced by Lon Nol
. The Nixon administration, although thoroughly aware of the weakness of Lon Nol's forces and loath to commit American military force to the new conflict in any form other than air power, announced its support of the newly-proclaimed Khmer Republic
.
Shawcross was challenged by Peter Rodman
as follows:
Documents uncovered from the Soviet archives after 1991 reveal that the North Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1970 was launched at the explicit request of the Khmer Rouge and negotiated by Pol Pot's then second in command, Nuon Chea.
When Phnom Penh was under siege by the Khmer Rogue in 1973, the US Air Force again launched a bombing campaign on Communist forces, claiming that it had saved Cambodia from an otherwise inevitable Communist take-over and that the capital might have fallen in a matter of weeks. By 1975, President Ford was predicting "an unbelievable horror story" if the Khmer Rogue took power, and calling on Congress to renew air support for the Lon Nol regime, which it refused to do.
Strategic Air Command
The Strategic Air Command was both a Major Command of the United States Air Force and a "specified command" of the United States Department of Defense. SAC was the operational establishment in charge of America's land-based strategic bomber aircraft and land-based intercontinental ballistic...
(SAC) bombing campaign conducted in eastern Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
and Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
from 18 March 1969 until 26 May 1970, during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. The supposed targets of these attacks were sanctuaries and Base Areas of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and forces of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam
National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam
The Vietcong , or National Liberation Front , was a political organization and army in South Vietnam and Cambodia that fought the United States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War . It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized...
(NLF or Viet Cong), which utilized them for resupply, training, and resting between campaigns across the border in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam).
The campaign failed in its objective of preventing North Vietnamese offensives, which continued during Operation Menu. In the aftermath of the operation, details surrounding it became known by the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
and the US public, leading to dire consequences for the Nixon administration.
An official United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
record of some US bombing activity over Indochina
Indochina
The Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory...
from 1964 to 1973 was declassified by US president Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
in 2000. The data reveals the true extent of the bombing of Cambodia, as well as Laos and Vietnam. According to the data, the Air Force began bombing the rural regions of Cambodia along its South Vietnam border in 1965 under the Johnson administration. This was four years earlier than previously believed. A report by historian Ben Kiernan and Taylor Owen states 2,756,941
tons of ordnance were dropped in 230,516 sorties on 113,716 sites. Just over 10 percent of this bombing was indiscriminate, with 3,580 of the sites listed as
having “unknown” targets and another 8,238 sites having no target listed
at all. The Menu bombings were an escalation of these air attacks. Nixon authorized the use of long-range B-52 bombers to carpet bomb the region. Historians now classify the campaign as a mere fourteen month phase in an extensive series of secretive bombing raids that spanned a period of eleven years.
Background
From the onset of hostilities in South Vietnam and the Kingdom of LaosKingdom of Laos
The Kingdom of Laos was a sovereign state from 1953 until December 1975, when Pathet Lao overthrew the government and created the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Given self-rule in 1949 as part of a federation with the rest of French Indochina, the 1953 Franco-Lao Treaty finally established a...
in the early 1960s, Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk
Norodom Sihanouk
Norodom Sihanouk regular script was the King of Cambodia from 1941 to 1955 and again from 1993 until his semi-retirement and voluntary abdication on 7 October 2004 in favor of his son, the current King Norodom Sihamoni...
had maintained a delicate domestic and foreign policy balancing act. Convinced of the inevitable victory of the communists in Southeast Asia and concerned for the future existence of his government, Sihanouk swung toward the left in the mid-1960s.
In 1966, Sihanouk made an agreement with Zhou En-lai of the People's Republic of China that would allow PAVN and NLF forces to establish Base Areas in Cambodia and to use the port of Sihanoukville
Sihanoukville
Sihanoukville , also known as Kampong Saom, is a province in southern Cambodia on the Gulf of Thailand. This port city is a growing Cambodian urban center, located southwest of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. The province is named after King Father Norodom Sihanouk and grew up around the...
for the delivery of military material. The US, heavily involved in South Vietnam, was not eager to openly violate the asserted neutrality
Neutral country
A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...
of Cambodia, which had been guaranteed by the Geneva Accord of 1954
Geneva Conference (1954)
The Geneva Conference was a conference which took place in Geneva, Switzerland, whose purpose was to attempt to find a way to unify Korea and discuss the possibility of restoring peace in Indochina...
.
Cambodian claims of neutrality, however, did not prevent President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
from authorizing covert
Covert operation
A covert operation is a military, intelligence or law enforcement operation that is carried clandestinely and, often, outside of official channels. Covert operations aim to fulfill their mission objectives without any parties knowing who sponsored or carried out the operation...
reconnaissance
Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance is the military term for exploring beyond the area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about enemy forces or features of the environment....
operations by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group was a highly classified, multi-service United States special operations unit which conducted covert unconventional warfare operations prior to and during the Vietnam War....
beginning in 1967. The mission of the highly-classified
Classified information
Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...
unit was to obtain military intelligence
Military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions....
on the Base Areas (Project Vesuvius) that would be presented to Sihanouk in hopes of changing his position.
By late 1968, Sihanouk, under pressure from the political right at home and from the US, agreed to more normalized relations with the Americans. In July 1968, he had agreed to reopen diplomatic relations and, in August, formed a Government of National Salvation under the pro-US General Lon Nol
Lon Nol
Lon Nol was a Cambodian politician and general who served as Prime Minister of Cambodia twice, as well as serving repeatedly as Defense Minister...
. Newly-inaugurated President Richard M. Nixon, seeking any means by which to withdraw from Southeast Asia and obtain "peace with honor", saw an opening with which to give time a safety for the US withdrawal, and time to implement the new policy of Vietnamization
Vietnamization
Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard M. Nixon administration during the Vietnam War, as a result of the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive, to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnam's forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S....
. Before the diplomatic amenities with Sihanouk were even concluded, Nixon had decided to deal with the situation of PAVN troops and supply bases in Cambodia. He had already considered a naval blockade of the Cambodian coast, but was talked out of it by the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a body of senior uniformed leaders in the United States Department of Defense who advise the Secretary of Defense, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council and the President on military matters...
(JCS), who believed that Sihanouk could still be convinced to agree to ground attacks against the Base Areas.
On 30 January 1969, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Earle Wheeler
Earle Wheeler
Earle Gilmore "Bus" Wheeler, was a United States Army General who served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army and then as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , holding the latter position during the Vietnam War.-Biography:Earle Gilmore Wheeler was born on January 13, 1908 in Washington,...
had suggested to the president that he authorize the bombing of the Cambodian sanctuaries. He was seconded on 9 February by the US commander in Vietnam, General Creighton W. Abrams, who also submitted his proposal to bomb the Central Office of South Vietnam (COSVN
COSVN
COSVN, pronounced "CŎS-vĭn" and standing for Central Office for South Vietnam , was the American term for People's Army of Vietnam political and military headquarters during the Vietnam War...
), the elusive headquarters of PAVN/NLF southern operations, located somewhere in the Fishhook
Fishhook, Cambodia
The Fishhook was the name given to a salient of Kampong Cham Province, southeast Cambodia that protrudes into Binh Long and Tay Ninh Provinces, Vietnam, approximately 80 km northwest of Saigon. The area consisted of generally flat plains adjacent to Mimot northeast through roughly rolling...
region of eastern Cambodia.
On 22 February, during the period just following the Tết
Tet
Tet can mean:*Tết or Tết Nguyên Đán, the Vietnamese new year**Tet Offensive, a military campaign that began in 1968*Têt in Roussillon, France*Equal temperament, abbreviated as 12-TET, 19-TET and so on...
holidays, PAVN/NLF forces launched an offensive. Nixon became even more angered when the communists launched rocket and artillery attacks against Saigon, which he considered a violation of the "agreement" he believed had been made when the US halted the bombing of North Vietnam
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was the title of a gradual and sustained US 2nd Air Division , US Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force aerial bombardment campaign conducted against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 2 March 1965 until 1 November 1968, during the Vietnam War.The four objectives...
in November 1968.
Nixon, who was enroute to Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
for a meeting with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) leaders, ordered his National Security Advisor, Dr. Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
, to prepare for airstrikes against PAVN/NLF Base Areas in Cambodia as a reprisal. The bombings were to serve three purposes: it would show Nixon's tenacity; it would disable PAVN's offensive capability to disrupt the US withdrawal and Vietnamization; and it would demonstrate the US' determination, "that might pay dividends at the negotiating table in Paris." He then cabled Colonel Alexander Haig
Alexander Haig
Alexander Meigs Haig, Jr. was a United States Army general who served as the United States Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan and White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford...
, a National Security Council staff aide, to meet him in Brussels along with Colonel Raymond B. Sitton, a former Strategic Air Command
Strategic Air Command
The Strategic Air Command was both a Major Command of the United States Air Force and a "specified command" of the United States Department of Defense. SAC was the operational establishment in charge of America's land-based strategic bomber aircraft and land-based intercontinental ballistic...
officer on the JCS staff, to formulate a plan of action.
By seeking advice from high administration officials, Nixon had delayed any quick response that could be explicitly linked to the provocation. He decided to respond to the next provocation and didn't have to wait long. On 14 March, communist forces once again attacked South Vietnam's urban areas and Nixon was ready.
Breakfast
In his diary in March 1969, Nixon’s chief of staff, HR Haldemann, noted that the final decision to carpet bomb Cambodia ‘was made at a meeting in the Oval Office Sunday afternoon, after the church service’.In his diary on 17 March 1969, Haldemann wrote:
Historic day. K[issinger]’s “Operation Breakfast” finally came off at 2:00 pm our time. K really excited, as is P[resident].
And the next day:
K’s “Operation Breakfast” a great success. He came beaming in with the report, very productive. A lot more secondaries than had been expected. Confirmed early intelligence. Probably no reaction for a few days, if ever.
The bombing began on the night of 18 March with a raid by 60 B-52 Stratofortress
B-52 Stratofortress
The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber operated by the United States Air Force since the 1950s. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, who have continued to provide maintainence and upgrades to the aircraft in service...
bombers, based at Andersen Air Force Base
Andersen Air Force Base
Andersen Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located approximately northeast of Yigo in the United States territory of Guam....
, Guam
Guam
Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
. The target was Base Area 353, the supposed location of COSVN
COSVN
COSVN, pronounced "CŎS-vĭn" and standing for Central Office for South Vietnam , was the American term for People's Army of Vietnam political and military headquarters during the Vietnam War...
in the Fishhook
Fishhook, Cambodia
The Fishhook was the name given to a salient of Kampong Cham Province, southeast Cambodia that protrudes into Binh Long and Tay Ninh Provinces, Vietnam, approximately 80 km northwest of Saigon. The area consisted of generally flat plains adjacent to Mimot northeast through roughly rolling...
. Although the aircrews were briefed that their mission was to take place in South Vietnam, 48 of the bombers were diverted across the Cambodian border and dropped 2,400 tons of bombs. The mission was designated Breakfast, after the morning Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
planning session at which it was devised.
Breakfast was so successful (in US terms) that General Abrams provided a list of 15 more known Base Areas for targeting. During the next 14 months the operation continued. The five remaining missions that made up the operation and their targets were: Lunch (Base Area 609), Snack (Base Area 351), Dinner (Base Area 352), Supper (Base Area 740), and Dessert (Base Area 350). SAC flew 3,800 B-52 sorties against these targets, and dropped 108,823 tons of ordnance during the missions. Due to the continued reference to gastronomic situations in the codenames, the entire series of missions was referred to as Operation Menu. Assessment of bomb damage to the targets was difficult to obtain, due to the covert nature of the operation. Instead of utilizing Air Force aircraft for the missions, SOG
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group was a highly classified, multi-service United States special operations unit which conducted covert unconventional warfare operations prior to and during the Vietnam War....
forward air controllers were tasked with obtaining intelligence on target damage.
Nixon and Kissinger went to great lengths to keep the missions secret. The expansion of the US effort into "neutral" Cambodia was sure to cause serious debate in the US Congress, negative criticism in the media, and were sure to spark anti-war
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
protests on US college campuses. In order to prevent this, an elaborate dual reporting system covering the missions had been formulated during the Brussels meeting between Nixon, Haig, and Colonel Sitton.
System
First, the number of individuals who had complete knowledge of the operation was kept to a bare minimum. All communications concerning the missions was split along two paths – one route was overt, ordering typical B-52 missions that were to take place within South Vietnam near the Cambodian border – the second route was covert, utilizing back-channel messages between commanders ordering the classified missions. For example: General Abrams would request a Menu strike. His request went to Admiral John S. McCain, Jr.John S. McCain, Jr.
John Sidney "Jack" McCain Jr. was a United States Navy admiral, who served in conflicts from the 1940s through the 1970s, including as the Commander, United States Pacific Command....
, the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), in Honolulu. McCain forwarded it to the Joint Chiefs in Washington DC, who, after reviewing it, passed it on to Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird (who might consult with the president). The Joint Chiefs then passed the command for the strike to General Bruce K. Holloway
Bruce K. Holloway
General Bruce Keener Holloway was an American Air Force general. A West Point graduate, he was a World War II fighter ace and later the commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command .-Early life and career:...
, Commander of SAC, who then notified Lieutenant General Alvin C. Gillem, Commander of the 3rd Air Division on Guam
Guam
Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
.
During this time Air Force Major Hal Knight was supervising an MSQ-77 Combat Skyspot radar site at Bien Hoa Air Base
Bien Hoa Air Base
Bien Hoa Air Base is a Vietnam People's Air Force military airfield located in South-Central southern Vietnam about 20 miles from Saigon near the city of Bien Hoa within Dong Nai Province....
, RVN. "Skyspot
1st Combat Evaluation Group
The 1st Combat Evaluation Group , Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, was the military simulation evaluation and standardization unit of the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command .-History:...
" was a ground directed bombing
Ground Directed Bombing
Ground Directed Bombing is a type of attack mission performed by ground attack aircraft. Aircraft are remotely guided from the ground with the assistance of a height and direction-finding radar. In mature versions of the system, bomb release is controlled from the ground for precision...
system which directed B-52 strikes to targets in Vietnam. Each day a courier plane would arrive from SAC's Advanced Echelon Office at Tan Son Nhut Air Base
Tan Son Nhut Air Base
Tan Son Nhut Air Base was a Republic of Vietnam Air Force facility. It is located near the city of Saigon in southern Vietnam. The United States used it as a major base during the Vietnam War , stationing Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine units there...
near Saigon. Knight was given a revised list of target coordinates for the next day's missions. That evening, the coordinates were fed into Olivetti
Olivetti
Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines.- Founding :The company was founded as a typewriter manufacturer in 1908 in Ivrea, near Turin, by Camillo Olivetti. The firm was mainly developed by his son Adriano Olivetti...
Programma 101
Programma 101
The Programma 101 was the first commercially produced "desktop computer". Launched by Olivetti at the 1964 New York World's Fair, volume production started in 1965. A futuristic design for its time, the Programma 101 was priced at $3,200...
computers and then relayed to the aircraft as they came on station. Only the pilots and navigators of the aircraft (who had been personally briefed by General Gillem and sworn to secrecy) knew of the true location of the targets. The bombers then flew on to their targets and delivered their payloads.
After the air strikes, Knight gathered the mission paperwork, computer tapes etc., destroying them in an incinerator. He then called a special phone number in Saigon and reported that "The ball game is over." The aircrews filled out routine reports of hours flown, fuel burned, and ordnance dropped. This dual system maintained secrecy and provided Air Force logistics
Logistics
Logistics is the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of destination in order to meet the requirements of customers or corporations. Logistics involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging, and...
and personnel administrators with information that they needed to replace air crews or aircraft and replenish stocks of fuel and munitions.
Exposure
Although Sihanouk was not informed by the US about the operation, he remained quiet about the bombing of his country. His silent acquiescence may have been prompted by a desire to see PAVN/NLF forces out of Cambodia, since he himself was precluded from pressing them too hard. After the event, it was claimed by Nixon and Kissinger that Sihanouk had given his tacit approval for the raids, but this claim has since been disproved.On 9 May 1969, an inaccurate article by military reporter William Beecher describing the bombing was run in the New York Times. Beecher claimed that an unnamed source within the administration had provided the information. Nixon was furious when he heard the news and ordered Kissinger to obtain the assistance of Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
Director J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
and discover the source of the leak. Hoover suspected Kissinger's own NSC aide, Morton Halperin
Morton Halperin
Morton H. Halperin is an American expert on foreign policy and civil liberties. He served in the Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton administrations and in a number of roles with think tanks and universities such as the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard University.- Early career :Halperin received...
, of the deed and so informed Kissinger. Halperin's phone was then illegally tapped for 21 months. This was the first in a series of illegal surveillance activities authorized by Nixon in the name of national security. The administration was relieved when no other significant press reports concerning the operation appeared.
By the summer, five members of the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
had been informed of the operation. They were: Senators John C. Stennis
John C. Stennis
John Cornelius Stennis was a U.S. Senator from the state of Mississippi. He was a Democrat who served in the Senate for over 41 years, becoming its most senior member by his retirement.- Early life :...
(MS) and Richard B. Russell, Jr. (GA) and Representatives Lucius Mendel Rivers (SC), Gerald R. Ford (MI), and Leslie C. Arends (IL). Arends and Ford were leaders of the Republican minority and the other three were Democrats on either the Armed Services or Appropriations committees.
For those in Washington who were cognizant of the Menu raids, the silence of one party came as a surprise. The Hanoi
Hanoi
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
government made no protest concerning the bombings. It neither denounced the raids for propaganda purposes, nor, according to Kissinger, did its negotiators "raise the matter during formal or secret negotiations." North Vietnam had no wish to advertise the presence of their forces in Cambodia, allowed by Sihanouk in return for the Vietnamese agreeing not to foment rebellion in Cambodia.
Revelations
For four years Menu remained unknown to Congress as a whole although as previously mentioned 5 Congressmen HAD been informed, the media and the American public. That situation changed in December 1972, when Major Knight wrote a letter to Senator William ProxmireWilliam Proxmire
Edward William Proxmire was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senator from Wisconsin from 1957 to 1989.-Personal life:...
(D, WI), asking for "clarification" as to U.S. policy on the bombing of Cambodia. Knight, who had become concerned over the legality of his actions, had complained to his superior officer, Colonel David Patterson. He then received several bad efficiency reports, which ruined his career, and he had been discharged from the Air Force.
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
turn over all records of U.S. air operations in Cambodia. When they arrived, the records did not even mention the Menu strikes. The committee was not convinced and the investigation continued. Less than two weeks later, it opened hearings on the nomination of General George S. Brown for the position of chief of staff of the Air Force. As commander of the Seventh Air Force
Seventh Air Force
The Seventh Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Pacific Air Forces . It is headquartered at Osan Air Base, Republic of Korea....
in South Vietnam, Brown had been privy to Menu and disclosed as much to the committee.
For the next eight days the committee listened to the testimony of administration officials and the Joint Chiefs, who tried to justify their actions. The committee uncovered excuses and deceptions that were perhaps more alarming than those occurring simultaneously in the Watergate hearings. The Menu revelations raised "fundamental questions as to military discipline and honesty, of civilian control over the military and of Congressional effectiveness." It was basically agreed, both by Congress and concerned military officers, that the deception employed during Menu went beyond covertness. According to Air Force historian Captain Earl H. Tilford: "Deception to fool the enemy was one thing, but lying to Congress and key members of the government, including the chief of staff of the Air Force and the secretary of the Air Force, was something else."
Aftermath
The Constitutional issues raised at the hearings became less important when the House Judiciary Committee voted (21–12) against including the administration's falsification of records concerning Menu in the articles of impeachment leveled against President Nixon. One of the key issues that prevented congressional inclusion was the embarrassing fact that five key members of both political parties had been privy to the information and had neither said nor done anything about it.The result of the attacks themselves are still debated among participants and historians. As for preventing further North Vietnamese offensives, they failed. In May 1969, PAVN/NLF launched an offensive similar in size to that of the mini-Tet offensive of the previous year. It certainly cost North Vietnam the effort and manpower to disperse and camouflage their Cambodian sanctuaries to prevent losses to further air attack. President Nixon claimed the raids were a success, since air power alone had to provide a shield for withdrawal and Vietnamization
Vietnamization
Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard M. Nixon administration during the Vietnam War, as a result of the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive, to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnam's forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S....
. They certainly emboldened Nixon to launch the Cambodian Campaign of 1970.
William Shawcross
William Shawcross
William Hartley Hume Shawcross, CVO is a British writer and commentator.-Career:Shawcross was educated at St. Aubyns Preparatory School, Rottingdean, Eton College and University College, Oxford. He attended St. Martin's Art School to study sculpture after leaving Oxford. He worked as a journalist...
and other commentors asserted that the bombings caused the domino effect in Cambodia that the Vietnam War had been intended to prevent, claiming that there was no doubt they helped set Cambodia on the road to an abyss of violence that Sihanouk had worked for ten years to avoid. While out of the country on 18 March 1970, the prince was deposed by the National Assembly and replaced by Lon Nol
Lon Nol
Lon Nol was a Cambodian politician and general who served as Prime Minister of Cambodia twice, as well as serving repeatedly as Defense Minister...
. The Nixon administration, although thoroughly aware of the weakness of Lon Nol's forces and loath to commit American military force to the new conflict in any form other than air power, announced its support of the newly-proclaimed Khmer Republic
Khmer Republic
The Khmer Republic or République Khmère, was the republican government of Cambodia that was formally declared on October 9, 1970. The Khmer Republic was disestablished in 1975 and was followed by the totalitarian communist state known as Democratic Kampuchea.-Background:Formally declared on October...
.
Shawcross was challenged by Peter Rodman
Peter Rodman
Peter Warren Rodman was a lawyer, government official and foreign policy expert.Born in Boston, he was educated at The Roxbury Latin School, and later at Harvard College , Oxford University , and Harvard Law School...
as follows:
When Congress, in the summer of 1973, legislated an end to U.S. military action in, over, or off the shores of Indochina, the only U.S. military activity then going on was air support of a friendly Cambodian government and army desperately defending their country against a North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge onslaught...What destabilized Cambodia was North Vietnam's occupation of chunks of Cambodian territory from 1965 onwards for use as military bases from which to launch attacks on U.S. and South Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam. Cambodia's ruler Prince Sihanouk complained bitterly to us about these North Vietnamese bases in his country and invited us to attack them (which we did from the air in 1969–70). Next came a North Vietnamese attempt to overrun the entire country in March–April 1970, to which U.S. and South Vietnamese forces responded by a limited ground incursion at the end of April...The outcome in Indochina was not foreordained. Congress had the last word, however, between 1973 and 1975.
Documents uncovered from the Soviet archives after 1991 reveal that the North Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1970 was launched at the explicit request of the Khmer Rouge and negotiated by Pol Pot's then second in command, Nuon Chea.
When Phnom Penh was under siege by the Khmer Rogue in 1973, the US Air Force again launched a bombing campaign on Communist forces, claiming that it had saved Cambodia from an otherwise inevitable Communist take-over and that the capital might have fallen in a matter of weeks. By 1975, President Ford was predicting "an unbelievable horror story" if the Khmer Rogue took power, and calling on Congress to renew air support for the Lon Nol regime, which it refused to do.
Unpublished government documents
- Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Command History 1967, Annex F, Saigon, 1968.
- Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Command History 1968, Annex F, Saigon, 1969.
Published government documents
- Head, William H. War from Above the Clouds: B-52 Operations during the Second Indochina War and the Effects of the Air War on Theory and Doctrine. Maxwell Air Force Base AL: Air University Press, 2002.
- Nalty, Bernard C. Air War over South Vietnam, 1968–1975. Washington DC: Air Force Museums and History Program, 2000.
- Tilford, Earl H. Setup: What the Air force did in Vietnam and Why. Maxwell Air Force Base AL: Air University Press, 1991.
Secondary accounts
- Isaacs, Arnold, Gordon Hardy, MacAlister Brown, et al., Pawns of War: Cambodia and Laos. Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1987.
- Morocco, John, Operation Menu in War in the Shadows. Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1988.
- Morocco, John, Rain of Fire: Air War, 1969–1973. Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1985.
- Rotter, Andrew J. ed., Light at the end of the tunnel : a Vietnam War anthology; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991 [isbn 0312045298]; p. 276ff., Shawcross: Bombing Cambodia—A critique.
- Shaw, John M. The Cambodian Campaign: The 1970 Offensive and America's Vietnam War. Lawrence KS: University of Kansas Press, 2005.
- Shawcross, William, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia. New York: Washington Square Books, 1979.
- Sorley, Lewis, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam. New York: Harvest Books, 1999.