page_title: 1964 Brinks Hotel bombing
section_title: Reaction
hierarchical_section_title: 1964 Brinks Hotel bombing / Reaction
caption_attribution_description: English: Hotel Brinks Memorial at the side of the contemporary Park Hyatt Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City
context_page_description: The Brinks Hotel in Saigon, also known as the Brink Bachelor Officers Quarters, was bombed by the Viet Cong on the evening of December 24, 1964, during the Vietnam War. Two Viet Cong operatives detonated a car bomb underneath the hotel, which housed United States Army officers. The explosion killed two Americans, an officer and an NCO, and injured approximately 60, including military personnel and Vietnamese civilians.
  The Viet Cong commanders had planned the venture with two objectives in mind. First, by attacking an American installation in the center of the heavily guarded capital, the Viet Cong intended to demonstrate their ability to strike in South Vietnam should the United States decide to launch air raids against North Vietnam. Second, the bombing would demonstrate to the South Vietnamese that the Americans were vulnerable and could not be relied upon for protection.
  The bombing prompted debate within the administration of United States President Lyndon B. Johnson.
context_section_description: The attack surprised American officials and policymakers on Vietnam, who were confident that the South Vietnamese government was in control in Saigon and that the Vietcong were only a threat in rural areas. The South Vietnamese government was unstable, as it was the latest in a series of military juntas that had ruled for brief periods before being deposed. The infighting exasperated Maxwell Taylor, the US ambassador to South Vietnam and former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who felt that the disputes between the junta's senior officers were derailing the war effort. Less than two weeks before the bombing, the generals had dissolved the High National Council, a civilian advisory body, prompting Taylor to summon the generals to his office. The ambassador then angrily denounced the generals, and the next day advised General Nguyen Khanh, the president, to resign and go into exile, as he had lost Taylor's confidence. Khanh threatened to expel Taylor, who said that his forced departure would mean the end of US support for South Vietnam. On December 22, Khanh announced on Radio Vietnam that "We make sacrifices for the country's independence and the Vietnamese people's liberty, but not to carry out the policy of any foreign country". Khanh explicitly denounced Taylor in an interview published in the New York Herald Tribune on December 23, and on the day of the bombing, he issued a declaration of independence from "foreign manipulation". At the time, Khanh was also secretly negotiating with the communists, hoping to put together a peace deal so he could expel the Americans from Vietnam. As a result, there was a suspicion among a minority that Khanh and his officers had been behind the attack, even though the Vietcong had claimed responsibility through a radio broadcast.
  The Americans responded to the ground-level situation by organizing urgent security meetings with Saigon officials with a view to increasing safety standards. This led to an increase in military patrols around all US military accommodation in Saigon, which were also exhaustively searched for explosives. An additional 65 US Navy personnel were deployed for this purpose and, passers-by in the streets were stopped and checked for weapons.
  General William Westmoreland, who was the U.S. Army commander in South Vietnam, Taylor, and other senior U.S. officers in Saigon and Washington, D.C. urged President Lyndon B. Johnson to authorize reprisal bombings against North Vietnam. Taylor messaged Washington on Christmas Day, saying, "Hanoi will get the word that, despite our present tribulations, there is still bite in the tiger they call paper, and the U.S. stock in this part of the world will take sharp rise. Some of our local squabbles will probably disappear in enthusiasm which our action would generate." Taylor recommended that the US take unilateral action, citing the animosity between himself and Khanh's junta.
  Johnson called his U.S.-based advisers to his Texas ranch for discussions on Christmas Day. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara advised Johnson to reject Taylor's proposal. Johnson declined to act, stating that an escalation during the Christmas period would be inappropriate, as it would damage public morale. He also noted that because of the political instability in Saigon, the international community and the American public were unlikely to believe that the Vietcong were behind the attack, feeling that they would instead blame local infighting for the bombing. This was despite the fact that the Vietcong had already claimed responsibility. Johnson administration officials concluded four days after the bombing that the Vietcong were responsible. Johnson believed that it was too late to retaliate and that any action taken more than 36 hours after the event constituted unprovoked aggression. The State Department cabled Taylor and the embassy, saying that "In view of the overall confusion in Saigon", public U.S. and international opinion towards an American air strike would be that the Johnson administration was "tryin
caption: Park Hyatt hotel and the bombing memorial today. The memorial texts in Vietnamese read (from up to down): BIA CHIẾN CÔNG · TRẬN ĐÁNH CƯ XÁ BRINK · NGÀY 24/12/1964 · Lực lượng biệt động Sài Gòn (Feat of Arms Stele · The Battle of Brink Apartment · On December 24, 1964 · [of] The Saigon Commando Force).
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