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The aviary of official Washington was, as usual, divided between "hawks" and "doves." Foremost among the hawks was Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who urged strong retaliatory action. Leaning heavily on the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, McNamara pointed out that in a normal combat situation the reconnaissance targets would have been clobbered by fighter strikes before the recon planes were sent out. But since the "Mickey Mouse game" of diplomacy had to be satisfied, such sound military tactics had been precluded, and two planes lost. Now, said McNamara, was the time to hit those targets.
The doves contended that any U.S. strike would jeopardize Souvanna's neutralist position, make him appear an American stooge and thus play into Pathet Lao hands. Besides, there was the danger of "escalation." At the same time, interservice rivalry reared its head in the discussion: the Air Force argued that it could best carry out any Laotian retaliatory mission, while the Navy, whose planes after all were the ones shot down, demanded the privilege of striking back. And the Strategic Air Command, hoping to refocus its image in an era of minuscule rather than massive retaliation, asked for a chance to show "how gentle" its big bombers could be on a delicate mission.
Turn of the Screw. President Johnson himself finally sided with the hawks. It was decided to turn the screw just slightly, by applying the smallest amount of pressure available, and then sit back to see what happened. Philippines-based Air Force jets were picked to carry out the mission. Out of Clark Air Force Base near Manila swept a flight of eight F-100s, stopping en route in already committed South Viet Nam to take the onus off the Republic of the Philippines. After refueling, the jets hit the guilty gun emplacements with rockets and machine-gun fire.
At about the same time, the small Royal Laotian Air Force was also busy. Flying out of Vientiane's Wattay Airport and another strip near Savanna-khet in the south, stubby, old-fashioned U.S.-built T-28 trainers hung with 500-Ib. bombs, rockets and machine guns roared in on Pathet Lao bases and troops on the Plain of Jars and near the South Vietnamese border. The 25 planes had been supplied by the U.S., but were ordered into action for the first time by a reluctant Souvanna only in the current crisis. The Royal Laotian Air Force has only twelve pilots, and the other planes were reportedly piloted by U.S. civilian soldiers of fortune and by U.S.-trained Thai aviators.
Protest Before Poetry. In 36 sorties during one week, the T-28s knocked out Communist posts, wiped out a truck convoy on the fringe of the Plain of Jars, and left tanks, trucks and Pathet Lao Leader Prince Souphanouvong smoldering. When a group of Control Commission diplomats—nominally the overseers of Laotian neutrality—arrived at Souphanouvong's headquarters at Khang Khay, they found his tidy, white-walled villa pocked by bullets and ripped by bombs, while the pink-roofed Chinese mission near by lay in ruins. One Chinese attaché had been killed in the raid, which was carried out by three Laotian Air Force T-28s—though Souphanouvong insisted U.S. jets had done the deed.