the Intelligence and Research people at State were opposed to the trip for reasons of their own; Hanoi, they pointed out in a memo, knew that a bombing campaign was being considered by the Americans and that the Bundy trip was related to it. Thus Hanoi would view the Bundy trip as a real fact-finding trip and would try to influence Bundy’s decision by showing that it did not fear bombing, and the way it would do this was by provoking some kind of incident while Bundy was in Vietnam. The same memo noted that of the three places which housed planes, Tan Son Nhut, Bien Hoa and Pleiku, Tan Son
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