Home»History and Legacy»Timeline»1966-1967: Taking the Offensive»Marines Begin Clearing Land for the McNamara Line

Marines Begin Clearing Land for the McNamara Line

April 1, 1967 - April 30, 1967

1967-04_A188826
1967-04_A188826
(Left to Right) South Vietnamese Army General Ngo Quang Truong, Commander of the South Vietnamese Army 1st Division; Major General B.A. Hochmuth, Commander of the 3d Marine Division; Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara; Lieutenant General Hoang Xuan Lam, Vietnamese commander of I Corps; and General Robert Cushman, Commander of III Marine Amphibious Force, pose for a photograph after a briefing for Secretary McNamara upon his arrival in Vietnam, July 9, 1967. (U.S. Marine Corps History Division)

The III Marine Amphibious Force begins clearing land for the construction and occupation of a strongpoint obstacle system south of the DMZ. In addition to the use of conventional obstacles, U.S. personnel place a variety of sensors and motion detectors. The system is to extend across the DMZ from the South China Sea to the Laotian border, with sensors continuing on into Laos. It is designed to prevent the North Vietnamese from infiltrating South Vietnam across the DMZ. The obstacle system gains the nickname “McNamara Line” for U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who had initially pushed for the system.1

1Gary L. Telfer, Lane Rogers, and V. Keith Fleming, Jr., Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967, U.S. Marines in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums Division, 1984), 86–94; Graham A. Cosmas, MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, United States Army in Vietnam  (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2006), 423–26; Spencer C. Tucker, ed., The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History (2nd edition; Santa Barbara, Ca.: ABC-CLIO, 2011), 722–25.