 National Security Council members, including United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and General Maxwell Taylor, agreed on November 28 to recommend that Johnson adopt a plan for a two-stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam.In February 1965, a U.S. air base at Pleiku, in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, was attacked twice by the NLF, resulting in the deaths of over a dozen U.S. personnel.These guerrilla attacks prompted the administration to order retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam.