Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume I, Vietnam, 1964

129. Message From the President to the Ambassador in Vietnam (Lodge)¹

Washington, April 28, 1964—7:02 p.m.

Dean Rusk has reported fully to me and to the National Security Council on the encouraging impressions which he has brought back from his recent visit to Viet Nam. He made a number of recommendations which he had already discussed in general terms with you, and as soon as they have been studied and reviewed by appropriate departments here in Washington, we will be sending you separate messages on them.

Meanwhile I would like to raise with you one general question that has come out of our most recent discussions here. Dean Rusk has reported that he gets a strong impression both here and in Viet Nam that our plans and recommendations are often inhibited by a feeling that resources available for this struggle are closely limited, so that there is no room for bold new efforts. Bob McNamara has reported a similar concern. So I have told them both what I want to repeat to you and to all members of the country team—that in our effort to help the Vietnamese to help themselves, we must not let any arbitrary limits on budget, or manpower, or procedures stand in our way. We can do extraordinary things within the limit of our current appropriations and we can, if necessary, seek emergency appropriations if they are needed for success in Viet Nam. We all recognize that a prompt and clear success in Viet Nam would be worth a very large amount to us; and we should not shrink from using the necessary funds to obtain the result.

Both Dean Rusk and Bob McNamara, for example, wonder whether we have committed enough Americans to assist on a crash basis in the development of civil administrative services in those areas of Viet Nam which have already been partially pacified and where the “holding” process must now be pressed forward vigorously. There is a danger that the Vietnamese Government, because of a shortage or an absence of its own resources, may rest on its oars once an area has been militarily cleared and fail to carry through the civil efforts needed to win the population in that area. We know that Vietnamese resources for such leadership are woefully short, but relative to their needs, our own resources are large.

I have authorized Dave Bell to recruit as many highly motivated young men as he may need to help train the Vietnamese to provide civil services in these cleared areas. Our civilian staffing in the Provinces still seems too thin in many areas. I understand that our military often have 10 to 20 times as many field personnel assigned to provincial pacification work (excluding tactical advisors and support personnel) as does USOM—yet the largest job in cleared areas is surely civil. I have suggested to Bell that young people emerging from two years’ service in the Peace Corps would represent an ideal source of experienced and motivated assistants for this work, and I have asked Sargent Shriver to cooperate in supporting such recruiting if it proves necessary.

Carl Rowan has given me a carefully prepared report² on deficiencies which he found in the informational-psychological operations of both the Vietnamese Government and our Mission. He has strongly endorsed proposals originating within the country team to train Vietnamese for these operations and to provide more US guidance, both in Saigon and in the provinces. These proposals will involve a small increase in USIA personnel, and perhaps from other agencies, as well as a modest outlay of US funds. Rowan is in the process of detailing a plan to improve the overall psychological effort, so we should soon have specific ideas on which to act.

I have been informed of your energetic and highly commendable efforts to maintain the size of your Mission at the minimum necessary. I thoroughly endorse your views in this regard and think particularly that frugality and economy of manpower should be applied above all with respect to the headquarters and home office staffs in Saigon, which are reported to have shown the usual tendency to mushroom. I hope, however, that you share our feeling that we should take a different attitude out in the countryside because it is so important that we get the job done there where the war is actually being fought. I know that one of your concerns is to keep the American presence in Viet Nam from becoming excessive, but we all believe here that the need for effective leadership on the civilian side out in the country is overriding, and for this reason Bob McNamara has agreed that if you think it necessary any civilian increases on this side can be matched by reductions of up to two or three hundred military personnel, so that we could say flatly that there was no net increase but merely a shift of effort towards the arts of peace.

All in all the guidance I would like to give to your entire Mission is not to let your thinking be limited by possible budgetary or personnel restraints upon the resources at your disposal to execute our policy. As far as I am concerned you must have whatever you need to help the Vietnamese do the job, and I assure you that I will act at once to eliminate obstacles or restraints wherever they may appear.³

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, AID (US) VIET S. Secret; Priority; Exdis. Transmitted as telegram 1791 to Saigon, which is the source text. According to a draft of telegram 1791, the message was drafted by Sullivan and revised by McGeorge Bundy. Johnson Library, National Security File, Vietnam Country Series, Vol. VII, Cables and Memos)

   McGeorge Bundy sent a copy of this draft telegram to the President under cover of a memorandum, April 26, which reads as follows:

   “This is a draft dispatch from you to Lodge which argues out a general proposition that people should not be timid in asking for what they need. It has been cleared in substance with Rusk, McNamara, and Bell, although this draft is a revision of a State Department original. The one point of substance on which there may not be full agreement is that Sarge Shriver hates to have his Peace Corps graduates tapped for unpeaceful missions. None of the rest of us agrees with him, and I think you are safe in going ahead.” (Ibid.)

2. Document 122.
3. Telegram 1791 does not bear President Johnson’s signature.