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

132. Message From the Ambassador in Vietnam (Lodge) to the President¹

Saigon, April 30, 1964—6 p.m.

1. Your 1791² with its proposal for (A) Americans to “assist on a crash basis in the development of civil administrative services” in “partially pacified” areas and (B) its proposal for “more US guidance” on information-psychological operations is of major significance.

2. It involves, first, finding out GVN general reaction and, secondly, deciding best recommendations to you.

3. By noteworthy coincidence, General Khanh today asked me to provide one American expert each in the fields of finance-economics; foreign affairs; and press relations who would be assigned to him personally and would have their offices “in a convenient villa”, perhaps the one in which General Khanh lives. He also made this statement: “We Vietnamese want the Americans to be responsible with us (he stressed the words “with us”) and not merely be advisers.” He freely recognized that the trained personnel which is utterly indispensable if he is actually to run the government simply does not exist.

4. As the Department knows, I have opposed our seeking to fasten American personnel onto the GVN because of obvious colonialist overtones, because it would cause resentment, because it would mean a lessening of effort by the GVN and a placing of the blame for everything that went wrong on us. As the impotence of the bureaucracy has become increasingly evident, I have been hoping that General Khanh would ask us for help. Now it has happened, and it has been caused by the conviction of urgent necessity. It is a real breakthrough, and I welcome it. Believe we have right people here to take care of Gen. Khanh’s request. Experience acquired in Viet-Nam most useful, if not indispensable.

5. With all of this as the background, I told him of your proposal for civil administrators on a crash basis in the partially pacified areas. His quick reply was: “Yes—if you will accept the losses”. He stressed that in districts and villages there was risk of getting shot and that “Americans seemed to get very upset” when anyone was killed in that way. As regards your proposal in the psychological field, he said: “I think so” but wanted more time.

6. My own recommendations are as follows: There should be an individual civil administration adviser to join the other three advisers mentioned in paragraph 3; action on my proposal for four civil-political advisers, one for each corps area, now under consideration in AID, should be expedited; there should be a few people well qualified in civil administration who could be available for assignment in the critical provinces, as the corps area advisers recommend; and we should continue the effort in training the Vietnamese. But I do not think that we should dump a large number of persons on a crash basis. There is no use in having several hundred persons out here as not enough areas are being cleared fast enough to give them things to do. As it is, I suspect that we have too many military personnel in a number of places. The situation calls for a qualitative, rifle-shot, precision approach rather than a quantitative buckshot saturation approach.

7. As regards psychological operations we are moving ahead on basis of plans Rowan presented to you. Glad we can call on you for more help, but feel we are progressing now.

8. In view of the above trail-blazing development, I believe it will be extremely useful if you could send a member of your staff for conference with me, possibly Forrestal.

Lodge³

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, DEF 19–9 US–VIET S. Secret; Priority; Exdis. Transmitted as telegram 2089 from Saigon, which is the source text. Passed to the White House on receipt in the Department of State.
2. See Document 129.
3. Telegram 2089 bears this typed signature.