Office of the Historian

302. Memorandum From the Presidentʼs Special Assistant (Rostow) to Secretary of State Rusk1

Washington, November 11, 1966.

Yesterday the President elaborated to Bob McNamara and to me his desire to have a systematic assessment of what each of the following countries might do to help us in Viet Nam: Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, and others, including the Europeans. He has in mind three things:

a.
Troops or additional troops where possible.
b.
Other forms of assistance; e.g., increased training by Malaysians; increased economic aid for Viet Nam; increased political and diplomatic support; etc.
c.
Even if increased help is not forthcoming, he wants our request to be part of our bilateral accounts so that if they do not act, they understand they have failed to act and should bear this in mind when asking us for assistance.

In this connection, he asked whether Ellsworth Bunker might not spend a part of his time touring some of these countries, where it is impossible for you to go before the NATO meeting.

He raised the question, on a different basis, as to whether it would not be wise for Bunker to go quietly to Indonesia to make an assessment of the situation on the spot, perhaps accompanied by a couple of good young military officers—“young Goodpasters.”

In any case, the President wants to have available by the opening of Congress a systematic record of all our efforts to increase and widen international support for our effort in Viet Nam, in the form of a record that might be shown to General Eisenhower, Senator Dirksen, Gerry Ford, etc.2

Walt
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Vietnam, box 138, Nodis/Louisiana. Secret; Eyes Only. A copy was sent to McNamara.↩
  2. In circular telegram 8350, November 11, the Department stated that the “time is ripe for major effort to obtain additional manpower contributions by other countries in Vietnam” both for “practical importance” and to demonstrate “wide support for basic objectives in Vietnam”; cable traffic on this subject was to be slugged Louisiana. (Department of State, Central Files, POL 27–3 VIET S/LOUISIANA)↩