Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume IV, Vietnam, 1966

310. Letter From President Johnson to the Ambassador to Vietnam (Lodge)¹

Washington, November 16, 1966.

Dear Cabot:

I have carefully digested your letter of 7 November on pacification,² as I did your memorandum at Manila.³ In fact, I have consistently sought to encourage an accelerated pacification program ever since you were among the first to call it the heart of the matter some months ago.

There does not seem to me to be any major difference between your ideas of what is needed to make pacification work, and those of my chief advisers and myself. Bob McNamara and the Joint Chiefs realize, as does General Westmoreland on the basis of the dispositions he is increasingly making, that a limited number of U.S. combat forces must be detailed to be the catalysts for the Vietnamese.

What worries them is rather that if the U.S. takes over too much of the job, the ARVN will tend to sit back and let us fight that “war” too. Iʼm sure that you are no more eager than we are to let this happen. As a matter of fact, getting the U.S. military more heavily engaged in refocussing ARVN on the heart of the matter is one reason why we here have seriously considered charging MACV with pacification. I hope you will ponder whether this is not in the end the best way to achieve the aim you seek.

I genuinely believe it is—however, I am willing to try out for a time a compromise solution, and warmly endorsed the recent instructions sent to you.⁴ For this scheme to work, it is essential that there be a clearcut assignment of pacification responsibilities to Porter and MACV now, including a clear delineation between their respective responsibilities, and then that Porter and MACV each organize as effectively as possible to carry out the tasks assigned. If showing ARVN the way on pacification can take up to ten percent of our troops, it also deserves the full-time attention of some of our best generals. So I have asked Bob McNamara to send you the best men he has here for assignment to the civilian as well as military sides, in the event that Westmoreland cannot spare enough top talent for the key spots proposed.

You have our full support and backing. In turn, we here depend on you not to let your people spend too much time in arguing details but to make them get on with the job.

Warmly,

Lyndon B. Johnson⁵

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Vietnam, vol. LXI. Secret. Drafted by Komer and cleared by McNamara and Rusk. In a back channel telegram, November 18, Komer gave Lodge “advance flavor” of the Presidentʼs reaction to Lodgeʼs November 7 letter, Document 294: “He said I agree with Cabot that pacification is the heart of the matter, Iʼve given him every support I know how and will give him more if he needs it. But I wish heʼd make his people stop arguing about the organizational instructions we send, accept them cheerfully, and get on with the job.” (Johnson Library, National Security File, Komer Files, Back Channel Cables)
2. Document 294.
3. See footnote 2, Document 294.
4. See Document 304.
5. Below his signature the President wrote, “Written from Hospital—but I applaud your comments in your personal note and when this reaches you it will be about a month since Manila and perhaps 500 of our boys are gone. Make them all follow your orders & letʼs get going. With admiration & thanks.”