307. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson 1
RE
- Macapagal and the 2,000 troops
Macapagal has not succeeded in passing the aid bill necessary to allow him to send the 2000 troops that have been agreed in principle for so long between us. He has now proposed instead that the Filipinos send volunteers and that we pay for them under the table through CIA.2 We are convinced that paying for volunteers would be a very messy solution and are unanimously and strongly against it. The Filipinos are quite likely to draft the people they want, and call them volunteers, and this is a lousy precedent in the face of what the Chinese have threatened.
The only way Macapagal could revive his aid bill is by what the Filipinos call “recertification.” The attached cable (A)3 shows that he has made a decision against any such course for strong election-year reasons. The only thing that could conceivably move him is a direct personal appeal from you, and on the evidence of the attached cable (A) we are not inclined to suggest that you make this effort right now. Instead, we plan to send the draft telegram attached at B.4
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. XII, July 1965. Secret.↩
- see footnote 3, Document 308.↩
- Not attached; this is a reference to telegram 38 from Manila, July 6. (National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, AID (PHIL) VIET S)↩
- Document 308.↩
- None of the options is checked, but a handwritten note in Komer’s hand reads: “President approved—‘nothing else he could do’. RWK.”↩