Office of the Historian

110. Memorandum From Michael V. Forrestal of the National Security Council Staff to the Presidentʼs Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1

Washington, March 3, 1964.

SUBJECT

  • Far East Matters for Your Lunch Today2
1.
No reply has yet been received from Bohlen in answer to our instruction that he see Couve about Vietnam and Laos. Sullivan points out the instructions were sent over a week-end, which may have been Burgundian.
2.

We told the Cambodians privately yesterday that in principle we agreed to attend a Quadripartite (Thailand-Vietnam-U.S.-Cambodia) Conference on Cambodian neutrality. The GVN has already agreed to do so publicly, and the Thais have said that, although they havenʼt been asked officially, they would give sympathetic consideration to the idea.

Today telegrams are coming in from Phnom Penh reporting Sprouseʼs meeting with the Cambodian Foreign Minister, at which time the latter turned over to Sprouse a pile of Cambodian draft proposals for a neutrality declaration and protocol.3 Unfortunately, our drafts have only been given to the GVN and the Thais; so we have been caught flat-footed on two counts. We have made no public announcement of our agreement to the Quadripartite Conference, and Sihanouk has beaten us to the punch on the draft proposals. Hilsman thinks we should defer any further public statements until we have had a chance to examine the Cambodian package.

3.

On troops to Thailand, Ambassador Martin hasnʼt gotten around to discussing the possibility with the Thais; but Unger in Vientiane has agreed that the move would be useful to him.

In view of the inchoate state of these decisions in the Department, I think the best thing the President could do would be to philosophize a bit on the pressing need for military and diplomatic actions in the very near future to give some evidence that we are not just shooting off our mouths in Southeast Asia.

Mike
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Name File, Forrestal. Secret.↩
  2. Reference is to the so-called Tuesday lunch with Rusk, McNamara, and the President of which no other record has been found. The meeting began at 1:30 p.m. and the Presidentʼs next appointment was at 5 p.m. (Ibid., Presidentʼs Daily Diary)↩
  3. Telegrams 870, 871, 872, 873, 874, and 875, all March 3. (All in Department of State, Central Files, POL 27–13 CAMB)↩