311. Memorandum From the President’s Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Rostow) to the President1
A final direct word from me on South VietNam, as a member of your personal staff.
I do not believe that all the choppers and other gadgetry we can supply South Viet-Nam will buy time and render their resources effective if we do not get a first class man out there to replace McGarr. McGarr is an excellent officer, but he lacks the critical qualities to make this partnership move. At the moment the problem is tied up in a disagreement between State and Defense on the kind of structural command changes-if any-that are necessary. In my view the structural command changes are virtually irrelevant; what we need is a young Van Fleet. In addition, it is equally crucial that we free Ed Lansdale from his present assignment and get him out to the field in an appropriate position. He is a unique national asset in the Saigon setting; and I cannot believe that anything he may be able to do in his present assignment could match his value in Southeast Asia. On this matter you may have to have a word with the Attorney General.2
- Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Viet-Nam Country Series. Secret.↩
- Rostow later wrote that President Kennedy decided not to appoint Lansdale as an adviser to Diem. The reasons, said Rostow, “lay deep in the American military and the civil bureaucracy. The American ambassador and the ranking general in Saigon-and the departments backstopping them in Washington-did not want another American that close to Diem.” (Rostow’s undated draft manuscript of a book, Chapter 34. D. 562 National Defense University, Taylor Papers, T-15-71)↩