Office of the Historian

334. Telegram From the President’s Military Representative (Taylor) to the President, at Bermuda1

Washington, December 21, 1961, 11:23 p.m.

CAP 5466-61. The weekly Viet-Nam status report2 contains the following items of interest:

A.
Ambassador Nolting intends to come to Washington in early January and, in the meantime, will follow up agreed items with Diem for early action in Saigon.
B.
The following U.S. units will soon enter into active operations:
(1)
Jungle Jim aircraft on combat missions with combined U.S.-GVN crews aboard as part of combat crew training requirements. The aircraft will bear SVN markings.3
(2)
Two U.S. helicopter companies, which will be operational on 25 December and 5 January.
(3)
U.S. Navy minesweepers to participate in coastal patrols independent of but supplementing the SVN Navy commencing on 22 December. U.S. ships will remain south of the seventeenth parallel and outside the three-mile territorial limits, passing information on, but not boarding, VC or DRV ships or junks.

  1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Viet-Nam Country Series. Top Secret; Eyes Only. The President was in Bermuda where he was meeting with British Prime Minister Macmillan.↩
  2. Dated December 21, not printed. (Ibid.)↩
  3. In a memorandum of December 19 to Taylor, Bagley wrote that the Embassy in Saigon was being told to delay the start of Jungle Jim operations with US-GVN crews until December 22. In the meantime the Department of State, in transmitting the December 21 status report on Viet-Nam to the President, would inform him that the combined crew operations in Jungle Jim aircraft would begin soon. According to Bagley, “If there is no reaction from the White House, Saigon will be given an affirmative answer. Mr. Bundy is aware of this procedure which I gather is an agreed approach to avoid pinning down the President.” (National Defense University, Taylor Papers, T-127-69)↩