Office of the Historian

135. Memorandum From the Presidentʼs Military Aide (Clifton) to the National Security Adviser (Bundy)1

Washington, March 29, 1962.

During the March 1st meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary McNamara with the President,2 the President stated a requirement for a contingency plan for South Vietnam in the event our present efforts fail. I believe that about April 1st you should ask Secretary McNamara how this project is coming.

Secretary McNamara indicated that we need a plan for the induction of U.S. forces before the loss of the total interior of South Vietnam, if such a catastrophe were about to overtake us. An important item in this planning, according to the President, is the timing of a decision for U.S. action and the factors that go into such a decision.

[Here follows a paragraph on another matter.]

The President has placed a requirement on us to bring him a report of the political and economic operations in South Vietnam. Two items especially concern him: ten provincial surveys were approved but only two or three teams so far are in action; second is the civic action teams that follow the military activities. It was reported that civic action teams were not going out into the country, that the South Vietnamese had no stomach for this operation, and that we would have to do something about it.

Is the JCS going to send the Caribou aircraft out to South Vietnam in June or are they going to send helicopters?

[Here follows a paragraph on another matter.]

C.V. Clifton3
  1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Staff Memoranda-Chester Clifton, 3/61-6/62. Secret. Also sent to Bromley Smith.↩
  2. No record of this meeting has been found.↩
  3. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩