2. Memorandum for the Record of a Meeting With the President, Palm Beach, Florida, January 3, 19621
SUBJECT
- Presidentʼs Meeting with JCS on January 3, 1962
At the meeting with the President, besides the Joint Chiefs of Staff (with General Smith in place of General LeMay), were the Vice President, Secretary McNamara, General Taylor, General Harkins, and myself. There follows a summary of the discussion which took place during the meeting:
[Here follows discussion of the Department of Defense budget for fiscal year 1963 and Soviet air reinforcements.]
[Page 4]South Vietnam
There was a discussion of the proposed new command structure for South Vietnam as agreed upon between State and Defense. The President approved the assignment of General Harkins to the position of senior U.S. commander in Vietnam and his recess appointment to the grade of General. It was agreed that no publicity would be given, at least for the time being, to General Harkins’ new mission.
In the discussion concerning South Vietnam the President reemphasized the importance of the U.S. not becoming further involved militarily in that area. The President also emphasized the importance of playing down the number of U.S. military personnel involved in Vietnam and that the U.S. military role there was for advice, training and support of the Vietnamese Armed Forces and not combat.
Following a briefing on the proposed defoliant operations, it was agreed that the first step would be for a small-scale application on an experimental basis which would be limited to the first priority road, i.e., a stretch of approximately 35 to 40 miles long.
- Source: National Defense University, Taylor Papers, T-138-69. Top Secret. Drafted on January 9. A covering memorandum of January 9 from Gilpatric to Taylor indicated that, with certain changes recommended by the JCS and Taylor, the record could now be considered in final form. Attached to the source text were two memoranda that dealt with language changes in the record of the discussion of the Department of Defense budget. For a further record of this meeting, see Document 9.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this stamped signature.↩