56. Memorandum From the Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (Johnson) to the Director of the Vietnam Task Force (Cottrell)1
SUBJECT
- Civic Action Teams in South Viet-Nam
At our meeting with the JCS on Friday,2 General Lemnitzer informally indicated to me that he did not feel that State and AID were moving energetically enough on civil aspects of organizing and training civic action teams. As I was not clear on the question of the responsibilities for and the status of these teams, I was not able to discuss the subject. However, I suggest that you will want to look into it with a view to undertaking any corrective action that may be necessary and seeing that Governor Harriman is briefed on the subject prior to the February 19 Honolulu meeting.
[Page 120]There was also some discussion of the failure of the provincial survey teams to include civilian and political elements. Should we be doing anything about this?
- Source: Department of State, Vietnam Working Group Files: Lot 66 D 193, 8, GVN, Information and Civic Action. Confidential. Drafted by Johnson. Copies were sent to Harriman, Janow, and Magathan.↩
- See Document 54.↩