Office of the Historian

11. Telegram From the Embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State1

Saigon, August 29, 1963, 4 p.m.

373. Eyes only for the President from Lodge. In separate telegram to State Department2 I try, in collaboration with General Harkins, to respond to questions in your 269.3 This represents my very best thought and conclusions reached during stay in Vietnam which has been short but also rich with opportunities to observe, learn and evaluate. Any course is risky, and no action at all is perhaps the riskiest of all. Thank you for your expression of confidence in me as your personal representative. I appreciate this very much and will do my best to deserve it.

Lodge
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 26 S VIET Top Secret; Emergency. Received at 4:42 a.m. and passed to the White House at 4:52 a.m.↩
  2. Document 12.↩
  3. Document 9.↩