357. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson1
SUBJECT
- Your meeting with David Nes at 12:15 p.m.2
Nes is the nominee of Rusk, Ball, Harriman and Hilsman for the job of DCM to Lodge. I have reviewed his record, obtained additional recommendations, and talked with him. Subject to your interview and assessment, I agree with the recommendation.
I attach answers to overnight queries which I sent to John Ferguson, the Ambassador in Morocco, a shrewd man who was Nes’ last boss, and a message from David Bruce3 who knew him ten years ago [Page 694] in Paris, and this year while he has been at the Imperial Defense College. You will see that they both rate him very high.
Nes is soft-spoken and a little bit more Ivy League than I myself like in tone and accent. He is also shrewd and knowledgeable, and while there is nothing quite like the job in Saigon, it is true that the job in Morocco was complicated and varied.
Nes showed justified confidence in his ability to cope with AID and CIA. He said the main problem would be with the juggernaut of the military, with lots of brass, lots of money, and a limited sense of politics. I agree with him.
I told Nes that a major problem in this case would be to combine loyalty to a quite strong-minded Ambassador with effective management of all kinds of details in which the Ambassador would not be interested. He showed immediate comprehension. Indeed, what I liked most was his eagerness to take on an assignment in which it may easily be impossible for him to satisfy us all. A timid man would not want to be Lodge’s deputy right now.
If you approve the recommendation, it is planned that Nes should go with Bob McNamara to Saigon and then check back in Washington to finish his briefing, and in London to get his family. We can get him on the scene in the first week of January, fully briefed and organized, and I think more haste would make less speed in this case.
I will pursue you after your meeting to get your orders.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos. to the President, McGeorge Bundy. Confidential.↩
- According to his daily appointments diary, the President met with Nes and Bundy on December 10 from 12:37 to 12:55 p.m. (Ibid.) No record of the conversation has been found. Nes took up his duties as Minister-Counselor and Consul General in Saigon on January 19, 1964.↩
- Neither the answer from Ferguson nor the message from David K.E. Bruce, Ambassador to the United Kingdom, has been found.↩