Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume I, Vietnam, 1964

144. Letter From the Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Vietnam (Lodge)¹

Washington, May 7, 1964.

Dear Cabot: I have your letter of April 23 enclosing in turn a letter from General Harkins and raising the issue of his directive and its relation to your own memorandum of April 21.²

As we see it here, General Harkins’ authority to discuss military matters with the top Vietnamese officials, including in present circumstances both the “Chief of State” (presumably General Minh) and the Prime Minister, is not in conflict with your over-all supervisory authority, and under the latter you are entitled to receive advance notice of all such contacts, to know what will be discussed, and to provide policy guidance as required for over-all reasons.

At the same time, I wonder if you would not consider amending your memorandum, at least in practice, to provide that General Harkins will consult personally with you about his visits to General Khanh, and would not be subject to clearance with your DCM. I think you can understand that General Harkins would have some sensitivity about appearing to report to the DCM in an area where both his directive and the continuing necessities of the situation have required him to have top-level contacts over a long period. I do not think the same difficulty would exist for your other agency heads, but General Harkins’ position does seem to us special to this extent.

As a practical matter, we would hope that your consultations with General Harkins would in any event be so frequent that the question of calls by him on General Khanh would simply fall into place alongside the other important business that you and he should be transacting on a continuing basis. Such an informal relationship is surely easier and more effective than written communication in almost all cases.

With warm regards,

Sincerely,

Dean

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Intelligence File, Vietnam, Rusk/Lodge/William Bundy Correspondence. Confidential. At 6:35 p.m. on May 7, Rusk called McGeorge Bundy about this letter. The transcript of the telephone conversation reads in part: “Sec said he had signed letter to Lodge today re no questions his being top but he should deal with Harkins personally and not expect him to report to DCM; McNamara agrees but has problems about saying that in a directive.” (Department of State, Rusk Files: Lot 72 D 192, Telephone Conversations)

   On May 11, McGeorge Bundy wrote William Bundy the following memorandum: “I quite agree that the whole business between Lodge and Harkins is childish, and I have given the President only the most general account of it telling him that we think it best for him not to be involved, and that Lodge himself has addressed his communication to the Secretary and not to the President.” (Ibid., Bundy Files, Ambassador’s Private Correspondence)

2. The documents referred to in this paragraph are ibid., WPB Chron File. They relate to the ongoing controversy between Harkins and Lodge over Lodge’s insistence that all agency heads in Saigon, including Harkins as head of MACV, check with the Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy, David Nes, before meeting with Khanh.