Office of the Historian

92. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson1

Washington, July 27, 1965, 4:30 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • Progress on Vietnamese diplomatic front

You will want to know, before you meet the Leadership, that Taylor and Johnson had a very good meeting with Ky, Thieu, and Co on strengthening our international political position at the same time that we move forward with the planned U.S. reinforcements in Saigon.2 Taylor and Johnson tried out on Ky and Thieu the political language which we drafted over the weekend.3 They did not call it a Presidential statement, but simply a draft U.S. position which might be stated at some point by a high U.S. official. Ky and Thieu accepted the entire position, and that now allows us to use language equivalent to the paragraphs at Tab A.4 This language takes us a long way forward and gives us a good political punch to go with our military decisions. The attached paragraphs can be shortened and tightened into whatever form of statement [Page 260] we make from here, and they can be expanded and elaborated in any following presentation by Secretary Rusk. What is new in these paragraphs is the following:

(1)
An explicit affirmation that we are in favor of using the UN if we can get it into the act.
(2)
An explicit affirmation that we are in favor of free elections under international supervision.
(3)
Definite and clear-cut support for the purposes (but not the weak machinery) of the ’54 agreements.
(4)
An offer of hope for the Viet Cong if they will turn from war to peace.
(5)
A concrete offer to discuss both their proposals and ours—this will be read as movement toward a negotiation in which their points and our points would both be on the table.

All these are important from the point of view of men like Mansfield and Fulbright. A couple of them—like the offer to consider their proposals and the offer of hope for the Viet Cong after a peaceful settlement—may have real impact in Communist circles as well. Yet there is no weakness in them. And I repeat that Taylor has obtained Saigon’s approval for them.

McG.B.
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. XII. Top Secret.↩
  2. See Document 91.↩
  3. See Document 89.↩
  4. Attached but not printed.↩