Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume IV, Vietnam, 1966

85. Notes of Meeting¹

Washington, February 26, 1966, 1:10 p.m.

Meeting with the President on Vietnam, Saturday, February 26, 1966, at 12:45 P.M. in the Cabinet Room

The President joined the group at 1:10 and suggested that the group might meet every Saturday for an hour and also during the week, depending on whether the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense felt a meeting would be useful.

There was a discussion about naming a czar to coordinate the Washington end of all non-military programs in Vietnam. The President, turning to the Secretary of Defense, said he thought the czar should be a Special Assistant to the Secretary of State. Secretary McNamara replied that that was agreeable to him. The President said that a candidate would be picked within the next three or four days.

There was a discussion about the TV program for Vietnam. Both Mr. Gaud and Mr. Marks commented on the agreement reached between AID and USIA to initiate this program. They noted that the Japanese might be prepared to give some TV receivers for use in Vietnam.

The President was asked whether he would approach Robert Nathan to persuade him to accept the job of economic czar in Saigon. The President replied that he would like to have the Vice President take this on and he would come in if it were necessary in order to persuade him to accept. The job would have the rank of Minister. The economic czar would not be under the Saigon AID Director, Mr. Mann, but report directly to the Ambassador. The holder of this position would work on the economic problem directly rather than with Vietnam officials.

Secretary Rusk said that it was clear the UN Security Council would not be making a statement on Vietnam. He said that the parliamentary situation in the Council was such that it could do nothing.² Even a special session of the General Assembly would not be able to do anything.

The President then suggested that Ambassador Goldberg explain the full situation on TV this afternoon and that he give background information to the press about our unsuccessful efforts to involve the UN in the Vietnam problem.³

Secretary McNamara said that he was drafting a statement which he hoped would appear in the New York Times rebutting the allegations made by Hanson Baldwin in his New York Times article.⁴ He thought that most of the charges had been answered but more needed to be done to overcome the false impression which many got from the Baldwin piece.

Upon being asked about what our position was on a congressional resolution supporting the administrationʼs policy in Vietnam, the President said that nothing more need be done now. It was agreed that Senator Morseʼs motion to repeal the August 1964 resolution should be allowed to go to a vote but that Senator Russellʼs suggestion to get an affirmative vote of support in the Senate should not be followed up.

CIA Director Raborn reported that his hearing with Fulbright⁵ had been rather rough in that Senator Fulbright was primarily interested in matters other than intelligence. Mr. Raborn said the intelligence community did not get into the policy field.

The President asked how we keep retired military officers briefed on the developments in Vietnam. He mentioned particularly Generals Eisenhower, Ridgway and Bradley. He asked that we get a list of retired Generals who may be making public statements and keep all of them currently briefed.

There was an exchange about General Gavin. General Wheeler said he thought we had heard the last of General Gavin for the time being but acknowledged that Secretary McNamara and Deputy Secretary Vance did not agree with him.

There was an exchange between the President and McGeorge Bundy on George Kennan. The President could not understand why Kennan testified on Vietnam despite the fact that he had never been in the area and acknowledged he knew nothing about the situation there. McGeorge Bundy defended the contribution which Kennan had made in Europe, pointing out that Kennanʼs motivation may be explained by his extreme Europe-first attitude.

The President discussed the suggestion that an Asian Task Force be organized which would list the potentialities of the area and recommend solutions to some of the problems. He thought we should direct intense public attention to Asia such as was done on the civil rights issue. Now that Europe is restored to economic health and military strength the U.S. should turn to Asia. He thought the Task Force should study food production, for example, and come up with recommendations. The Asian Development Bank should be linked to this endeavor.

Mr. Rostow suggested that we should persuade the Asians to come up with their own plan which we would then say we could support.

Mr. Marks commented that Ambassador Reischauer would be the perfect man to get the Japanese to come up with their own plan for Asian development. The President responded by saying we ought to get the Asians to ask us to help them and named in this connection Nehru and Marcos.

Mr. Moyers suggested that a group be organized in Washington to plan our long range strategy toward Asia.

The President thought that a group of five men should be asked to undertake this task. He said that McGeorge Bundy should work this out with Secretary Rusk and Secretary McNamara.⁶ He added that there were not enough dreams in the foreign field.

The President commented that Senator Russell was insisting on a vote in the Senate to reaffirm the congressional resolution of August 1964. He then discussed public support of the administrationʼs policy and cited a Paris [Harris] poll to indicate that the extremists consisted of about ten percent doves and sixteen percent hawks. He said he thought that the rising cost of living was a major element in determining public attitudes.

The President concluded the meeting by asking that more effort be placed in working out sales of commodities now in our strategic stockpile. He mentioned rubber specifically and suggested that Tom Mann be assigned to do whatever is required to get on with the reduction of U.S. stockpiles even though some foreign countries would be unhappy with our actions.

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Bromley Smith Files, Meeting on Vietnam. No classification marking. Drafted by Bromley Smith. For Valentiʼs notes of the same meeting and an attendance list, see Document 86. Helms also took notes. (Central Intelligence Agency, DCI (Helms) Files: Job 80–B01285A, Memos for the Record, 01 Jan 65–31 Dec 72)
2. On February 26 the Security Council President informed the Secretary-General and Council members by letter of the results of the private consultations on Vietnam authorized on February 2 (see Document 59). The letter noted that serious differences of views remained unresolved, particularly as “to the wisdom of the Council considering the problem of Viet-Nam at this particular juncture.” These differences “had given rise to a general feeling that it would be inopportune for the Council to hold further debate at this time.” For text of the letter, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1966, pp. 791–792.
3. For text of the statement released to the press by Goldberg on February 26, see Department of State Bulletin, April 4, 1965, pp. 547–548.
4. Baldwin reported in the February 21 issue that U.S. forces were “spread dangerously thin in Vietnam and elsewhere” and that there were shortages in uniforms, clothing, ammunition, and equipment. At a March 2 news conference, reported in The New York Times on March 3, McNamara stated that U.S. armed forces were neither overextended nor suffering shortages and were “fully capable” of meeting their commitments.
5. Raborn testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 25 and again on February 28, mainly concerning the Soviet Union and China. For text, see Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Historical Series), vol. XVIII, pp. 333–409.
6. Rusk outlined his proposal for an Asian Development Task Force in a March 2 memorandum to the President, which Komer forwarded to the President on March 5 under cover of a memorandum giving his own views. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President—McGeorge Bundy, vol. 21)