Maxwell D. Taylor Oral History Interview RFK #3, 12/29/1969 Administrative Information

Transcription

1 Maxwell D. Taylor Oral History Interview RFK #3, 12/29/1969 Administrative Information Creator: Maxwell D. Taylor Interviewer: Larry Hackman Date of Interview: December 29, 1969 Location: Washington, D.C. Length: 22 pages, 1 addendum. Maxwell D. Taylor ( ) served as General of the U.S. Army; Military Representative of the President ( ); Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ( ); Ambassador to Vietnam ( ); Special Consultant to the President ( ). This interview focuses on the reorganization of the U.S. military command in Vietnam, general concern regarding the influence of Nhu within the Vietnamese government, and the Kennedy administration s disillusionment with Diem, among other issues. Access Restrictions Open. Usage Restrictions According to the deed of gift signed January 8, 1991, copyright of these materials has been assigned to the United States Government. Users of these materials are advised to determine the copyright status of any document from which they wish to publish. Copyright The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research. If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excesses of fair use, that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law. The copyright law extends its protection to unpublished works from the moment of creation in a tangible form. Direct your questions concerning copyright to the reference staff. Transcript of Oral History Interview These electronic documents were created from transcripts available in the research room of the John F. Kennedy Library. The transcripts were scanned using optical character recognition and the resulting text files were proofread against the original transcripts. Some formatting changes were made. Page numbers are noted where they would have occurred at the bottoms of the pages of the original transcripts. If researchers have any

2 concerns about accuracy, they are encouraged to visit the library and consult the transcripts and the interview recordings. Suggested Citation Taylor, Maxwell D., recorded interview by Larry Hackman, on December 29, 1969, (page number), Robert Kennedy Oral History Program of the John F. Kennedy Library.

3 NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION JOHN F. KENNEDY LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the oral History Interview of MAXWELL D. TAYLOR In accordance with t he provisions of Chapter 21 of Title 44, United states Code, and subject to the terms and conditions hereinafter set forth, I, John M. Taylor, do hereby give, donate, and convey to the United States of America all my rights, title, and interest in the tape recording and transcript of personal interviews of Maxwell D. Taylor conducted on October 22, 1969, November 13, 1969 and December 29, 1969 at Washington, DC and prepared for deposit in the John F. Kennedy Library. This assignment is subject to the following terms and conditions : (1) The transcript shall be made available for us e by researchers as soon as it has been deposited in t he John F. Kennedy Library. (2) The tape recording shall be made available to those researchers who have access to the transcript. (3) I hereby assign to the Unit ed States Government all copyright I may have in the interview transcript and tape. (4) Copies of the transcript and the tape recording may be provided by the Library to researchers upon request. (5) Copies o f the transcript and tape recording may be deposited in or loaned to institutions other than the John F. Kennedy Library. Date Date - (-=">. r; / ct... (

4 Page Maxwell D. Taylor RFK #3 Table of Contents Topic 60 Ngo Dinh Diem s cordon sanitaire and strategic hamlets strategy 62 Contrasts between situations in Vietnam and Malaysia 64 Reorganization of U.S. military command in Vietnam 68 John F. Kennedy (JFK) s reluctance to send troops to Laos 68 American press criticism of Diem 71 Development of U.S. policy toward Diem 71 Immolation of the Bonzes 74 Concern with Nhu s influence in Diem s administration 79 Transfer of control of Operation Switchback from the CIA to the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) 80 August 24, 1963 cable from Department of State authorizing coup against Diem Addendum I September 3, 1968 Statement by Taylor regarding his relationship with Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) and working with him

5 Third Oral History Interview with MAXWELL TAYLOR December 29, 1969 Washington, D.C. By Larry J. Hackman For the Robert F. Kennedy Oral History Program of the Kennedy Library We talked briefly about the "strategic hamlets n program and I had wanted.. I'd like to get you to try to describe what you can remember about the origins of the idea for that. I think you'd characterized it as being Diem's idea... ~.::.-:.-... Very largely, I think, although one's never completely sure. But Diem's idea of the defense of the country was by erecting a cordon sanitaire by ~learing out all the people along the frontier or certain selected areas, pulling them back into strategic hamlets and then covering, protecting the cordon sanitaire by mobile forces. And it was not an impossible way to go about it. And I think it came from Diem. I'm sure our MAAG never suggested it. In fact, in the early days I would say our military people were too much oriented toward conventional war. This was not their own idea. They were told that the Joint Chiefs considered that the main threat was a resumption of conventional warfare with divisions marching down the coastline from the North. So the military people on the spot were doing what they were told. Diem, I think, was ahead of them in recognizing the guerilla threat as being the thing that concerned him most.

6 , -_6J.:-- But he would have had this concept, or how early were you aware of him having this concept? Do you remember? I would say it certainly came up for discussion when I went there in '57, when I was Chief of Staff. So it goes back to that period. What role then does Robert Thompson and the British Advisory Mission play in.... How did they get there, and what role do they play in getting this program underway? Well, very little. I don't know what Thompson did in the fifties, but when I first met him he was in Saigon at the head of a very small police advisory group. I knew him quite well and have a high regard for him. On the other hand, he made no policy decisions at any time. He was listened to with respect. And I would say that many of his suggestions which were applicable, as we saw it, were adop~ed. But he was like all the rest of us. He was the captive of his past. He had had the Malaysian experience, knew it extremely well and some par.ps.of it had application in Viet Nam, but other parts did not. I know he came here, in September of '61, I believe, right before you went out on your mission. I wasn't sure whether he had been there before.. I know he talked to General [Lyman L.] Lemnitzer among other people. I don't know who ~lse he talked to. But it's not your impression that his ideas at this point are that important? No. And then I know he_ also, in the spring of '62, I think, he writes a long letter to you which gets sent to the White House and the :.President sees.

7 That's right. Do you remember the President commenting on this in any way? Yes, only in the sense of asking what I thought about it. And the answer was, "I think a lot about a great deal of it, but again some parts don't apply to the problem we have in Viet Nam." He really had no resources. He had about five British ~olic~ advisors, so his resources were V.ery limited. He couldn't get around the country, not that anyone prevented him, he just had ho helicopter of his own to go out and jump in it. If he wanted a ride, I'm sure the Americans would have helped. They liked him; he was a good colleague to have out there. Can you remember at that time what parts of the analogy from Malaysia to Viet Nam you felt were not.... Well, you see the Malaysian affair was never on the scale of VietnNam even--as it was in '61 and ' '62. The Malaysian affair, expecially the terminal aspects of it, was really a police operation of going out and catching bandits, and it was operated on that scale. And furthermore these bandits were identified. They were not supported by the people. They didn't have the water in which the fish could swim. They were Chinese. They stood out as physically different. So the problem was quite different. Food control became the great way to bring this situation in hand, whereas food control in VietnNam was virtually impossible. TAYLORY Was anyone on our side, yourself or other people, raising any of. these points with Diem or Nhu, that possibly this program wouldn't work because of these reasons? The " trategic hamlets program? Yes., ; Diem's program, not Thompson's suggestion?

8 Yeah. _-63- No, because I thought it had considerable value, and it did have, but again like so many things in Viet Nam, implementation is very, very difficult. And it got out of hand. They tried to do too much too fast. This became Nhu's own project and he distorted it somewhat. Certainly the figures we were furnished with regard to the progress were often fallacious. How much were deliberately made that way and how much was simply... the inefficiency of the reporting system I don't know. You don't remember Thompson and the British Advisory Mission having any impact then on through to... I know he makes one trip to the White House--I don't know if you're familiar with that--in early '63. TAYLGR: He was listened to. Don't let me suggest that he was, in effect, insignificant. He's a very able man and speaks extremely well. He expresses himself well. So that he was listerled to. But it was not the shortage of ideas normally that held back the work, as I've mentioned many times, but it was the inability to do simple things. Was there a time uhen through '62 and '63 when the President's impressions of this program and your own and other people's began to change a great deal? I wouldn't say that the "strategic hamlets" program as such became a controversial isaue. The question of yrogress or lack of progress in general certainly was always an issue. And the progeess in the "strategic hamlets" program was one segment of the whole spectrum of activities. And sometimes I think we were probably deluded at one point, perhaps for some period of time, as to the. amount of prog~ess that was taking place because of the quality of reporting. We ended up, incidentally, by taking aerial photographs of all of these hamlets, so that we could have visual evidence of what was going on. And in that way we got some, let's say, purified data upon whibh to operate.

9 --_64.- Was it your feeling that Ambassador Nolting was much more confident in the reports that he received from the field in Viet Nam than you were or than other people were at this end? No, Nolting had all the disadvantages and problems of unreliable data which affected everybody. Necessarily anyone who receives data and is not confident of them must rely upon subjective feeling far more than if he had hard facts with which he could deal. That was never the case with Nolting nor with Harkins nor with any of the military people. system. CINCPAC that? I remember last time we talked a little bit about the reorganization of the military command system in Viet Nam, the United States military command How well did this chain of command that went through work? Was there ever any thought given to changing Oh, yes, this was indeed a controversial issue in the sense that it was debated many times. At one time Secretary Rusk went to the President and recommended that CINCPAC be cuta::tt ofthe channel of command, and the President asked for my opinion on the subject. Well, it was a hard one for me to give because I could see some of the disadvantages that the President saw. It looked as if there were an admiral sitting in Honolulu trying to run a ground campaign three thousand miles away, and to some extent in the case of Admiral [Harry D.] Felt that was true. But we made it very clear, McNamara and I did, to Felt that we did not view this as his task. He was the logistic supporter of the operation to facilitate the logistic organization which at the outset was very important and very difficult to organize. And it was that kind of back-up rather than tactical dire direction which at the outset was needed. Having looked the situation over carefully, I concluded that here in Washington no one appreciated how much CINCPAC was doing to help in Viet Nam, the endless little things. The Admiral had enormous resources, naval, air and army and also a supply system. If he were not doing that kind of thing, the Joint Chiefs would have to do it, and they would do it at a great disadvantage of

10 - -t.~5-.. ~I... distance and also at a disadvantage to their other world-wide strategic responsibilities. So it was really that combination of considerations that led me to tell the President, while there were certainly pros and cons on both sides, I thought it a mistake to change the system and furthermore that the people of Saigon didn't want it changed, even though there had been some frictions between the Saigon headquarters and Honolulu. This includes the military people in Saigon, but it also includes Ambassador Nolting at that point? I couldn't quote Nolting. I think Nolting would say, "This is a military matter. It doesn't effect me one way or another." -., Can you remember at what point this came to that, at what point Secretary Rusk raised this question with the President, about what time? I would think it's in '63, but I'd have to research my notes. Were there specific things that happened that led Secretary Rusk to do this? Can you remember any of them?.... I think yes. I would say that Admiral Felt made some rather unwise interventions, let's say, which were noted by State. And there was a feeling that he wasstrying to run something at a distance and interpolating himself between Washington and the field and thereby delaying things. Well, some of that was right, I think. Some of it was wrong. Well, do you have any feel for whether this was a primary concern of Secretary Rusk or whether it was other people, namely I guess Harriman and Hilsman, who were particularly concerned? I wouldn't be sure. I wouldn't be sure. Undoubtedly, Rusk would not have taken it up by himself without ~onsujting his s other people. Whether they in turn had provided the initiative for his action, I'm not sure.

11 -66- I think I've read in a couple books that some people have said that Hilsman as Assistant Secretary of St ate frequently wanted to get into the military side. Oh, yes I've often said that it just shows what happens when you put a West Pointer in the State Department. He was quite capable of going over to the Cabinet Room and getting up before a map with a pointer, in the presence of the Chairman and the Secretary of Defense, explaining how the military side of the operation should be run, based upon his guerilla experiences in Burma ~ It became a very sore point in some quarters. It just amused me. It didn't offend my amour propre or anything, but it drove Bob McNamara nuts. It was just obvious, he had absolutely nothing to do with Hilsman. Hilsman had me to luncheon one day to say, "Could you explain to me what it is, why Mr. McNamara doesn't like me?" [Laughter] How did he manage to survive in that position? He didn't. Well, he didn't after President Johnson came in. Did anyone ever take that complaint to President Kennedy, that he was out of his league? No, I doubt it. I doubt it. The fact was he wasn't drawing much water with the President. It was just a minor irri ~ ation. Can you characterize what impact Admiral Felt did have on the way things worked in the field in Viet Nam, if he was pushing things in a certain direction? What was that really? No, I think it was just a desire to exercise control over the ta~tics of ground fighting from a distance. And this ended very promptly once he was told that that was not what we were looking for. And also I explained to him how vulnerable his whole command was, nbat back here in Washington this was a major issue and he might find hmmself at any time withdrawn from that. With that picture, he seemed persuaded.

12 Last time you'd talked about the problem of getting people to consider Laos and Viet Nam together, to look at the whole picture in Southeast Asia. Can you remember there ever being a realization or a strong suspicion on anyone's part that the main concern of the Pathet Lao in Laos was really the Ho Chi Minh Trail as opposed to taking the cities, even Vientiane. We became very much aware of that. During the John Kennedy Administration, or is this later? Yes, I wottld say so. Again it's hard to put a date on a trend. But it's quite true at the outset we perhaps were more afraid of the Mekong Valley and could see no reason why they wouldn't walk down the Mekong Valley, whibh they could have done. But with a little ~xperience in trying to establish surveillance of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, we saw how quickly they were responding militarily to any threat to it. And we could well say, if there had to be a partition of Laos--and at one time that's the way it looked as if it would turn_out--that if we could get a division on anr east-west line, which included on our side the Ho Chi Minh Trail, we'd be in pretty good -shape. But ~he minute we'd try to start feeling around and seeing how that would work out, we f qund that they were prepared to fight to the finish for the trails and didn't care very much about the Plaine des Jarres, although they'd come back and forth with the Monsoon season into the ~laine des Jarres. It was really the defense of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. That was their prime military mission. How did we go about finding that out? Well, by the evidence of military feelers in various parts of the country, by the Lao~ians. If we would have known that earlier, just looking at it in retrospect,,what kind of things could we have done differently?.-<..

13 -68- I don't know that we'd have done anything different because we couldn't have corrected it without bringing in our own forces. The Laotian forces were so weak and unrefuiable and no one was about to recommend- I can't say no one--but the President was not about to open up an active Laotian theater deliberately. Was anyone saying this very early on in the Administration? Was that obvious to anyone at all? Yes, I would say that early in the Kennedy Administration either the Chiefs--I'm always reluctant to quote the Chiefs--either the Chiefs as a body or some of the Chiefs had recommended putting troops into Laos for that kind of purpose. Focusing on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, you mean. Well, at least to drive out the Pathet Lao, and that would have meant, of course, cleaning out the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Well, one of the other things we didn't discuss in general last time was the impact of the American press in VietnNam, which has become so controversial. It was controversial at the time. When in the Kennedy Administration can you recall discussions tar~mg g place here about the matter of the way the American press was reporting on what was happening in Viet Nam? Well, I'm not sure because it goes well back into the Diem Administration before Kennedy, the feeling in Washington that our press was certainly unfr~endly toward Diem. Whether the press critics would go as far as that period in saying that the reporters were unfriendly toward American policy, I'm not sure. And I remember that Homer Bigart, you recall, writing for hhe Times even prior to 1 61, ~as a well known and I would say a respected critic of the American program in South Viet Nam. So this is not something that occurred suddenly in the Kennedy Administration. I don't recall dates, times and places, but it's obvious that this was a growing trend. And! would say that the Administration, our

14 -69.- officials on the ground were not unsympathetic to the complaints of the American press because Diem was such a difficult man to get close to, to get information from. He had no information service in his government that was worth anything. So if I'm a reporter and I go over to the Vietnamese government trying to get information and can't get it, then I come back to the American Embassy for news. If I come back often enough, the Embassy will start giving me some information and will become a sort of vicarious spokesman for the Vietnamese government, a phenomenon that did develop to the detriment of relations between American officials and the American press. What can you recall about the development of President Kennedy's own reaction to thms problem? Do you remember instances when he remarked on it? I don't know except he'd ask, "Why don't we sit down with the press? Are we really trying to establish some kind of cooperative r~lationship?" It appeared to him to be in the interest of both parties, both of the officialdom and the press, to be on friendly terms, on cooperative terms. And he certainly sent the word out that he wanted to see our officials do what they could do to improve relations. Now whether they did the right things or not, I wouldn't know. Can you remember having discussions of this with General Harkins or other military people? Oh, yes. Whenever you got there, it was one of the things that would come up at lunch. They were convinced that the press was not reporting events as they, the officials, saw them. What was your own feeling at the time, as you read the things the press was writing? Well, I could spot many things in the press and know they weren't so. The fact was that the press was not moving out of Saigon. Before.the day of the helicopter, nobody got out of Saigon except a limited number of military commanders. So here again, there were two sides to the coin. A man who's sent out there to be a reporter has to report, and if he can't get out of Saigon, he's not going to get anything more than the Saigon rumors. This was a strong argument as soon as transportation did become available, to

15 give a reasonable break to the press. We couldn't stop the war to give the reporters a ride around the country, but we certainly could take into account the fact that it was in the national interest that the press have a chance to see things. So, as I say, there were always two sides to the story, but unfortunately the situation never got better, it got worse. In your discussions with the President then did you make this case to him, that from your experience or from what you could see that many of the things that the press was saying were inaccurate? I don't recall making ~hat a special topic to report, but as a conversational matter it certainly came up many times in the presence of the President. It was very worrisome to him to see this progressive deterioration in relations between his officials and the press. among. Well, in the inaccuracmes that you saw, was this primarily in the military progress in the countryside or was it primarily political, Diem's support the Buddhist crisis, all of these things? Diem was the great target of the press. He was fair game because here was a foreigner, he was a dictat0r. He had no concern for democratic processes. He didn't believe in a free press. He suppressed his own press. He was just fair game for anybody who wanted a target. If you needed to write an article, you could always write one on Diem. So I would say it was the repeated attacks on Diem, which created major p~oblems between the Diem government and our own officials, that caused us concern. Could you see at a certain point that the reports coming out ~n the press, I guess particularly as '63 develops, mid and ia~e '63, were causing the President toa doubt the kinds of reports that he was getting from the Mission in Saigon? Some people have said that they felt he paid too much attention.

16 -71- I would say that the divisions within the Mission in Saigon, which to some extent reflected divisions here in Washington, caused him far more concern than press reports. You know the famous case where General Krulak and [Joseph A.] Mendenhall.... Mendenhall reported in turn to the President in the Cabinet meeting regarding a trip they had just made to Viet Nam. And the President said, "Did you gentlemen- just come from the same country?" Well, the d&screpancy in their report was almost that bad ) Yet at the time I didn't feel either one of these men was deliberately deceiving the President. God knows they wouldn't want to. They t ~ ied to describe the situation as they saw it. Krulak had been in the field with the military constantly. Mendenhall had been in Saigon constantly with State Department and with the officials of the Vietnamese government. So I would say they both were reporting two views of the same scene. How. would you characterize the development of the differing views within the government, the United States policy, here in Washington and in Saigon? Well, it generally hinged on Diem, "Can we win with Diem?" I think we went over this to some extent the last time. There was a group here in Washington and a group in Saigon convinced that we couldn't win with Diem. And then there was the other group in both Saigon and Washington that did not necessarily say, "We can with Diem"--some of them, I think, thought so--but at least they said, as I did, "Diem is the best we've got. Let's stay with him till we have a better solution." When does the side begin ~o em~rge wmo are saying, "We can't win with Diem?" I would say it was there all the time I was associated with the prob~em, to some degree. It never came out in the open mn a loud crescendo until the sununer of '63 when the Buddhist issue' became the burning issue of the day, and the immolations of the Bonzes began and the feeling grew that something was terribly wrong

17 there. It couldn't be otherwise when men are willing to burn themselves to death. They don't do this for just politics or for show. So it was the thing that caused the whole wave of criticism. And when [Henry Cabott Lodge went out, he was determined that he would get leverage on Diem to force him to change his ways, and if he didn't change, to get him out. HA«KMAN. Who were the people who were most concerned with, I guess who had major doubts about Diem's ability to survive, whether we should support Diem? Well, I would say in Saigon it was the State offi~ials below the ambassador. Nolting was not, definitely not one of them. Mendenhall and [William C.] Trueheart c0me ~ ~o, mind. Now is that your recollection early on or is that only... Trueheart's role has always been.controversial as to whether he always had serious doubts or as bo whether that emerged only when Nolting left. I really can't recall clearly enough when I first came in contact with him and what he felt on that. If you ask ~me, as I look back on it, who were the ones principally involved, I :..mentdmn those two quickly. I'm sure there are others. There were some in CIA who certainly were working against Diem. And by the same token at this end of the line there were people in State and CIA that shared the same view. HAi:CKMAN: You'd conclude then that basically the Defense Department and the military people presented a fairly solid. I never heard anyone representing Defense. Well, when I say Defense, I'm thinking largely of the military people. Certainly McNamara never expressed a desire to drop Diem. Well, he expressed concern. We all had concern over Diem; he obviously had some.very serious weaknesses. But I naever heard a view in the Pentagon, either civilian or military, suggesting that we should take the drastic course of eliminating fliem without making any provisions for a successor. But meanwhile everybody in Washington hae been scratching his head for years trying to

18 -'ln- - r r- find the successor and not succeeded. What can you recall about discussions as to whether to replace Nolting as ambassador. I know as early as February of '63 this was talked about at a National Security Council meeting, I believe. I don't recall when it came up. Nolting was well regarded by the President as I understood it. All of my Defense colleagues liked Nolting. They thought he was a solid, reliable, perhaps not brilliant, but a very competent ambassador, who had got Diem's confidence, which no other ambassador had done since [G. Frederick] Reinhardt, I would say. But Nolting ruhrnself was getting anxious to return. He had family reasons; I've forgotten what they were. And I would say it's my recollection that it was primarily to meet his own desires that he was relieved. When he left, he made a trip around the world. He was on leave in June and early July for about six weeks. And he was not kept informed. of his complaints.. I think that's one Were you aware of that at the time? That he was not informed? No, I wasn't. When you found out that that was so, any inquiry ever made into why that wasn't done, why he was out of touch? There were so many things that were happening this was just a minor, actually, episode. Can you recall gett.ing involved of who should replace Nolting? appointment come about? in discussions then How does the Lodge

19 That's a good question. When did I know of that? I certainly had nothing to do with it. I was not asked. Had I been asked, I would have been very enthusiastic about it. No, I think I was just told. at some point. And, of course, by that time I was Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. There was no reason why I should be in that matter at all, but when I heard it, I thought it was an excellent appointment. You don't remember other people being discussed as ~ potential appointees? No. At what point did people become seriously concerned with Nhu's influence in the Diem government? Does this go all the way through? Well, we knew that Nhu was a worrisome fellow all the way through. I think I first met him in '61. He was a very strange fellow, very strange fellow who spoke in parables. He was very difficult to follow. You weren't sure whether you were stupid and he was very brilliant, or that he was just so disorganized that no one could understand him. But it was a concern for a long while that Nhu's influence was growing in proportion to Diem's withdrawal from contact with the real world. And, in a sense, Diem began to see the world through Nhu; that became detectable. So the concern was a constantly growing one up through Can you recall the impact that the Buddhist demonstrations, I guess which really begin in May and then the incident in Hue I believe is May eighth, had? Can you reoall the meetings that took place here in Washington after that? Is that... Well, there were many of them. I can't reca~l any particular. one. But while many of us had been out there, at the outset we were inclined, I think, to interpret it correctly. All of us were shaken when we saw the immolations and that sort of thing. And Lodge, I would say, was reporting this as something somewhat like a pogrom against the Buddhists. So the most cool headed and the least

20 emotional of the observers and councilors here in Washington were effected by this. I was. I didn't know what to think. So we all got to thinking in terms of a religious persecution with Nhu at the head and a deliberate refusal on the part of Diem to follow the kind of guidance wfuich Lodge was trying to give, which was all on the s mde of moderation and so on. And then finally the assault on the pagodas was played up here by the press, and I would say also by the official reports, as a t errible thing. So we felt that we were faced with something completely different from the intransigence and the stubbornness of Diem during the past year. Was anyone making the argument at that time that this wasn't really religious persecution, but that it was a clever political ploy on the part of the Buddhists to overthrow the Diem government? Well, some of our reports were coming in to that effect. On the military side we were constantly asking, "Well, what effect is that having on the army? If the country's 80 percent Buddhist, there's 80 percent of the army." The answer was, "The army wasn't effected at all by it." Military operations continued. There was no evidence of this being a factor working against d~~cipline, let's say, performance of duty and so on. Robert McNamara and I went out in October with the primary purpose of finding out just what was going on and how this was effecting the military business. And there's where my change of view came about- When I got on the ground and started examining how many Buddhists had been involved, just what has happened and that sort of thing, it became perfectly clear the situation was not what one had judged from a distance to be the case. McNamara and I very aeliberately, knowing we were running a certain risk, made the statement we've been criticized' about so of'een since: "Militarily, we're doing well,. If this political situation can be stabilized, in a couple of years we can reduce this war to the kind of thing that could be handled entirely by the --:Vietnamese"--i_n other words, this was the Vietnamization program in its first form. B~t the fact was the political situation didn't stabilize, and less than a month later the coup took place, which the U.S. government had encouraged, and all the consequences thereof.

21 In the reports coming back to Washington about the demonstrations, I guess, May, June, and July, were the reports coming from the military the only ones who were making this point, or were the other parts of the United States Mission agreeing with the reporters, so to speak? You mean were the military in Viet Nam the only ones who were saying, "This is really not too important?" Right. I can't say that without qualification. I would say that was the only source I can recall. When did Nolting leave? He left in either late :-May or very early Jun~ didn't return till like... and. back, in meeting? Well, while he was in Saigon he was certainly not playing it up. He was not attaching any great importance to it. So his absence would probably have had a significant impact in that sense? It would~ It would. Had he been there, I think we would have had a more temperate statement coming through official sources. At the end of Nolting's six week period of time when he was out of Viet: Nam, there was a meeting then here in Washington, I think, beforehhe went late July. Can you remember anything about that Late July. Can you remember discussing any new instructions that he should take out or what he should tell Diem?

22 No. I'd have to get my notes out. Did we mention the fact that Nolting was very much concerned about not having enough control over Harkins in his own directive, in January? No. At the time he went out he was not satisfied with Harkins' directives, feeling that he didn't have enough control over this military commander who was going to be quite a different fellow from the chief of the MAAG, with whom the relationship with the Ambassador had been quite clear and orthodox. So Nolting came to Washington in January to argue the point with the President. And it disturbed the President. It disturbed me at the time because it looked as if these two men who must work together were getting off to a bad start. And I was made the negotiator in trying to get a paper that would be mutually satisfactory. Well, we finally got one, which seemed to me ought to be satisfactory, satisfactory to the military, and Nolting accepted it but very reluctantly. Now we went to the Presiaent and I said, "AmbaS.sador Nolting is not entirely satisfied with this directive, but we've agreed to the following: that he will take it as a tentative document. If it doesn't work, he can reopen the matter with us at any time." He took it on that basis quite unhappily I would say. But he went back, and immediately the two worked beautifully together. I told him in advance, "I've known Harkins for years. He's the kind of fellow that works well with people. He gets along well. He's understanding and you'll have no trouble with him. 11 Well, that's exactly the way it worked. Then when Lodge w.erlt out, there was no concern at all because Lodge and Harkins had been buddies back in Massachusetts years before. The odd thing was that whereas the Nolting-Harkins arrangement worked in complete harmony, really Lodge and Harkins never hit ~ t. off well. They never complained about each other, but they never worked together with anything like the effectiveness the two strangers had...

23 Why do you think that was so? Let me just ask it this way: What assumptions can you recall that Ambassador Lodge took to the field when he went? Did you have discussions with him before he went out? He was certainly told in State that he had to get control of Diem. Whether the President actually gave him those instructions, I don't know. It's hard to believe he didn't, but I never saw any evidence that he had. Lodge is a very able man and a good friend of mine, but he's not a team player. Politicians afud also lawyers tend to be lone wolves. They keep their counsel to themselves. So the hard thing was to maintain communication back and forthlbetween the civilians and military in Saigon, the Embassy and [Military Advisory Command Viet Nam] MACV. Imperfect communications can certainly foul up relationships in a short period of time. Well, what about communications from Lodge back to Washington? Were they adequate? Was he as inclined to be as frank and complete in his reporting as Nolting had been or does that change? I would think so. I don't recall any question. No problem. What can you recall, then about. I would add though that the feuding in Saigon did break out after Lodge got there, and it became very apparent that there were three or four focal points of influence and not a single one represented by the Ambassador. The other ones being? CIA--The CIA was in all sorts of things--the Embassy and MACV. What can you recall about the recall then of [John H.] Richardson, John Richardson, as the CIA man?

24 Well, I can't recall very clearly the exact grounds for that. I know it was felt in CIA that he was being blamed improperly for some of the unhappiness in Saigon. Whether he was right or wrong, I don't know, but the Ambassador wanted it that way and, quite properly, the Ambassador got it that way. At this end of the line what kind of relationship did you have with John McCone during that period? Were there many problems in working it out at this end? No. Well, he resented the recall of Ribhardson because he didn't think it was warranted. Perhaps it wasn't. I'm not sure. But that created no problem in terms of our relationships here in Washington. How well did~ the, I believe it's called Operation Switchback, when training is taken over by the Spe~ial Forces from the CIA who'd been handling some of the anti-guerrilla training. Can you remember that being hard to take.. I remember the issue and for a while the CIA did not want to give it up, but when the time came for a decision, certainly the impression I received was that they had decided that it had grown too large for CIA management and it certainly had some political disadvantages, so that the transfer was made apparently with good will. Now whether there was any resentment down at the lower levels, I don't know. I heard there was. q Do you remember how that decision was made, where it was made, basically? In the field? What was the date of that? I don't have a dat~, I don't believe... < My recollection would be that the President was simply informed that it had been worked out between McNamara and McCone, but my recollection might be faulty.

25 What can you remember then about how that famous cable of August 24th comes about and your role then that day? I haven't reviewed it. I'm going to do that some time and write it very carefully. But it's fairly simple as far as I'm concerned just on memory. I never saw the cable until it had been dispatched. Late August 24, I was informed about it by telephone by Ros Gilpatric calling me from his farm out in Maryland to my house over in Fort Meyer, informing me it had gone out and the substance of it. And I expressed great concern over it and he did too. Now whether the record shows that he ever concurred in it, I don't know. As I recall, it doesn't show on the actual form of the cable. To what extent the President cleared it knowing what he was doing, I'm not sure. But bhe pointi is, in defense of those who have been charged--and I think with reason--of slipping something by the Administration, certainly by the Pentagon, all of it coula have been recalled the next day. In other words, all this was revocable, if the contents had not been communicated to Diem's enemies in Saigon. So that if the President hadn't been satisfied, he comld have changed it had he acted in time and he didn't. But there was never a general discussion at a meeting where all of th.is was talked out, how this happenea and whether something, in fact, slipped out? been dent. I didn't.... I was Chairman by that time, and I expressed to Secretary McNamara the strong objection of the Joint Chiefs to the way it had handled and left it to him to present it to the Presi What he did about it, I don't know. HA~KMAN: Do you remember how quickly you made that point to Secretary McNamara? As soon as I made my investigation that weekend. I would say on the following Monday.... ~.

26 -~- Well, I believe there was a meeting that he attended, a National Security Council meeting, on Monday. I don't know if you've read Hilsman's book. Hilsman's account. Largely ~ fiction.. of the way General Hrulak supposedly called you. No. He says that Krulak came to a restaurant and gave me a copy of the cable. Complete fiction. From readin~ that book--obviously, you've read it or heard about it... Well, I've just read a few spots of it. I got so mad reading some of it that I just said, "To hell With it. II Can you remember other things? No. Other major inaccuracies in there? No. This one I just.... Purely personal. It had absolutely nothing to do with history. It was just a r~diculous fabdication. Why it had been put into the book, I have no idea. Also he volunteered that, of course, had I seen it, I'd have been for it. Well, he knew very well I'd have been against the cable. That's why he didn't ever let me get near to it. rt" 1 1Gan you remember, other than your conversation with Secretary McNamara then, conversations with other people involved and their particular... There were extensive discussions with the Chiefs om the subject. But where wlse I.... I say, I'd have to go back and get out the diary. I'm going to do it sometime...::-..

27 B0bb,v J'~o nn 0dv P ~~ I first. met. Bobby on April 22, 1961 dur5.ng a visit. to Jlihe White }fou:;o at the invitation of Preniderrt lfonnedy.. Two day9 after tho t:t a-gio cndin ;~ of the nay of PiGS oper&tion,, the President h.:i.d aslwd ms to com~ from Herr York where I wan working at Lincoln Cent< H."' to underteko an irrvestigdt1.on of the causea of 't;he.failum of tha Cuban oxpcdhion., I lr;:arned upon arrival t hat he wished Bobby, Arleigh Burka, nnd AJlEln Dulles to join me in this investigation. '( Bobby and :r uor ked very clor;ely togothe1 in the ensuing l~eks as the inveatir,ating panel tried to reconstruct all o.specta cf tha operation-- its origin in the Risenhouar Administration, :tts evolution after P ro~ idant Kennedy' a entcy into office, the organi-zution, training nnd m1.s<>ion of the Cuban Brlgade and, finally, tho execution of t he landing itgelf. In sifting out the f acts of thfa complez and llttle ur~.'.h<: ratood operation--little Understood eve~ by tho senior responsible officials because of the high degree of deliberate cornpartmanta.tion in tho pltrnn5.n~;- Bobby "Was a thorough and incisive interrogntor of 'Witnessos, quid: t o identify ~ "onow job," il-ipatient 'With evasion or imprecision, nnd ro1.entlcso in his dctom:tn<ation to {!et at th9 truth. He v.aa clearly Olla who cot practice above theory and judged performance h"j reaults. I must confess that I had had considerable misgivings in u.ndertald.ng the investigation because I llnticipatad great difficulty in getting n consensus within t.he panal becauso of the conflicting intorests of MY colleagues. Bobby uas obviou.aly present to guard tha interests of President Kenn~dy, Burke t-0 seo that the Joint Chiefs of Stnf.f T'<~ c e:t~'l"d

28 - 2" - fa.ir treatraent, and Allen Dt,llcs to defcn(l the role of tho GT.A. Happily, my fen.rs \tare not juutified becau~e of the ch~ractor ond intcg~"ity of rny colleagues and becansa of Bobby' a a~sistimce in drafting our report \-1h1ch~ being unequivocal but fair iu identifying r;ugtnkes, gained the support of all roc."llbers of tha panel o.nd upparontly engendered no rescnt-ment runong the officials criticized when prgscnted to them. It vas Bobby -who "recruited'l roe for the Kennedy Administr..tti In the course of our '~ork together on the inyastigation, l~ began to explore my interest in entering some form of eovernv:e11t service in Washin[;ton. I we germinely cool to a ret\u'l'l to th$ seem) i.;hich I had quit l".rith oo regrets in Furthermore, I kne;,r that Diddy, who for tho first tinw 1n our married life \~aa happily install~d 5.n a honio of ber Olfll in Naw York,. '..1ould \ never i;ant to move back to Washington. HO\..-ever, as the b'oekn '\-:ent by, I began 'Go like the air of the Wew.Frontier, al'ld to senso- the cham of the young President and the constructive activism of Bobby and his friends. Eventually, I succ1iillbed to the Lorelei who by that tillle included Jaok.1.e, enlisted by Bobby to help bl"eak down the resiat<tnce of tha reluctant General. So by raid-su'.!lraer, Bobby had me on his_ team. r.n wrking with Bobby, I was deeply 1inpreaaed l.'1.tb his nttitude tofi'..li"d his brother, the President. It ~s a reversal of the normal fraternal relationship of a big brother looking attar a younger one. In this ca3e, Bobby, the younger brother, eeomed to take a protective viey or tho President whose bul"dena he tried to share 01" lighton. In rrry O'\m early denllnga with tha President, Bobby waa very helpful to me in explaining his brother.s

29 WlYS of working and al10w1ng t-a() ho~t best to adjust to thera. At the same time, I oboerved how Jack used Bobby aa h:l.9 trusted alter ego, cal.ling 'on hita to undertake all sorts of ta.ska far l""emoved from the norm.al purviow of an Attorney Oeneral. It waa apparent that he had -a particularly high ret;ard for Dobby' s judgment i.t1 tho field of political and human relations in ond outsid$ the govornment and leaned heavily on him. fo'i' help in th.ope mattex a. Ona 0 the consequences of our Bay of Pigs report ~as 1n Ja11uary 1962 of tha Speeial Group (G: mnterinsurgr.ancy). th.a establishment President h'.!ln.."ledy set up this interdepartment committee to assure unity of go~ernmental effort a.nd the use of all available rosource8 in o.ntic:i.pating, preventing and re eisting subversive 1.nsurr,cncy and related forms of agp.;ression directed at. \ friondly countries. I was trie fil:'tlt ehain:1an arrl Bobby was a r!letl\ber along with Alex Johnson, lloe Gilpatric,. General Lemnitzer, John McCone, Mso Buocly, Ed M-olI'roY and Dave Boll. The comm:lttce waa very active during its first year in providing guidance to the many departments and agencies of the goverm.ent involved 1n counterinsurgency, and in lreepir1g under review tha Gitu;at1on in Cuba folloving the Bay of Pigs episode. Bobby was the "strong maa" on the comniittoe becauso of hia keen interest in the subject of countor A insurgency and hie data:rroinati.on to develop tho3a capabilities within the Kennedy Ad1111n1stration uhi~h 1t had lacked in Aprll of the preceding year_. llis personal interest, supported by that o! President Kennedy, assured a prompt reaction from any goverment agency receiving a directive from our ccxlltlittee and Bobby va.s sur~ to give govnr.f!llent ~itnosses a lively afternoon

30 -, when they appeared to account for thoir per.fomance in executing their ass:i.gned taslrn. I suppose that his aggre3nivenoss on the Special Group might be cited as evidence of the ruthlessness l-t'l th which he sometirnea has been cbargede.personally, I found him ruthless only in h:i.s determination to servo any causg to which ho was commit ted. Ho was. sine9rely committed to the cause of counterinsurgency and the success of our grou~ o ~>ed very much to him. It ia Bobby 1 s part in the Cuban missile crisis which remains most vivid in my recollection ot our official associations togethei'o Following tha discovery in mid-october of tho missiles on Cuba, President Kennedy formed the so-called EXCOM consisting of his principal advirora whom he wished to help him in thls crisis. It wa:j during the friendly but. often sharp deba"v ~s ~ within the EXC0:-4 thnt tho distinction between Hawk3 and Dove11 firl3t arose. 'l'he Hawks were those who advocate.d sana form of strong military action to assure the removal of the Soviet missiles fran Cuba; the Doves generally.favored reliance upon lesser means.. I was an unqualified Ha wk and generally accounted Bobby a member or at least an ally of.that group. The decisive debate iri the EXCOM took place just in advance of President Kennedy's October 22 speech, and turned on the issue of whether we should attack by surprise the Soviet missiles in their known locations on Cuba prior to the delivery of the speech. The Hawks were convinced of the need to destroy these missiles before they could be dispersed and hidden. Personally, I ~as sure that if the President made his October 22 speech indicating his knowledge of t heir presence before attocking themp they would disappear