JFK50: Robert Strange McNamara

Delivery of the McNamrra-Taylor Report (Authored by President John F. Kennedy, Esq.)

"Who is man? Is he a rational animal? 

If he is, then the goals can ultimately be achieved. 

If he is not, then there is little point in making the effort.

All the evidence of history suggests that man is indeed a rational animal but with a near infinite capacity for folly. 

His history seems largely a halting, but persistent, effort to raise his reason above his animality. 

He draws blueprints for utopia. But never quite gets it built. 

In the end he plugs away obstinately with the only building material really ever at hand his own part-comic, part-tragic, part-cussed, but part-glorious nature."

- Robert McNamara, 1966

"I want to say, and this is very important: at the end WE LUCKED OUT...

It was luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. 

Rational individuals: Kennedy was rational; Khrushchev was rational; Castro was rational. 

Rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies. 

And that danger exists today."

- Robert McNamarra, 2005

Robert McNamara’s Speech on “Security in the Contemporary World”

By Joe Campbell

SECURITY IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense

before the American Society of Newspaper Editors

Montreal, Canada, May 18th, 1966

Any American would be fortunate to visit this lovely island city, in this hospitable land. But there is a special satisfaction for a Secretary of Defense to cross the longest border in the world and realize that it is also the least armed border in the world. It prompts one to reflect how negative and narrow a notion of defense still clouds our century.

There is still among us an almost eradicable tendency to think of our security problem as being exclusively a military problem-and to think of the military problem as being exclusively a weapons-system or hardware problem.

The plain, blunt truth is that contemporary man still conceives of war and peace in much the same stereotyped terms that his ancestors did.

The fact that these ancestors, both recent and remote, were conspicuously unsuccessful at avoiding war, and enlarging peace, doesn’t seem to dampen our capacity for cliches.

We still tend to conceive of national security almost solely as a state of armed readiness: a vast, awesome arsenal of weaponry.

We still tend to assume that it is primarily this purely military ingredient that creates security.

We are still haunted by this concept of military hardware. But how limited a concept this actually is becomes apparent when one ponders the kind of peace that exists between the United States and Canada.

It is a very cogent example. Here we are, two modern nations, highly developed technologically, each with immense territory, both enriched with great reserves of natural resources, each militarily sophisticated; and yet we sit across from one another, divided by an unguarded frontier of thousands of miles, and there is not a remotest set of circumstances, in any imaginable time frame of the future, in which our two nations would wage war on one another.

It is so unthinkable an idea as to be totally absurd. But why is that so?

Is it because we are both ready in an instant to hurl our military hardware at one another? Is it because we are both zeroed in on one another’s vital targets? Is it because we are both armed to our technological teeth that we do not go to war? The whole notion, as

applied to our two countries, is ludicrous.

Canada and the United States are at peace for reasons that have nothing whatever to do with our mutual military readiness. We are at peace-truly at peace- because of the vast fund of compatible beliefs, common principles, and shared ideals. We have our differences and our diversity and let us hope for the sake of a mutually rewarding relationship we never become sterile carbon copies of one another. But the whole point is that our basis of mutual peace has nothing whatever to do with our military

hardware.

Now this is not to say, obviously enough, that the concept of military deterrence is no longer relevant in the contemporary world. Unhappily, it still is critically relevant with respect to our potential adversaries. But it has no relevance what ever between the United States and Canada.

We are not adversaries. We are not going to become adversaries. And it is not mutual military deterrence that keeps us from becoming adversaries. It is mutual respect for common principles. Now I mention this-as obvious as it all is-simply as a kind of reductio ad absurdum of the concept that military hardware is the exclusive or even the primary ingredient of permanent peace in the mid 20th century.

In the United States over the past 5 years, we have achieved a considerably improved balance in our total military posture. That was the mandate I received from Presidents Kennedy and Johnson; and with their support, and that of the Congress, we have been able to create a strengthened force structure of land, sea, and air components with a vast

increase in mobility and materiel and with a massive superiority in nuclear retaliatory power over any combination of potential adversaries.

Our capabilities for nuclear, conventional, and countersubversive war have all been broadened and improved; and we have accomplished this through military budgets that were in fact lesser percentages of our gross national product than in the past.

From the point of view of combat readiness, the United States has never been militarily stronger. We intend to maintain that readiness. But if we think profoundly about the matter, it is clear that this purely military posture is not the central element in our security. A nation can reach the point at which it does not buy more security for itself simply by buying more military hardware. We are at that point. The decisive factor

for a powerful nation already adequately armed is the character of its relationships with the world.

In this respect, there are three broad groups of nations: first, those that are struggling to develop; secondly, those free nations that have reached a level of strength and prosperity that enables them to contribute to the peace of the world; and finally, those nations who might tempted to make themselves our adversaries. For each of these groups, the United

States, to preserve its intrinsic security, has to have distinctive sets of relationships. First, we have to help protect those developing countries which genuinely need and request our help and which, as an essential precondition, are willing and able to help themselves.

Second, we have to encourage and achieve a more effective partnership with those nations who can and should share international peacekeeping responsibilities.

Third, we must do all we realistically can to reduce the risk of conflict with those who might be tempted to take up arms against us.

Let us examine these three sets of relationships in detail.

The Developing Nations

First, the developing nations. Roughly 100 countries today are caught up in the difficult transition from traditional to modern societies. There is no uniform rate of progress among them, and they range from primitive mosaic societies fractured by tribalism and held feebly together by the slenderest of political sinews to relatively sophisticated countries well on the road to agricultural sufficiency and industrial competence.

This sweeping surge of development, particularly across the whole southern half of the globe, has no parallel in history. It has turned traditionally listless areas of the world into seething cauldrons of change.

On the whole, it has not been a very peaceful process.

In the last 8 years alone there have been no less than 164 internationally significant outbreaks of violence, each of them specifically designed as a serious challenge to the authority, or the very existence, of the government in question. Eighty two different governments have been directly involved.

What is striking is that only 15 of these 164 significant resorts to violence have been military conflicts between two states. And not a single one of the 164 conflicts has been a formally declared war. Indeed, there has not been a formal declaration of war anywhere in the world since World War II.

The planet is becoming a more dangerous place to live on, not merely because of a potential nuclear holocaust but also because of the large number of de facto conflicts and because the trend of such conflicts is growing rather than diminishing. At the beginning of 1958, there were 23 prolonged insurgencies going on about the world. As of February 1, 1966, there were 40. Further, the total number of outbreaks of violence has increased each year: In 1958, there were 34; in 1965, there were 58.

The Relationship of Violence and Economic Status

But what is most significant of all is that there is a direct and constant relationship between the incidence of violence and the economic status of the countries afflicted. The World Bank divides nations on the basis of per capita income into four categories: rich, middle income, poor, and very poor.

The rich nations are those with a per capita income of $750 per year or more.

The current U.S. level is more than $2,700. There are 27 of these rich nations. They possess 75 percent of the world’s wealth, though roughly only 25 percent of the world’s population.

Since 1958, only one of these 27 nations has suffered a major internal upheaval on its own territory. But observe what happens at the other end of the economic scale.

Among the 38 very poor nations those with a per capita income of under $100 a year not less than 32 have suffered significant conflicts. Indeed, they have suffered an average of two major outbreaks of violence per country in the 8 year period. That is a great deal of conflict.

What is worse, it has been predominantly conflict of a prolonged nature. The trend holds predictably constant in the case of the two other categories: the poor and the middle income nations. Since 1958, 87 percent of the very poor nations, 69 percent of the poor nations, and 48 percent of the middle income nations have suffered serious violence.

There can, then, be no question but that there is an irrefutable relationship between violence and economic backwardness. And the trend of such violence is up, not down.

Now, it would perhaps be somewhat reassuring if the gap between the rich nations and the poor nations were closing and economic backwardness were significantly receding. But it is not. The economic gap is widening.

By the year 1970 over one half of the world’s total population will live in the independent nations sweeping across the southern half of the planet. But this hungering half of the human race will by then command only one sixth of the world’s total of goods and services. By the year 1975 the dependent children of these nations alone children under 15 years of age will equal the total population of the developed nations to the north.

Even in our own abundant societies, we have reason enough to worry over the tensions that coil and tighten among under-privileged young people and finally flail out in delinquency and crime. What are we to expect from a whole hemisphere of youth where mounting frustrations are likely to fester into eruptions of violence and extremism?

Annual per capita income in roughly half of the 80 underdeveloped nations that are members of the World Bank is rising by a paltry 1 percent a year or less. By the end of the century these nations, at their present rates of growth, will reach a per capita income of barely $170 a year. The United States, by the same criterion, will attain a per capita income of $4,500.

The conclusion to all of this is blunt and inescapable: Given the certain connection between economic stagnation and the incidence of violence, the years that lie ahead for the nations in the southern half of the globe are pregnant with violence.

U.S. Security and the Newly Developing World

This would be true even if no threat of Communist subversion existed is it clearly does. Both Moscow and Peking, however harsh their internal differences, regard the whole modernization process as an ideal environment for the growth of communism. Their experience with subversive internal war is extensive, and they have developed a considerable array of both doctrine and practical measures in the art of political violence.

What is often misunderstood is that Communists are capable of subverting, manipulating, and finally directing for their own ends the wholly legitimate grievances of a developing society.

But it would be a gross oversimplification to regard communism as the central factor in every conflict throughout the underdeveloped world. Of the 149 serious internal insurgencies in the past 8 years, Communists have been involved in only 58 of them – 8 percent of the total- and this includes seven instances in which a Communist regime itself was the target of the uprising.

Whether Communists are involved or not, violence anywhere in a taut world transmits sharp signals through the complex gangli of international relations; and the security of the United States is related to the security and stability of nations half a glob away.

But neither conscience nor sanity itself suggests that the United States is, should or could be the global gendarme. Quite the contrary. Experience confirms what human nature suggests: that in most instances of internal violence the local people themselves are best able to deal directly with the situation within the framework of their own traditions.

The United States has no mandate from on high to police the world and no inclination to do so. There have been classic case in which our deliberate non-action was the wisest action of all. Where our help is not sought, it is seldom prudent to volunteer. Certainly we have no charter to rescue floundering regimes who have brought violence on themselves by deliberately refusing to meet the legitimate expectations of their citizenry.

Further, throughout the next decade advancing technology will reduce the requirements for bases and staging rights at particular locations abroad, and the whole pattern of forward deployment will gradually change.

But, though all these caveats are clear enough, the irreducible fact remains that our security is related directly to the security of the newly developing world. And our role must be precisely this: to help provide security to those developing nations which genuinely need and request our help and which demonstrably are willing and able to help themselves.

Security and Development

The rub comes in this: We do not always grasp the meaning of the word “security” in this context. In a modernizing society, security means development.

Security is not military hardware, though it may include it. Security is not military force, though it may involve it. Security is not traditional military activity, though it may encompass it. Security is development. Without development, there can be no security. A developing nation that does not in fact develop simply cannot remain “secure.” It cannot remain secure for the intractable reason that its own citizenry cannot shed its human nature.

If security implies anything, it implies a minimal measure of order and stability. Without internal development of at least a minimal degree, order and stability are simply not possible. They are not possible because human nature cannot be frustrated beyond intrinsic limits. It reacts because it must.

Now, that is what we do not always understand, and that is also what governments of modernizing nations do not always understand. But by emphasizing that security arises from development, I do not say that an underdeveloped nation cannot be subverted from within, or be aggressed upon from without, or be the victim of a combination of the two. It can. And to prevent any or all of these conditions, a nation does require appropriate military capabilities to deal with the specific problem. But the specific military problem is only a narrow facet of the broader security problem.

Military force can help provide law and order but only to the degree that a basis for law and order already exists in the developing society: a basic willingness on the part of the people to cooperate. The law and order is a shield, behind which the central fact of security – development – can be achieved.

Now we are not playing a semantic game with these words. The trouble is that we have been lost in a semantic jungle for too long. We have come to identify “security” with exclusively military phenomena, and most particularly with military hardware. But it just isn’t so. And we need to accommodate to the facts of the matter if we want to see security survive and grow in the southern half of the globe.

Development means economic, social, and political progress. It means a reasonable standard of living, and the word “reasonable” in this context requires continual redefinition. What is “reasonable” in an earlier stage of development will become “unreasonable” in a later stage.

As development progresses, security progresses. And when the people of a nation have organized their own human and natural resources to provide themselves with what they need and expect out of life and have learned to compromise peacefully among competing demands in the larger national interest then their resistance to disorder and violence will be enormously increased.

Conversely, the tragic need of desperate men to resort to force to achieve the inner imperatives of human decency will diminish.

Military and Economic Spheres of U.S. Aid

Now, I have said that the role of the United States is to help provide security to these modernizing nations, providing they need and request our help and are clearly willing and able to help themselves. But what should our help be? Clearly, it should be help toward development. In the military sphere, that involves two broad categories of assistance.

We should help the developing nation with such training and equipment as is necessary to maintain the protective shield behind which development can go forward.

The dimensions of that shield vary from country to country, but what is essential is that it should be a shield and not a capacity for external aggression.

The second, and perhaps less understood category of military assistance in a modernizing nation, is training in civic action. Civic action is another one of those semantic puzzles. Too few Americans and too few officials in developing nations really comprehend what military civic action means. Essentially, it means using indigenous military forces for nontraditional military projects, projects that are useful to the local population in fields such as education, public works, health, sanitation, agriculture – indeed, anything connected with economic or social progress.

It has had some impressive results. In the past 4 years the U.S. assisted civic action program, worldwide, has constructed or repaired more than 10,000 miles of roads, built over 1,000 schools, hundreds of hospitals and clinics, and has provided medical and dental care to approximately 4 million people.

What is important is that all this was done by indigenous men in uniform. Quite apart from the developmental projects themselves, the program powerfully alters the negative image of the military man as the oppressive preserver of the stagnant status quo.

But assistance in the purely military sphere is not enough. Economic assistance is also essential. The President is determined that our aid should be hardheaded and rigorously realistic, that it should deal directly with the roots of underdevelopment and not merely attempt to alleviate the symptoms. His bedrock principle is that U.S. economic aid -

no matter what its magnitude – is futile unless the country in question is resolute in making the primary effort itself. That will be the criterion, and that will be the crucial condition for all our future assistance.

Only the developing nations themselves can take the fundamental measures that make outside assistance meaningful. These measures are often unpalatable and frequently call for political courage and decisiveness. But to fail to undertake painful, but essential, reform inevitably leads to far more painful revolutionary violence. Our economic assistance is designed to offer a reasonable alternative to that violence. It is designed to help substitute peaceful progress for tragic internal conflict.

The United States intends to be compassionate and generous in this effort, but it is not an effort it can carry exclusively by itself. And thus it looks to those nations who have reached the point of self-sustaining prosperity to increase their contribution to the development and, thus, to the security of the modernizing world.

Sharing Peacekeeping Responsibilities

And that brings me to the second set of relationships that I underscored at the outset; it is the policy of the United States to encourage and achieve a more effective partnership with those nations who can, and should, share international peacekeeping responsibilities.

America has devoted a higher proportion of its gross national product to its military establishment than any other major free-world nation. This was true even before our increased expenditures in Southeast Asia. We have had, over the last few years, as many men in uniform as all the nations of Western Europe combined, even though they have a population half again greater than our own.

Now, the American people are not going to shirk their obligations in any part of the world, but they clearly cannot be expected to bear a disproportionate share of the common burden indefinitely. If, for example, other nations genuinely believe – as they say they do – that it is in the common interest to deter the expansion of Red China’s economic and political control beyond its national boundaries, then they must take

a more active role in guarding the defense perimeter. Let me be perfectly clear. This is not to question the policy of neutralism or nonalignment of any particular nation. But it is to emphasize that the independence of such nations can, in the end, be fully safeguarded only by collective agreements among themselves and their neighbors.

The plain truth is the day is coming when no single nation, however powerful, can undertake by itself to keep the peace outside its own borders. Regional and international organizations for peacekeeping purposes are as yet rudimentary, but they must grow in experience and be strengthened by deliberate and practical cooperative action.

In this matter, the example of Canada is a model for nations everywhere. As Prime Minister Pearson pointed out eloquently in New York just last week: Canada “is as deeply involved in the world’s affairs as any country of its size. We accept this because we have learned over 50 years that isolation from the policies that determine war does not give us immunity from the bloody, sacrificial consequences of their failure. We learned

that in 1914 and again in 1939. . . . That is why we have been proud to send our men to take part in every peacekeeping operation of the United Nations in Korea, and Kashmir, and the Suez, and the Congo, and Cyprus.”

The Organization of American States in the Dominican Republic, the more than 30 nations contributing troops or supplies to assist the Government of South Viet Nam, indeed even the parallel efforts of the United States and the Soviet Union in the Pakistan-India conflict these efforts, together with those of the U.N., are the first attempts to substitute multinational for unilateral policing of violence. They point to the peacekeeping patterns of the future.

We must not merely applaud the idea. We must dedicate talent, resources, and hard practical thinking to its implementation. In Western Europe, an area whose burgeoning economic vitality stands as a monument to the wisdom of the Marshall Plan, the problems of security are neither static nor wholly new. Fundamental changes are under way, though certain inescapable realities remain. The conventional forces of NATO, for example, still require a nuclear backdrop far beyond the capability of any Western

European nation to supply, and the United States is fully committed to provide that major nuclear deterrent.

However, the European members of the alliance have a natural desire to participate more actively in nuclear planning. A central task of the alliance today is, therefore, to work out the relationships and institutions through which shared nuclear planning can be effective. We have made a practical and promising start in the Special Committee of NATO Defense Ministers.

Common planning and consultation are essential aspects of any sensible substitute to the unworkable and dangerous alternative of independent national nuclear forces within the alliance. And even beyond the alliance we must find the means to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. That is a clear imperative.

There are, of course, risks in nonproliferation arrangements, but they cannot be compared with the infinitely greater risks that would arise out of the increase in national nuclear stockpiles. In the calculus of risk, to proliferate independent national nuclear forces is not a mere arithmetical addition of danger. We would not be merely adding up risks. We would be insanely multiplying them.

If we seriously intend to pass on a world to our children that is not threatened by nuclear holocaust, we must come to grips with the problem of proliferation. A reasonable nonproliferation agreement is feasible. For there is no adversary with whom we do not share a common interest in avoiding mutual destruction triggered by an irresponsible nth power.

Dealing With Potential Adversaries

That brings me to the third and last set of relationships the United States must deal with: those with nations who might be tempted to take up arms against us.

These relationships call for realism. But realism is not a hardened, inflexible, unimaginative attitude. The realistic mind is a restlessly creative mind, free of naive delusions but full of practical alternatives. There are practical alternatives to our current relationships with both the Soviet Union and Communist China.

A vast ideological chasm separates us from them and to a degree separates them from one another. There is nothing to be gained from our seeking an ideological rapproachment; but breaching the isolation of great nations like Red China, even when that isolation is largely of its own making reduces the danger of potentially catastrophic misunderstandings and increase the incentive on both sides to resolve disputes by reason rather than by force.

There are many ways in which we can build bridges toward nations who would cut themselves off from meaningful contact with us. We can do so with properly balanced trade relations, diplomatic contacts and in some cases even by exchanges of military observers. We have to know when it is we want to place this bridge, what sort of traffic we want to travel over it, an on what mutual foundations the whole structure can be designed.

There are no one cliff bridges. If you are going to span a chasm, you have to rest the structure on both cliffs. Now cliffs, generally speaking, are rather hazardous places. Some people are afraid even to look over the edge. But in a thermonuclear world, we cannot afford any political acrophobia.

President Johnson has put the matter squarely: By building bridges to those who make themselves our adversaries, “we can help gradually to create a community of interest, a community of trust, and a community of effort.”

With respect to a “community of effort” let me suggest a concrete proposal for our own present young generation in the United States. It is a committed and dedicated generation. It has proven that in its enormously impressive performance in the Peace Corps overseas and in its willingness to volunteer for a final assault on such poverty and lack of opportunity that still remain in our own country.

As matters stand, our present Selective Service System draws on only a minority of eligible young men. That is an inequity. It seems to me that we could move toward remedying that inequity by asking every young person in the United States to give 2 years of service to his country whether in one of the military services, in the Peace Corps, or in some other volunteer developmental work at home or abroad.

We could encourage other countries to do the same, and we could work out exchange programs much as the Peace Corps is already planning to do.

While this is not an altogether new suggestion, it has been criticized as inappropriate while we are engaged in a shooting war. But I believe precisely the opposite is the case. It is more appropriate now than ever. For it would underscore what our whole purpose is in Viet-Nam and indeed anywhere in the world where coercion, or injustice, or lack of decent opportunity still holds sway. It would make meaningful the central concept of security a world of decency and development where every man can feel that his personal horizon is rimmed with hope. Mutual interest, mutual trust, mutual effort those are the goals. Can we achieve those goals with the Soviet Union, and with Communist China? Can they achieve them with one another?

The answer to these questions lies in the answer to an even more fundamental question. Who is man? Is he a rational animal? If he is, then the goals can ultimately be achieved. If he is not, then there is little point in making the effort.

All the evidence of history suggests that man is indeed a rational animal but with a near infinite capacity for folly. His history seems largely a halting, but persistent, effort to raise his reason above his animality. He draws blueprints for utopia. But never quite gets it built. In the end he plugs away obstinately with the only building material really ever at hand his own part-comic, part-tragic, part-cussed, but part-glorious nature.

I, for one, would not count a global free society out. Coercion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.

NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM NO. 263

TO:

Secretary of State

Secretary of Defense

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

SUBJECT: South Vietnam

At a meeting on October 5, 1963, the President considered the recommendations contained in the report of Secretary McNamara and General Taylor on their mission to South Vietnam.

The President approved the military recommendations contained in Section I B (1-3)* of the report, but directed that no formal announcement be made of the implementation of plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.

After discussion of the remaining recommendations of the report, the President approved the instruction to Ambassador Lodge which is set forth in State Department telegram No. 534 to Saigon.

McGeorge Bundy

Copy furnished:

Director of Central Intelligence

Administrator, Agency for International Development

cc: Mr. Bundy

Mr. Forrestal 

Mr. Johnson

NSC Files

 

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[SECTION] 1:   CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
B. Recommendations. 
        

We recommend that: 
        1.   General Harkins review with Diem the military changes necessary to complete the military campaign in the Northern and Central areas (I, II, and III Corps) by the end of 1964, and in the Delta (IV Corps) by the end of 1965. This review would consider the need for such changes as:
        a. A further shift of military emphasis and strength to the Delta (IV Corps). 
        b. An increase in the military tempo in all corps areas, so that all combat troops are in the field an average of 20 days out of 30 and static missions are ended. 
        c. Emphasis on "clear and hold operations" instead of terrain sweeps which have little permanent value. 
        d. The expansion of personnel in combat units to full authorized strength. 
        e. The training and arming of hamlet militia to an accelerated rate, especially in the Delta. 
        f. A consolidation of the strategic hamlet program, especially in the Delta, and action to insure that future strategic hamlets are not built until they can be protected, and until civic action programs can be introduced. 
       
2.   A program be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out by Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by that time.
        
3.   In accordance with the program to train progressively Vietnamese to take over military functions, the Defense Department should announce in the very near future presently prepared plans to withdraw 1000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963. This action should be explained in low key as an initial step in a long-term program to replace U.S. personnel with trained Vietnamese without impairment of the war effort.

Introduction to National Security Action Memorandum Number 273 By Greg Burnham   Part One: “The DRAFT” Perhaps the most powerful evidence indicating that select Senior Administration Officials and Senior Military personnel may have had foreknowledge of the plot to assassinate the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, is found in the DRAFT of National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) Number 273. There are several smoking guns, but the one that initially stands out as the most obvious is the date of the DRAFT, which was subsequently signed by McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President for National Security. The DRAFT was written and dated November 21st, 1963 less than 24 hours before the assassination. It was ostensibly the result of the meetings that took place the previous day at the Honolulu Conference. The text of the DRAFT of NSAM 273:

11/21/63 DRAFT TOP SECRET NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM NO. __________ The President has reviewed the discussions of South Vietnam which occurred in Honolulu, and has discussed the matter further with Ambassador Lodge. He directs that the following guidance be issued to all concerned:             1.            It remains the central object of the United States in South Vietnam to assist the people and Government of that country to win their contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy. The test of all decisions and U.S. actions in this area should be the effectiveness of their contribution to this purpose.             2.            The objectives of the United States with respect to the withdrawal of U.S. military personnel remain as stated in the White House statement of October 2, 1963.             3.            It is a major interest of the United States Government that the present provisional government of South Vietnam should be assisted in consolidating itself and in holding and developing increased public support. All U.S. officers should conduct themselves with this objective in view.             4.            It is of the highest importance that the United States Government avoid either the appearance or the reality of public recrimination from one part of it against another, and the President expects that all senior officers of the Government will take energetic steps to insure that they and their subordinates go out of their way to maintain and to defend the unity of the United States Government both here and in the field.                         More specifically, the President approves the following lines of action developed in the discussions of the Honolulu meeting of November 20. The office or offices of the Government to which central responsibility is assigned is indicated in each case.             5.            We should concentrate our own efforts, and insofar as possible we should persuade the Government of South Vietnam to concentrate its efforts, on the critical situation in the Mekong Delta. This concentration should include not only military but political, economic, social, educational and informational effort. We should seek to turn the tide not only of battle but of belief, and we should seek to increase not only our control of land, but the productivity of this area wherever the proceeds can be held for the advantage of anti-Communist forces. (Action: The whole country team under the direct supervision of the Ambassador.)             6.            Programs of military and economic assistance should be maintained at such levels that their magnitude and effectiveness in the eyes of the Vietnamese Government do not fall below the levels sustained by the United States in the time of the Diem Government. This does not exclude arrangements for economy on the MAP account with respect to accounting for ammunition and any other readjustments which are possible as between MAP and other U.S. defense resources. Special attention should be given to the expansion of the import distribution and effective use of fertilizer for the Delta. (Action: AID and DOD as appropriate.)             7.            With respect to action against North Vietnam, there should be a detailed plan for the development of additional Government of Vietnam resources, especially for sea-going activity, and such planning should indicate the time and investment necessary to achieve a wholly new level of effectiveness in the field of action. (Action: DOD and CIA)             8.            With respect to Laos, a plan should be developed for military operations up to a line up to 50 kilometers inside Laos, together with political plans for minimizing the international hazards of such an enterprise. Since it is agreed that operational responsibility for such undertakings should pass from CAS to MACV, this plan should provide an alternative method of political liaison for such operations, since their timing and character can have an intimate relation to the fluctuating situation in Laos. (Action: State, DOD and CIA.)             9.            It was agreed in Honolulu that the situation in Cambodia is of the first importance for South Vietnam, and it is therefore urgent that we should lose no opportunity to exercise a favorable influence upon that country. In particular, measures should be undertaken to satisfy ourselves completely that recent charges from Cambodia are groundless, and we should put ourselves in position to offer to the Cambodians a full opportunity to satisfy themselves on this same point. (Action: State)             10.            In connection with paragraphs 7 and 8 above, it is desired that we should develop as strong and persuasive a case as possible to demonstrate to the world the degree to which the Viet Cong is controlled, sustained and supplied from Hanoi, through Laos and other channels. In short, we need a more contemporary version of the Jordan Report, as powerful and complete as possible. (Action: Department of State with other agencies as necessary.) McGeorge Bundy

The first sentence is indeed quite revelatory of its dubious nature: “The President has reviewed the discussions of South Vietnam which occurred in Honolulu, and has discussed the matter further with Ambassador Lodge.” That is false. The majority of those who attended the Honolulu Conference arrived on the 19th and the remainder arrived in the early morning of the 20th. The conference itself took place on the 20th and part of the 21st. The DRAFT was written on the evening of the 21st. JFK and Jackie left Washington aboard Air Force One for their 2-day, 5-city “whirlwind” Texas trip on the 21st. So, the conference took place all day on the 20th and part of the 21st in Hawaii without the President in attendance. Since he and the First Lady were en route to Texas from Washington on the 21st, it is therefore quite clear that the President could not have reviewed the discussions conducted in Honolulu in depth, nor could he have spoken with Ambassador Lodge in a meaningful way about the conference before the DRAFT of NSAM 273 was written. After all, the attendees were still in Hawaii and JFK was still in Texas on a very tight schedule. The next day he was dead (on the 22nd). So, to which President does this document refer in its first sentence? The official record can aid us in answering this question. The Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers states, referring to the Honolulu Conference:“But the meeting ended inconclusively. After [Ambassador] Lodge had conferred with the president a few days later in Washington, the White House tried to pull together some conclusions and offer some guidance for our continuing and now deeper involvement in Vietnam”. [emphasis added] As shown above, it could not have been the sitting president, JFK, as he was in Texas at the time. The record confirms that the first and only President to ever review the discussions conducted at the Honolulu Conference and further discuss them with Ambassador Lodge in Washington was LBJ. How do we know with certainty? JFK never survived Dallas. He never returned to Washington to meet with Lodge or anyone else. He returned to Washington in a casket. The only person to whom this DRAFT document could therefore refer by implication, is LBJ. Although he was not yet president at the time it was written—LBJ is the one who met with Ambassador Lodge in Washington and is the one who signed the final version of NSAM 273 on the 26th. Moreover, in the above quote from the Pentagon Papers, note the almost palpable “impotence” of the President as expressed in the words: “…the White House tried to pull together some conclusions and offer some guidance to our continuing and now deeper involvement in Vietnam.” That does not even remotely resemble the relationship between the military and their Commander-in-Chief as envisioned by the authors of the Constitution. Instead, it appears to be an act of patronization. JFK may have been many things…but he was not one who would tolerate patronization. But, that is a moot point. He was already dead. The next sentence says: “He [POTUS] directs that the following guidance be issued to all concerned…” Insomuch as the policy changes contained in this document, written the day before his assassination, serve to begin the undermining of JFK’s recently established Vietnam withdrawal strategy, its authors remain suspect. The deception is obvious. As of October 11, 1963 it was the policy of the USG to withdraw the bulk of all US personnel from Vietnam as per an EXISTING National Security Action Memorandum (263). Yet, this DRAFT of NSAM 273 states: "It remains the central object of the United States in South Vietnam to assist the people and Government of that country to win their contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy. The test of all decisions and U.S. actions in this area should be the effectiveness of their contribution to this purpose." Again, consider the simplicity of NSAM 263 -- JFK, after reviewing the McNamara-Taylor Report, approved only the recommendation to WITHDRAW. Done deal. Are we really to believe that just over a month later, the central object of the US would shift from total withdrawal to total commitment? Yet, Bundy's NSAM 273 draft directs that the central object of assisting the South Vietnamese so that they will "win their contest against...the Communist conspiracy" be given precedence over all other considerations! There's only one looming problem with this scenario. No such "central object" as described by Bundy existed on November 21, 1963 as such a plan was in direct opposition to the then Commander-in-Chief's (JFK) standing order to his military to withdraw. Once again, relying on the official record serves to confirm these conclusions. Note what the purpose of the Honolulu Conference was, as stated in the JOINT STATE / DEFENSE Department Cable, reproduced below. It is dated November 13th 1963. It directs the participants as to the topics that were to be discussed at the conference. It does NOT indicate discussions of any reversal or modification of JFK’s Vietnam withdrawal policy, quite the contrary. The part of the cable discussing the military (item 2) refers to implementation of the recommendations contained in the McNamara-Taylor Report. If you recall, the only part of the McNamara-Taylor Report that the President approved concerning US military policy is the section incorporated by direct reference in his National Security Action Memorandum Number 263 which called for the withdrawal of the bulk of all US Personnel by the end of 1965. See Gregory Burnham's Introduction to NSAM 263 Therefore, the author(s) of the DRAFT of NSAM 273 either: 1) disregarded the content of the actual discussions from the Honolulu Conference—assuming the discussions were consistent with JFK’s withdrawal policy—and falsely represented them in this draft, or… 2) perhaps this document is the product of discussions that were conducted in a manner inconsistent with JFK’s Vietnam withdrawal policy. We may never know which way this went, but it can’t be both ways. However, either scenario indicates foreknowledge. In the first case, foreknowledge by the majority of attendees. In the second case, foreknowledge by only a few of them—perhaps only one. If the document accurately indicates the nature of the discussions in Honolulu, it implicates more of the attendees. However, if the DRAFT was based on discussions whose content is fictitious, then only a few attendees necessarily had foreknowledge of the assassination that would take place less than 24 hours after McGeorge Bundy’s signature appears at the bottom. At the absolute very least: that one individual seems quite suspect. Lyndon Johnson signed the final version of NSAM 273 on November 26th, 1963, just four days after the assassination and one day after the funeral.   Part Two: The Honolulu Conference Cable: Although it's true that there was a significant political change in South Vietnam as a result of the assassination of the Diem brothers, which took place about 3 weeks after the signing of NSAM 263, there remains no evidence that the coup altered Kennedy's withdrawal plan. The following CABLE was sent nearly 2 weeks AFTER the coup had occurred. It directs what the AGENDA of the Honolulu Conference would be, including discussions consistent with NSAM 263. Most notably, it says: "(2) MILITARY, INCLUDING REPORT ON PROGRESS IN ACCOMPLISHMENT OF TASKS ASSIGNED AS A RESULT OF THE MCNAMARA, TAYLOR MISSION, AND OUTLINING PLANS FOR CONTROL OF INFILTRATION AND SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS OF THE DELTA CAMPAIGN." Again note that the ONLY portion of the McNamara-Taylor (Mission) Report that was approved by JFK was the part recommending a complete withdrawal of the bulk of all US personnel by the end of 1965. There is no indication in this cable that he had changed his mind or that he was re-considering his earlier decision--not even in light of the changed political situation in South Vietnam. That the conference spawned the DRAFT of NSAM 273 while JFK was still the POTUS remains a disturbing and inadequately addressed chapter in American History. In order to appreciate the actual content of the November 20th Honolulu Conference itself one might consult the official record. Unfortunately, the STATE Department's account also appears grossly lacking in relevant content. After reviewing the The Foreign Relations of the United States 1961-63 Volume IV August - December 1963 documents referencing the memorandum from the Honolulu Conference of November 20th, 1963, I made the following observations: Each and every instance where any mention is made of the then current US plan to withdraw from Vietnam by the end of 1965 (in other words, any reference to Kennedy's NSAM 263 and/or the relevant section from the McNamara-Taylor Report) a conspicuous lack of notation exists. Moreover, (by my count) the withdrawal plan is mentioned ONLY thrice in the entire memorandum of the Honolulu Conference! On those three occasions, the bulk of the content of what was discussed is NOT included in the FRUS Volume, only that "it" was, in fact, discussed. Save for a few very brief paragraphs, we learn nothing from this so-called official record. Yet, many apparently less urgent aspects of our presence in Vietnam were discussed in depth and are included in the memorandum--in great detail.  For instance, the first of the three times "withdrawal" is mentioned, appears on page 610: [QUOTE]  Finally, as regards all U.S. programs--military, economic,  psychological--we should keep before us the goal of setting dates for phasing  out U.S. activities and turning them over to the Vietnamese; and these dates,  too, should be looked at again in the light of the new political situation. The  date mentioned in the McNamara-Taylor statement of October 2 on U.S. military  withdrawal had--and is still having--a tonic effect. We should set dates for  USOM and USIS programs, too. We can always grant last-minute extensions if we  think it wise to do so. [END]  Then on page 618: [QUOTE]  Item B 2--Prospects and measures proposed by Country Team for improved  prosecution of the war under the new government (Military, including a report on  progress in accomplishment of tasks assigned as a result of the McNamara-Taylor  Mission, and outlining plans for control of infiltration and special  requirements for the Delta Campaign) [END]  The last paragraph of the entire memorandum reads thusly (page 624):  [QUOTE] Here follows discussions of Item C 1, "Revision of Military Comprehensive  Plan;" Item C 2, "Status Report of FY 64 MAP;" Item D, "Outline in terms of  forces, timing and numbers involved, the projected program for reduction U.S.  military forces by end FY 65;" and Item E, "Country Team suggestions for  revision of current reports to develop a consolidated country team reporting  system."[END]  ... Yet, there is nothing recorded about the "discussion that here follows..." at all in the FRUS Volumes! The next entry in the FRUS is for 8:00am on the morning of November 22nd 1963, where Bundy is presiding over the Daily White House Staff meeting.  I find this significant for several reasons. Again, in the joint State - Defense Department Cable of November 13, 1963 regarding the agenda for the Honolulu Conference, among other things: the attendees were directed to discuss certain military matters, namely, the implementation of the items from the McNamara-Taylor Report that were APPROVED by the President (JFK), i.e., withdrawal by the end of 1965.  Yet, according to the FRUS Volume IV, out of approximately 16 PAGES that were published by STATE to memorialize the memorandum from the Honolulu Conference, only 3 small paragraphs were dedicated to what should have constituted the MAIN military discussion, as withdrawal would have been a huge logistical challenge needing immediate attention. That the FRUS Volume fails to provide the content of the discussions that ostensibly led to McGeorge Bundy writing a DRAFT of a document that was in clear opposition to JFK's policy is very troubling.   Honolulu Conference Cable: EUW020 RR RUEPWW DE RUEPCR 129 13/1958Z 1963 NOV 13 R 131957Z FM DA INFO WHITE HOUSE PO 1707Z FM OSD TO CINCPAC COMUSMACV AMENB SAIGON BT DEF 944589 FROM OSD THIS IS A JOINT STATE-DEFENSE MESSAGE 1. SECRETARY RUSK AND SECREARY MCNAMARA PLAN ONE-DAY CONFERENCE PACOM HQ 20 NOV 1963. THEY INVITE COMMENTS AMB LODGE ADM FELT AND GENERAL HARKINS ON FOLLOWING PROPOSED AGENDA: A. COUNTRY TEAM REVIEW OF SITUATION: (1) POLITICAL (2) MILITARY (3) ECONOMIC (4) PROVINCE SUMMARIES PRESENTATION NOTE: A (1), (2) AND (3) SHOULD HIGHLIGHT OVERALL SITUATION. A (2) SHOULD INCLUDE A REVIEW OF STATISTICAL INDICATORS WITH INTERPRETATION AND NOTE OF TRENDS. UNDER A (4) LIST NAMES OF PROVINCES NI WHICH SITUATION IS NOT CRITICAL AND ABOUT WHICH NO MORE NEED BE SAID. FOR REMAINING PROVINCES, BRIEFLY SUMMARIZE THE POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND MILITARY SITUATION IN EACH PROVINCE. B. PROSPECTS AND MEASURES PROPOSED BY COUNTRY TEAM, FOR IMPROVED PROSECUTION OF THE WAR UNDER THE NEW GOVERNMENT: (1) POLITICAL, INCLUDING POSSIBILITY OF IMPROVED RELATIONS WITH NEIGHORING STATES. (2) MILITARY, INCLUDING REPORT ON PROGRESS IN ACCOMPLISHMENT OF TASKS ASSIGNED AS A RESULT OF THE MCNAMARA, TAYLOR MISSION, AND OUTLINING PLANS FOR CONTROL OF INFILTRATION AND SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS OF THE DELTA CAMPAIGN. (3) ECONOMIC, INCLUDING ANALYSIS OF GVN ECONOMY. MILITARY AND TOTAL BUDGET EXPENDITURES. MEASURES PROPOSED TO SOLVE GVN BUDGETARY PROBLEMS AND PROBLEMS OF US AID IN FY64 AND 65. (4) STRATEGIC HAMLET PROGRAM - ASSESSMENT OF AND FURTHER REQUIREMENTS FOR THE PROGRAM. C. STATUS REPORT ON FY64 MAP AND REVISION OF THE MILITARY COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AND ASSOCIATED COUNTRY TEAM PLANS. D. OUTLINE IN TERMS OF FORCES, TIMING, AND NUMBER INVOLVED, THE PROJECTED PROGRAM FOR REDUCTION OF US MILITARY FORCES BY END OF CY 1965. E. COUNTRY TEAM SUGGESTIONS FOR REVISION OF CURRENT REPORTS TO DEVELOP A CONSOLIDATED COUNTRY TEAM REPORTING SYSTEM AS A SUPPLEMENT TO THE ESSENTIUAL INDIVIDUAL POLITICAL, MILITARY, AND ECONOMIC REPORTS. REPORTING SHOULD BE DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY TO IDENTIFY THE OVER-ALL COUNTERINSURGENCY OBJECTIVES AND TO MEASURE PROGRESS TOWARD THEIR ATTAINMENT. F. CAS-MACV RELATIONSHIPS: (1) PLANS FOR REDUCTION IN NUMBER AND COMPLEXITY OF IRREGULAR FORCES, AND FOR THE ABSORPTION OF THEIR FUNCTIONS INTO THE REGULAR MILITARY STRUCTURE. (2) RESPONSIBILITY FOR COMBAT INTELLIGENCE TEAMS AND FOR CONDUCT OPERATIONS IN NORTH VIETNAM AND LAOS. (3) CURRENT STATUS OF TRANSFER BORDER SURVEILLANCE TEAMS. (4) REVIEW OF FUNDING REQUIREMENTS AND ARRANGEMENTS. 2. TENTATIVE TRAVEL ARRANGEMENT AND LIST OF PARTY. WASHINGTON PARTY WILL DEPART ANDREWS AFB IN TWO PLANES. FIRST PLANE DEPARTS 1630 WASHINGTON TIME, 19 NOV. ARRIVES HICKAM 2200 WITH FOLLOWING PASSENGERS: SECRETARY MCNAMARA, GENERAL TAYLOR, ASD (PA) A. SYLVESTER, DASD (ISA) W. BUNDY, AID ASST. S. JANOW, VADM RILEY, MGEN V. KRULAK, DIR SEA AFFAIRS H. KOREN, COL J. KENT AND LCOL S BERRY CWO PROCTOR. SECOND PLANE PARTS 0030 WASHINGTON TIME, 20 NOV, ARRIVES HICKAM 0600 WITH FOLLOWING PASSENGERS: SECRETARY RUSK, AID ADMINISTRATOR D. BELL, SPEC ASST MCGEORGE BUNDY, PRESS SECRETARY P. SALINGER, ASST SECR. HILSMAN, ASST SECR. MANNING, MR M. FORRESTAL, SPEC ASST E. LITTLE, OIC VN AFFAIRS P. KATTENBURG, MRS ROTHE AND A STATE SECURITY OFFICER. DIRECTOR OF CIA J. MCCONE WILL ARRIVE COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT. THOSE RETURNING TO WASHINGTON WILL DEPART HONOLULU IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING CONCLUSION CONFERENCE. SECRETARY RUSH AND NSC PARTY WILL DEPART HONOLULU AT 0820, 22 NOVEMBER FOR ONWARD FLIGHT TO JAPAN. 3. VIP KIT EQUIPPED C-135 WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE FOR AMB LODGE AND GEN HARKINS. PLANE SEATS 12 WITH BERTHS FOR 11. WHEN SHOULD IT BE IN PLACE? INDICATE ETA HAWAII. FLIGHT TIME SAIGON-HONOLULU IS 12 HOURS. 4. SECRETARY RUSK, SECRETARY MCNAMARA AND GENERAL TAYLOR DESIRE 30-MINUTE CONFERENCE WITH AMB LODGE, ADM FELT, AND GEN HARKINS PRIOR TO FORMAL SESSION. GRP4 BT [HANDWRITTEN CORRECTIONS ON COPY OF ACTUAL CABLE: NOTE SECOND PLANE DEPARTURE FROM WASHINGTON AT 0200 INSTEAD OF 0030, AND ARRIVAL AT HICKAM 0730 INSTEAD OF 0600.] SOURCE: JFK Library JFK National Security Files 1961-1963, Box 202 Country Files: Vietnam, Vol XXIV, 6-15 November, 1963 Defense Cables] [emphasis added]