NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive
The new U.S. team set out immediately to systematize U.S. operations in Vietnam, including reorganization of the upper echelons of the Mission. Added to this was an effort to improve the efficiency of the GVN and USG-GVN cooperation by developing a coordinate, parallel GVN organization. On 7 July Ambassador Taylor reported that, following recommendations from Deputy Ambassador Johnson and agency heads there, he had organized U.S mission operations under the direction of a U.S. Mission Council, over which he would preside. The Council was to consist of himself, Johnson, Westmoreland, Killen (temporarily Hurt), Zorthian, DeSilva and Sullivan. This group was to meet once a week as an executive organization. To support this council he also established a Coordinating Committee to be chaired by Sullivan. This would carry out Mission Council decisions and prepare the agenda for Council meetings. On the following day, 8 July, Ambassador Taylor reported that he had called upon Khanh, and that Khanh had expressed satisfaction over the new U.S. personnel, and noted the rising morale their appointments had caused within the government. Taylor told Khanh about the formation of the Mission Council and Khanh asked for an organization chart so that he could develop a coordinate set-up within the GVN. Khanh said moreover that the U.S. should not merely advise, but should actually participate in GVN operations and decisions. "We should do this in Saigon (as well as in the provinces), between GVN ministries and offices and their American counterparts." 105/
The new Ambassador did not delay in plunging into the substance of the problems that were plaguing Vietnam. In his first conversations with Khanh he asked about the status of the religious problem, and according to Taylor's report of the conversation, Khanh said the situation was still delicate, that the Catholics were better organized and were the aggressors, that Thich Tri Quang appeared reasonable when in Saigon but less so when in Hue. When the Ambassador queried Khanh about the progress of the recruiting effort, Khanh said that it was not going as well as he would like. With respect to the new pacification plan, HOP TAC, that had been agreed upon, the Ambassador expressed his approval of the general idea because paramilitary forces existed in this area to relieve ARVN. The Ambassador next took up the question of high desertion rates to which Khanh appears to have replied rather fuzzily. He said that the problem was complicated by many factors, that the Vietnamese liked to serve near home and sometimes left one service to join another. He implied that the figures might not mean exactly what they seemed to mean.
The lively interest of the President at this time was indicated by his 10 July request directly to the Ambassador for a coordinated Country Team report at the end of each month to show "where we stand in the process of increasing the effectiveness of our military, economic, information, and intelligence programs, just where the Khanh government stands in the same fields, and what progress we are mailing in the effort to mesh our work with theirs along the lines of your talk with General Khanh. 106/
