6 - The Fall of 1963

Summary

In October 1963, McNamara went to Vietnam with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Maxwell Taylor. On his return, the administration convened a series of NSC meetings that culminated in a press release that the United States would withdraw by 1965. The end point for the withdrawal plans and for the announcement were not victory in the traditional sense but instead something more ambiguous: “until the insurgency has been suppressed or that national security forces of the Government of South Viet-Nam are capable of suppressing it.” Over the last few months and especially in October, McNamara was concerned with what he found in Vietnam where existing programs were deficient or lagging. Withdrawal was not premised on success but instead on a predetermined training program that fit with McNamara’s priorities at the OSD. He insisted on a public announcement as a bureaucratic move aimed at neutralizing those who might interrupt the CPSVN. A separate announcement that 1,000 troops would be withdrawn by December 1963 was aimed at quieting SFRC criticism that the United States was bogged down in Vietnam.