Close
Not finding the information you're looking for? Please contact the Archives research staff.
Oral history
John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection
JFKOH-LCH-02
In this interview Heinz discusses his primary contacts in other government agencies; the Vietnam task force; the different political trips and survey missions to Vietnam; the Maxwell D. Taylor-Walt W. Rostow mission to Vietnam and subsequent report; the Ngo Dinh Diem regime; the rise in interest in the concept of counterinsurgency; problems with working in Vietnam; changing the terrain in Vietnam with the use of defoliants; the Strategic Hamlet program; how to measure success in warfare; the International Control Commission; General Paul D. Harkins; the various agency reports coming out of Vietnam and interagency meetings; the Buddhist crisis in the summer of 1963; the appointment of Henry Cabot Lodge as Ambassador; and the military coup in Saigon and the rumors leading up to it, among other issues.
Sound recording
Papers of John F. Kennedy. Presidential Papers. President's Office Files.
JFKPOF-MTG-114-A50b
Sound recording of a meeting on Vietnam held on October 5, 1963, between President John F. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs McGeorge Bundy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) General Maxwell Taylor, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs W. Averell Harriman, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) John McCone, Secretary of Treasury C. Douglas Dillon, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) David Bell, and Senior Member of the National Security Council (NSC) Michael Forrestal. They discuss the possible impact on the government of South Vietnam if the United States cuts off commodities and also discuss the Vietnamese oppression of Buddhists. They also discuss General Paul D. Harkins's meeting with President of South Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem and Colonel Le Quang Tung, the role of United States Ambassador to Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, conditions needed for the resumption of aid, General Harkins’s role regarding the military, proposed testimony before a Congressional committee, and the timing of the reduction of troops and advisors. This sound recording has been excerpted from Tape 114/A50, which contains additional sound recording(s) preceding and following this one. See Related Records to access Tape 114/A50 in its entirety.