Krulak Mendenhall Mission - Initiation and Expedition

Initiation and Expedition

At the end of the National Security Council (NSC) meeting on September 6, it was agreed that the first priority was to obtain more information on the ground situation in Vietnam. US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara proposed sending Marine Corps Major General Victor Krulak on an immediate fact-finding trip. The NSC agreed that Joseph Mendenhall—a Foreign Service Officer with Vietnam experience—would accompany him. The pair began the mission later the same day.

On their return trip to Washington, D.C., Krulak and Mendenhall were to bring John Mecklin and Rufus Phillips back from Saigon to report. Mecklin was the United States Information Service (USIS) director, while Phillips served as the director of rural programs for United States Operations Mission (USOM) and as an advisor for the Strategic Hamlet Program. The State Department sent the Saigon embassy a detailed cable containing questions about Vietnamese public opinion across all strata of society. In Krulak's own words, the objective was to observe "the effect of recent events upon the attitudes of the Vietnamese in general, and upon the war effort against the Viet Cong".

In a fast paced four-day trip, the two men traveled throughout Vietnam before returning to Washington to file their reports. Krulak visited 10 locations in all four Corps zones of the ARVN and spoke with US Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., the head of US forces in Vietnam General Paul Harkins and his staff, 87 US advisors, and 22 ARVN officers. Mendenhall went to Saigon, Hue, Da Nang, and several other provincial cities, talking primarily to Vietnamese friends. Their estimates of the situation were almost completely opposite. Mecklin wrote afterwards that it "was a remarkable assignment, to travel twenty-four thousand miles and assess a situation as complex as Vietnam and return in just four days. It was a symptom of the state the US Government was in." The mission was marked by the tension between its leaders. Mendenhall and Krulak intensely disliked one another, speaking to each other only when necessary. Mecklin and Krulak became embroiled in a dispute during the return flight. Krulak disapproved of Mecklin's decision to bring television footage that had been censored by the Diem regime back to the US, believing the action was a violation of sovereignty. After a long and bitter argument aboard the aircraft, Krulak called upon Mecklin to leave the film in Alaska during a refueling stop at Elmendorf Air Force Base, further suggesting that the USIS director remain with the film in Alaska.