Mc Namara Taylor Mission - Objective

Objective

The stated purpose of the trip was fourfold:

1. To appraise the war effort
2. To assess the impact on that effort of recent political developments
3. To recommend a course of action for the Government of Vietnam and for the US
4. To examine with Lodge ways of tailoring our aid to achieve our foreign policy objectives.

In a statement to the media at Andrews Air Force Base just before leaving for Vietnam on September 23, McNamara said that the purpose of the trip was "to determine whether that military effort has been adversely affected by the unrest of the past several weeks". Privately, other White House officials contended that there were other reasons for the trip. Arthur Schlesinger and Assistant Secretary of State Roger Hilsman, contended that Kennedy sent McNamara and Taylor to Vietnam to convince them of the negative effect on the counterinsurgency that the protracted Buddhist crisis was having, and of the need to apply sanctions to the Diem regime to bring about change. According to this hypothesis, Kennedy believed that he could not afford a major policy rift in the administration over the question of applying sanctions. He felt that this was particularly the case if any policy shift attracted the opposition of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and concluded that only McNamara, if convinced, could convert the US military. Whatever the real purpose of the trip, McNamara and Taylor's party left Washington on September 23 and returned ten days later after an exhausting trip and a comprehensive review of the situation on the ground. They were accompanied by National Security Adviser Michael Forrestal, the CIA's William Colby, William Bundy and William Sullivan from the State Department.

An objective analysis of the situation in Vietnam was unlikely given the prejudice apparent on the journey to Vietnam. During the flight, Bundy and others received binders of materials, including a draft of the report that they were to prepare afterwards. Years after the mission, Forrestal asserted that the observations had already been "carefully spelled out, all the statistics to back them up". He described it as a "dreadful visit" where the members attempt to accumulate "phony statistical" evidence of success.