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LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION The LBJ Library Oral History Collection is composed primarily of interviews conducted for the Library by the University of Texas Oral History Project and the LBJ Library Oral History Project. In addition, some interviews were done for the Library under the auspices of the National Archives and the White House during the Johnson administration. Some of the Library's many oral history transcripts are available on the INTERNET. Individuals whose interviews appear on the INTERNET may have other interviews available on paper at the LBJ Library. Transcripts of oral history interviews may be consulted at the Library or lending copies may be borrowed by writing to the Interlibrary Loan Archivist, LBJ Library, 2313 Red River Street, Austin, Texas, 78705. ROSWELL GILPATRIC ORAL HISTORY, INTERVIEW I PREFERRED CITATION For Internet Copy: Transcript, Roswell Gilpatric Oral History Interview I, 11/2/82, by Ted Gittinger, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. For Electronic Copy on Diskette from the LBJ Library: Transcript, Roswell Gilpatric Oral History Interview I, 11/2/82, by Ted Gittinger, Electronic Copy, LBJ Library. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the Oral History Interview of Roswell L. Gilpatric In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 21 of Title 44, United States Code, and subject to the terms and conditions herinafter set forth, I, Roswell L. Gilpatric of New York City, do hereby give, donate and convey to the United States of America all my rights, title and interest in the tape recording and transcript of the personal interview conducted on November 2, 1982 at New York City and prepared for deposit in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. This assignment is subject to the following terms and conditions: (1) The transcript shall be available for use by researchers as soon as it has been deposited in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. (2) The tape recording shall be available to those researchers who have access to the transcript. (3) I hereby assign to the United States Government all copyright I may have in the interview transcript and tape. (4) Copies of the transcript and the tape recording may be provided by the Library to researchers upon request. (5) Copies of the transcript and tape recording may be deposited in or loaned to institutions other than the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. Signed by Roswell L. Gilpatric on November 7, 1989. Accepted by Don Wilson, Archivist of the United States, on November 24, 1989. Original Deed of Gift on File at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, 2313 Red River, Austin, TX 78705. Accession Number: 90-2 INTERVIEW I DATE: November 2, 1982 INTERVIEWEE: ROSWELL GILPATRIC INTERVIEWER: Ted Gittinger PLACE: Mr. Gilpatric's office, Manhattan, New York Tape 1 of 1 TG: Mr. Gilpatric, can you recall the circumstances under which you were named to chair the task force on Vietnam in 1961? RG: Only that at a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the National Security Council the President announced that I was selected for that assignment. I assume that it was his own decision after recommendations from [Robert] McNamara and perhaps Mac [McGeorge] Bundy and it reflected his lack of confidence at that point in the group in the State Department, having been through a rather unsatisfactory experience in regard to Laos. But that's all I know about why I was picked rather than having somebody from State head it up. TG: What was unsatisfactory about Laos and the State Department's performance? RG: Well, the President didn't feel that he had gotten a very clear signal from the State Department experts on Southeast Asia. He also wasn't very satisfied with the response he got from the Joint Chiefs. He got five different recommendations at one point. And I believe he just felt he'd get some fresh attitude and approach, and I certainly was innocent of any great background of experience in the Far East, so he gave me the job. I didn't keep it, of course, after the President made his decisions on the report of the task force in May. The ongoing operations of the task force reverted to the State Department--a fellow named Cotrell ran it. So I was just in charge of it up until the time the President considered the report and made his decision and then it reverted to the usual channels. TG: So you're suggesting that there's not much to the reports that this decision was due to the tendency to view Vietnam as a military problem rather than a civil problem? RG: No, no. I think at that juncture we were all pretty agnostic because during the briefings that the President got during the transition between the Eisenhower Administration and his administration, Vietnam was never brought up as a major topic. Berlin and Laos were the principal foreign policy problems. TG: Edward Lansdale, a figure of some repute, was in your office at this time, was he not? Roswell Gilpatric -- Interview I -- 2 RG: Yes, I inherited him from Jim [James H.] Douglas, my predecessor as the deputy secretary of defense. From the beginning I found him a very useful, knowledgeable assistant. He was a soldier-of-fortune type. He was not trusted by the professional foreign service officers because when he'd been in the Philippines and also in South Vietnam before, he tended to operate sort of out of channels, and they didn't think he was their man. Therefore they weren't keen about having him have too much authority, but he was useful to me, to McNamara and later on, of course, Robert Kennedy picked him to head up the whole Mongoose Operation. My experience with him was that he was useful; you didn't have to accept all his judgments or ideas. And I was, I suppose, instrumental in getting him his generalship. I recommended him. He was a colonel when I came in, but I recommended him for a promotion to brigadier general. TG: Was any of this tied to the fact that he seems to have had pretty direct ties at one time to the Dulles brothers? RG: That didn't come up that I can recall. It was simply this feeling that he was sort of a solo performer, an operator who didn't go along with the usual channels and guidelines in the foreign service field. But later on, of course, as is well known, Ambassador [Henry Cabot] Lodge pretty much insisted that Lansdale be sent out to be his aide, or one of his aides, when Lodge became ambassador of South Vietnam. TG: Why didn't that happen earlier? Didn't Diem ask for him earlier? RG: The State Department resisted his going back to Vietnam as long as it could, but when Lodge came in and he made it a condition they had no choice. In the meantime Lansdale was working for me, and of course he was one of my principal assistants during that period I headed up the task force from March until May. And then he continued to act as my adviser on a number of things. For example, I was the Defense Department representative on the 5412 group that oversaw intelligence operations, and I consulted him in that regard. When I was on the counter-insurgency group that the Attorney General set up, I used him there. I used him right along until he went to Vietnam in 1963 with Ambassador Lodge. TG: What was there to the rumor that he at one time was being considered to be the ambassador to Vietnam? RG: I never heard that. If it was under consideration, the word didn't reach me, and as I say, I think it was just simply and solely Lodge's insistence on having him that got him out there. And then when he came back, he--or maybe it was before, I've forgotten the sequence of events--but he spent a lot of time on that Mongoose project destabilizing Castro, with Robert Kennedy. Roswell Gilpatric -- Interview I -- 3 TG: Were there covert operations that early, in 1961, against North Vietnam? RG: I don't recall there coming before the 5412 group any specific projects. I think there were some ongoing activities that had been started prior to the Kennedy Administration, and I was aware that the agency, the CIA, had quite a force out there. They certainly were active in regard to the Montagnards. But I don't recall any specific covert project such as blowing up bridges or trying to disrupt the functioning of the North Vietnamese. TG: There is the famous cable of August 24, about which there are a number of versions extant, and I wonder if you would give us your version of the sequence of events and phone calls. RG: As you know, it was over a weekend, on a Sunday to be precise, and I think my first inkling of what was proposed came in a telephone call from Mike Forrestal at the White House which reached me out at my farm in Maryland on the Eastern Shore. Forrestal told me that he, working with [Averell] Harriman, [Roger] Hilsman and [Joseph] Mendenhall, as I recall, in State had composed this message; it had been read to the President up in Hyannis, it had been also read and I understood approved by Rusk, and I was told that the intention was to run down Max Taylor, that General [Victor] Krulak was going to get hold of Taylor. So my reaction was this was basically a State Department matter, a political matter, and if Rusk went along with it and the President went along with it, I wasn't going to oppose it.

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