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sufficient U.S. forces to deter Communist aggression against South Vietnam. These proposals led to a formal request, National Security Action Memorandum 52, directing the Department of Defense to examine the size and composition of possible troop deployments.

In the absence of a decision by the President of the United States, memorandums continued to stream forth. Presidential adviser Walt W. Rostow suggested in October 1961 a 25,000-man SEATO force to guard the South Vietnam-Laos border; the Joint Chiefs modified this, saying the force should be used instead to secure the Central Highlands. The logical and inevitable synthesis of these proposals was made in a memorandum drafted by Under Secretary of State U. Alexis Johnson. Blending Rostow's border control proposal with the Joint Chiefs of Staff's concept of winning control of the highlands, Secretary Johnson advocated his synthesis as the initial twofold mission for U.S. forces in Vietnam and spelled out the U.S. objective; to defeat the Viet Cong and preserve a free non-Communist government in the south.

Early Negotiations for Aid to Vietnam

In an October 1961 message requesting more U.S. aid, sent with the concurrence of U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam Frederick C. Nolting, Jr., President Ngo Dinh Diem also asked the United States to consider the possibility of having President Chiang Kai-shek send a division of Nationalist Chinese troops to South Vietnam.

No firm decisions were made in 1961. The attention of the United States was focused on Laos, Diem was growing increasingly reluctant to accept additional outside intervention, and the internal security situation in South Vietnam did not then seem acute. By 1964, however, the situation had changed: the Laotian war had apparently been settled by the 1962 Geneva Accords, Diem had been overthrown and killed, the Viet Cong insurgency had grown, and South Vietnam had become politically unstable. There was a growing awareness from 1963 on that the war against the Viet Cong, and later against the North Vietnamese Army, was not going well. The issue of increased U.S. or allied assistance was consequently again brought up in high policy councils, this time with greater urgency.

Signaling the growing need of allied and U.S. assistance for South Vietnam was President Lyndon B. Johnson's public call on 23 April 1964 for "more flags" to come forth to support a beleaguered friend. In a similar move in April, the Ministerial Coun[cil]