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Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011

I.

Conscious of the serious problems created throughout Southeast Asia by the accelerated Communist campaign of subversion and creeping aggression in Laos and Viet Nam. President John F. Kennedy, in response to an invitation of the Government of Viet Nam, sent Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson to Saigon to discuss with President Ngo Dinh Diem various measures which might be undertaken by both their governments to preserver the freedom and security of Viet Nam. One of the consequences of these talks was an agreement to send a Special Financial Group Composed of U.S. experts to Saigon to explore with their Vietnamese counterparts the economic and financial implications of a plan of action in which the two governments could cooperate in meeting the emergency situation.

President Ngo Dinh Diem appointed a similar group of experts to represent the Government of Viet Nam. At their first meeting, the Vietnamese and U.S. chairmen decided that any report or recommendations which they would submit should be prepared on a joint basis, emphasizing thereby the close partnership in which the two governments desire to approach the problem. Accordingly, they merged their two groups into one and conducted all their business as a completely integrated committee. The following is the special action program which they recommend to the Presidents of Viet Nam and the United States.

This program is based on the concept that the two governments must together do what is necessary to achieve a "breakthrough" simultaneously on the military-internal security front and on the economic-social front. At the same time, the economic-social action should be so planned as to Viet Nam move toward its objective of a free society with a growing and self-sustaining economy. The spirit of partnership which animated the work of the joint groups is considered as a guiding principle in the implementation of the special action program. Rh