South Viet Nam: Search for Answers

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What were the official visitors learn ing? Skeptics suggested that junior officers would hardly furnish them with anything but a rosy view so long as the boss—General Harkins—was hovering within earshot. But McNamara and Taylor are tough-minded men, with long experience at sorting fancy from fact. So far, they were keeping their counsel, doing lots of listening, little talking, as they moved from one military field headquarters to another.

At week's end it was announced that they would see President Diem at his office at Saigon's Gia Long Palace, later meet him and others in the government at a black-tie dinner. Back in the U.S., President Kennedy was waiting for the answers.