Taylor-Rostow Mission Arrives in South Vietnam

Throughout 1961 Communist infiltration into South Vietnam increases dramatically, and by fall of that year the Viet Cong have grown to approximately 15,000 in number. In early October, President John F. Kennedy charges his military adviser Maxwell D. Taylor with a fact-finding mission to assess the situation in South Vietnam. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Walt Rostow serves as Taylor’s aide, and the mission arrives in Saigon on October 18.

After talking to numerous South Vietnamese civilian and military officials, including President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, the Taylor-Rostow group issues a report to President Kennedy in early November. It recommends an expansion of the alliance with South Vietnam, transforming it into a “limited partnership” in which the United States provides greater material aid, new military equipment, and a greater advisory presence to work with the South Vietnamese Army and security forces. In addition, the Taylor group suggests sending 8,000 U.S. soldiers to Vietnam under the pretext of humanitarian aid for flood damage in the Mekong Delta. President Kennedy declines to send troops, but his increase of direct U.S. involvement through aid and advisers and his insistence on reforms from the Diem administration moves the U.S. closer to taking responsibility for the war and further strains relations with the Diem government.1