U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker Arrives in Saigon

April 5, 1967

Ambassador Bunker, right, with Generals Westmoreland and Wheeler

Overview

On March 15, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson announces he is appointing diplomat and former businessman Ellsworth Bunker as the new U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam. Bunker replaces Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. who has served intermittently in the role since 1963. Johnson is impressed with Bunker’s integrity and record, as Bunker can collaborate well with sensitive foreign leaders. Bunker is also well-respected in Congress, and unlike Lodge he can cooperate with U.S. military leadership. He remains in this position for six years. Throughout his tenure he consistently advocates for more aggressive positions to achieve U.S. objectives than Washington is comfortable with. Although he is considered a “hawk,” Bunker unfailingly implements programs for both the Johnson and Nixon administrations.¹

¹Edward J. Drea, McNamara, Clifford, and the Burdens of Vietnam, 1965–1969, Secretaries of Defense Historical Series, Volume VI (Washington, D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2011), 136n, 140; Howard B. Schaffer, Ellsworth Bunker: Global Troubleshooter, Vietnam Hawk (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 163–167; Graham A. Cosmas, MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, United States Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2006), 122–123. See Cosmas 100–103, 122–123, 140, 241–242, Lodge left Saigon to take part in the 1964 U.S. elections and General Maxwell Taylor replaced him. Lodge then returned to the post in 1965.