Remarks at a Press Briefing by David Lilienthal and Robert Komer Following Their Return From Vietnam

You all know Mr. David Lilienthal.

For a good, long time I have been wanting Mr. Lilienthal to spend some time in Vietnam in connection with our "other war" out there. From the early stage of the TVA I have looked forward to and admired the novel, constructive, and far-reaching thoughts and programs which he has inaugurated on behalf of people in a democratic way and in a democratic society.

We finally prevailed on him to go out and do some studying there. I have asked him for his counsel. He has given it to me--just as General Westmoreland has and as the Marines that are out there at Danang have. He has given us his help. I think it will have far-reaching results and effects. It is going to be essential to our success in that area.

This goes back to what was said in Baltimore in April of 1965, if you want to take that platform.

Mr. Komer and Mr. Lilienthal have just come back. They have just finished reporting to me. In case you are interested in any of their thoughts or their recommendations or their views, they are available to you.

[At this point Mr. Lilienthal stated that after visiting 15 provinces and talking with a "wide range of people," he found the Vietnamese confident "that the long term future of the country is in their hands ... They, themselves, by their own conduct, by the way they invest in their farms and the way they are electing village leaders, the way the industrialists are spending money, indicate that they think they know how this is all going to come out .... These are extraordinary people. To have been through 20 years of war and still have this amount of 'zip' almost insures their long term economic development."

[Mr. Lilienthal told members of the press that he had gone to Vietnam as head of the Development and Resources Corporation, a private enterprise founded by him "some 12 years ago, engaged in the development of various parts of the world." Under a 3-year contract with the U.S. Government, and in cooperation with a group of Vietnamese planners, the Development and Resources Corporation would make recommendations for the development of the resources of Vietnam, beginning with the Mekong Delta area.

[At this point the President resumed speaking.]

Some of this thinking is reflected in the Baltimore speech of April of 1965. That will be brought up to date. We have worked some with some of the United Nations people and some of our own economic people since that time. Of course we talked to Mr. Black about the agreed deal with the Asian Development Bank, and the economic development of that whole part of the world.

Q. Mr. Komer, would you tell us something about your report?

[At this point Robert W. Komer, Special Assistant to the President for Peaceful Reconstruction in Vietnam, summarized the main conclusions he had drawn from his trip. They enabled him, he said, to make his most encouraging report to date.]

[Favorable factors as he saw them were: progress in opening surface transportation facilities--highways, railroads, and coastwise shipping--as alternatives to airlift; political progress in drafting a constitution and in the holding of national and local elections; improvement in the economic outlook resulting from the slowing of inflation, the increased availability of import financing, the rise in tax collections, the prospects for an adequate 1967 rice crop, and the easing of congestion in the port of Saigon; progress in pacification achieved by the reorganized U.S. Office of Civil Operations and the increasing effectiveness of the South Vietnamese Army which had assigned progressively more of its units to pacification after training by mobile training teams, as well as the increasing role in such work by retrained regional and popular forces. As a result it would be difficult, Mr. Komer believed, for the Vietcong to maintain its strength in the South in 1967. He added that the return rate of South Vietnamese impressed into Vietcong forces is high, as is the refugee flow from insecure to secure areas.

[Concluding his summary Mr. Komer said that, like Mr. Lilienthal, he sensed a growing mood of confidence in South Vietnam that the outcome of the conflict was no longer in doubt. He acknowledged, however, that a long, hard fight might still be ahead and that pacification was still lagging behind the military effort. Specifically he pointed out that the Vietcong still to a large extent controlled the roads at night.

[At this point the President resumed speaking.]

Before you leave, there are two things. I don't know whether you have the messages or not, but this week we are trying to move our appointments and messages as soon as We Can.

I told the leadership I would work toward getting the health and education message, two reorganization orders and the draft, and maybe an additional message, sometime within the next week--I would say through maybe Tuesday of next week. We don't want to be limited to that, but that is our goal.

I brought Mr. Lilienthal in and I will be bringing in others that I had scheduled to see a little later between now and Thursday.