[5]: 371 The counterinsurgency plan was a "tacit recognition that the American effort...to create an [South Vietnamese] army that could provide stability and internal security...had failed.

"[9]: 169 John Fitzgerald Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th U.S. president and declared, "...we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to ensure the survival and the success of liberty."

"It was a shock," said Lansdale, to find that the VC "had been able to infiltrate the most productive area of South Vietnam and gain control of nearly all of it except for narrow corridors protected by military actions.

The U.S. would later devote much military effort to finding and destroying the Communist "Pentagon", but COSVN was always a mobile and widely dispersed organization and never a fixed place.

"[13] Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) chief General Lionel C. McGarr said that Diệm had done "a remarkably fine job during his five years in office and negative statements about him were half truths and insinuations.

"[7]: 244 To the contrary, Ambassador Durbrow recommended that Secretary of State Dean Rusk press Diệm to reform his government and threaten to withhold aid if he refused.

The report of a high-level study group headed by Undersecretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric said that "South Vietnam is nearing the decisive phase of its battle for survival" and that the situation is "critical but not hopeless."

Kennedy had contemplated American military intervention in Laos but the cease fire damped down tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union supporting different Laotian factions.

In a significant change from the policy of Ambassador Durbrow and the Eisenhower Administration, U.S. funding for the increase in military aid was not conditioned on the Diệm government undertaking social and economic reforms.

On his return to Washington Johnson noted the disaffection of the Vietnamese people with Diệm but concluded that the "existing government in Saigon is the only realistic alternative to Viet Minh [VC] control.

"[23] Kennedy issued National Security Action Memorandum - 52 which called for a study of increasing the ARVN from 170,000 to 200,000; expanded MAAG responsibilities to include aid to the Civil Guard and Self Defense Corps; authorized sending 400 Special Forces soldiers to South Vietnam covertly to train ARVN; approved covert and intelligence operations in both North and South Vietnam; and proposed actions to improve relations between President Diem and the U.S.[7]: 247 A 92-man unit of the Army Security Agency, operating under cover of the 3rd Radio Research Unit (3rd RRU), arrived at Tan Son Nhut Air Base and established a communications intelligence facility in disused Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) warehouses on the base (10°48′36″N 106°38′56″E / 10.81°N 106.649°E / 10.81; 106.649).

[11]: 120–2 Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev met in Vienna, Austria and expressed support for an international agreement to create a neutral and independent Laos.

Ambassador Nolting recommended to Washington that U.S. aid to South Vietnam be increased to finance the expansion of the ARVN, cover a balance of payments deficit, and assure President Diệm of the seriousness of the U.S. commitment to his government.

[7]: 249–50 Journalist Theodore White wrote a letter to President Kennedy about his visit to South Vietnam: "the situation gets steadily worse almost week by week....Guerrillas now control almost all the Southern delta - so much that I could find no American who would drive me outside Saigon in his car even by day without military convoy...What perplexes the hell out of me is that the Commies, on their side, seem able to find people willing to die for their cause.

[29] Two battalions (approximately 1,000 men) of communist troops who had recently infiltrated South Vietnam from Laos, overran Kon Tum, capital of Kontum Province.

[31] Speaking to the National Assembly, Diệm said that "it is no longer a guerrilla war but one waged by an enemy who attacks us with regular units fully and heavily equipped and seeks a decision in Southeast Asia in conformity with the orders of the Communist International.

Tuttle worked with the Rhade people, one of the Montagnard ethnic groups of Darlac province in the Central Highlands about 150 miles (240 km) northeast of Saigon.

Nuttle rejected the proposed strategy of the South Vietnamese government and MAAG of putting the Montagnards on "reservations" and making the remainder of the Central Highlands a free fire zone.

[32] Nolting sent the following message to Washington: "Two of my closest colleagues [Embassy officers Joseph Mendenhall and Arthur Gardiner] believe that this country cannot attain the required unity, total national dedication, and organizational efficiency necessary to win with Diệm at helm.

"[33] The Joint Chiefs of Staff presented Kennedy with a report stating that the defeat of the VC would require 40,000 U.S. combat troops, plus another 120,000 to guard the borders to deal with threats of invasion or infiltration by North Vietnam or China.

One Assemblyman, to make the point about oppression in the South, cited statistics gathered by the National Liberation Front that the Diệm government had killed 77,500 people between 1954 and 1960 and imprisoned 270,000 political dissidents.

"[21]: 245–6 According to his own account of a Washington meeting, State Department official George Ball warned General Taylor and Secretary of Defense McNamara that introducing 8,000 or more American soldiers into South Vietnam might cause "a protracted conflict far more serious than Korea....The Vietnam problem was not one of repelling overt invasion but of mixing ourselves up in a revolutionary situation with strong anti-colonialist overtones.

"[21]: 247  Three other State Department officials also expressed their opposition to the introduction of American combat soldiers: Averell Harriman, Chester Bowles and John Kenneth Galbraith.

If proven successful, the Buon Enao model would be replicated elsewhere in the Central Highlands which constituted most of South Vietnam's area, although had only a small share of its population.

[21]: 251  Kennedy's decision not to introduce combat troops surprised the DOD which had been assembling forces to be assigned to South Vietnam, including Farm Gate aircraft.

[21]: 251 At a White House meeting of top officials, Kennedy complained about the lack of "whole-hearted support" for his policies and demanded to know who at the DOD was responsible in Washington for his Vietnam program.

He followed the meeting up with a memo to McNamara saying he was "not satisfied that the Department of Defense, and in particular the Army, is according the necessary degree of attention and effort to the threat of insurgency and guerrilla war.

"[3]: 31 According to French reports from their diplomatic mission in Hanoi, several revolts by peasants and minority groups had been ruthlessly repressed during the previous several months by the PAVN and challenges to the government had become rare.

The Buon Enao experiment was a holistic approach to the threat of the insurgency, relying on social and economic programs as well as military measures to create an anti-communist movement among the Montagnard people who traditionally mistrusted Vietnamese of all political persuasions.

[16]: 39 USAF General Curtis LeMay urged the Joint Chiefs of Staff to try to persuade Kennedy to approve the introduction of substantial combat forces into South Vietnam.