General S.L.A. Marshall, December 7, 1964
“The United States must enter a full-scale alliance with South Vietnam or face the end of free society in Southeast Asia. The advisory position the United Sate now maintains in Vietnam, at the cost of $1 million per day, is futile. The Vietnamese Army has not launched a single major offensive nor won a major victory in six months since Genera. Maxwell Taylor became ambassador to South Vietnam.”
“General Taylor’s problems are too much for any one man. You cannot expect one man to unscrew the inscrutable.”
“The South Vietnamese soldier possess courage in an uncommon degree, but in every Viet household there is a feeling that the cause is lost.”
“The Vietnamese, with the help of the United States, have the three necessary ingredients to win- superior numbers, firepower, and defensive positions. At present they are not making full use of any of these. The mark of a losing war is that the View Army has little or no control over its own communications.”
“I refuse to believe that the President and the National Security Council cannot bring themselves to take the risks involved in escalating the war.”
“Grim alternatives necessitate grim risks. During the Kennedy years we decidedly strengthened our numbers of line troops, ostensibly for brushfire wars, accord to the Secretary of Defense. ”
