22 NOVIEMBRE ASESINADO
President Kennedy holds his 63rd press conference on October 31, 1963.
Question from the Press: Mr. President, back to the question of troop reductions, are any intended in the Far East at the present time, particularly in Korea, and is there any speedup in the withdrawal from Viet-Nam intended?
THE PRESIDENT. Well, as you know, when Secretary McNamara and General Taylor came back, they announced that we would expect to withdraw a thousand men from South Viet-Nam before the end of the year, and there has been some reference to that by General Harkins. If we are able to do that, that would be our schedule. I think the first unit or first contingent would be 250 men who are not involved in what might be called front-line operations. It would be our hope to lessen the number of Americans there by 1,000, as the training intensifies and is carried on in South Viet-Nam. As far as other units, we will have to make our judgement based on what the military correlation of forces may be. We are becoming increasingly mobile, as the Big Lift Operation suggests.
What is important in the case that Mr. Smith was talking about, we not only have these divisions that I described there, but we have--after the '61 experience, we moved equipment for 2 more divisions. So during the Big Lift, we actually have 7 divisions. So that we are able to move around the world much faster, and with new planes which are beginning to come off the production line, particularly the ones in Marietta, Ga., out of Lockheed. And so we are going to have increased airlift capacity over the next 2 or 3 years. So naturally our force will be more mobile.
President Kennedy holds his 63rd press conference on October 31, 1963.
Question from the Press: Mr. President, back to the question of troop reductions, are any intended in the Far East at the present time, particularly in Korea, and is there any speedup in the withdrawal from Viet-Nam intended?
THE PRESIDENT. Well, as you know, when Secretary McNamara and General Taylor came back, they announced that we would expect to withdraw a thousand men from South Viet-Nam before the end of the year, and there has been some reference to that by General Harkins. If we are able to do that, that would be our schedule. I think the first unit or first contingent would be 250 men who are not involved in what might be called front-line operations. It would be our hope to lessen the number of Americans there by 1,000, as the training intensifies and is carried on in South Viet-Nam. As far as other units, we will have to make our judgement based on what the military correlation of forces may be. We are becoming increasingly mobile, as the Big Lift Operation suggests.
What is important in the case that Mr. Smith was talking about, we not only have these divisions that I described there, but we have--after the '61 experience, we moved equipment for 2 more divisions. So during the Big Lift, we actually have 7 divisions. So that we are able to move around the world much faster, and with new planes which are beginning to come off the production line, particularly the ones in Marietta, Ga., out of Lockheed. And so we are going to have increased airlift capacity over the next 2 or 3 years. So naturally our force will be more mobile.