Treaty Organization to deploy a four-division force across the demilitarized zone, from the South China Sea through Laos to the Mekong River, to stem infiltration.
April 1965, like February, was a crucial and significant time for U.S. policy on the deployment of Free World combat troops. The United States and been, in the months from December 1964 to March 1965, edging toward the commitment of outside combat forces, U.S. and Free World, and a policy of more active support for South Vietnam. In April the United States became committed, at first in principle and then in deed, to sending combat troops to Vietnam and to engaging in a more active and open partnership in the defense of South Vietnam.
On 1 April Free World troop contributions were discussed in a high-level policy meeting at which General Johnson's 21-point proposal, which included soliciting troops from Australia and New Zealand, was approved. Discussion of the desirability of Free World combat forces continued on 3 April while Ambassador Taylor was still in the United States. The President and Secretary of defense both favored the idea but it was recognized that there were serious political problems in obtaining troops from the Republic of Korea, the only readily available source. Moreover the Vietnam government seemed reluctant to have them. Other officials wanted to ask Australia for a destroyer to work with the Seventh Fleet. Taylor was instructed to explain upon his return to South Vietnam the latest U.S. policy decision and to obtain concurrence and co-operation from the government of Vietnam on possible contributions from other countries. The actual decision to seek Free World combat troops, made earlier, was confirmed on 6 April and embodied in National Security Action Memorandum 328. The State Department was to explore with the Korean, Australian, and New Zealand governments the possibility of rapidly deploying combat elements of their armed forces in conjunction with additional U.S. deployments. Both Australia and the Republic of Kora had already on 3 April 1965 indicated informally their willingness to send combat troops.
The following day, 7 April, in his Johns Hopkins speech, the President, while stressing the desire of the United States for peace and its reluctance to get involved in the Vietnam War, stated that the United States' pressure on North Vietnam as well as its greater military effort was not a change in purpose but a change in what "we believe that purpose requires."
Obviously what was required of the United States to accomplish its purpose in South Vietnam was changing. Even though a
