Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., Former Ambassador to South Vietnam
on Meet the Press
April 15, 1964

Q: Can you tell us very briefly what the heart of the problem is there?

A: The heart of the problem to me is that you have in South Vietnam a new kind of fighting man who is as distinct as the infantryman or the aviator, and that is the terrorist. And the terrorist is dressed like every other man, and he looks like a civilian. But he's part of a very elaborate organization which gives him security and gives him direction.

You don't get at the terrorist by putting in infantry battalions, airborne battalions, tank battalions, because the terrorist just goes in to the house of the average Vietnamese and hides there. And the infantry battalion stays three or four days, or three or four weeks, and then it goes on, and he comes back out again. In order to get at the terrorist you have to organize the totality of the civilian population. Now that's what you've got to do, and it's a combination civil and military problem. And so in Vietnam you have to marry the civil and the military in order to solve the problem. We've never had anything like it, and it's complicated, and it's going to take some time.