The Krulak Mendenhall mission was an American fact-finding expedition
sent by President Kennedy's administration to South Vietnam in 1963. It
investigated the progress of the war by the South Vietnamese regime and
their US military advisers against the Viet Cong insurgency. The mission
was led by Victor Krulak (pictured), a major general in the Marine
Corps, and Joseph Mendenhall, a senior Foreign Service officer
experienced in Vietnamese affairs. The four-day whirlwind trip came in
the wake of increasingly strained relations between the United States
and South Vietnam. In their submissions Krulak presented an optimistic
report on the progress of the war, but Mendenhall presented a bleak
picture of military failure and public discontent. Krulak said that the
Vietnamese soldiers' efforts in the field would not be affected by the
public's unease with President Ngô Đình Diệm's policies. Mendenhall
concluded that those policies increased the possibility of religious
civil war and led the South Vietnamese to believe that their quality of
life would improve under the Viet Cong. The contradictory reports
prompted Kennedy to ask, "You two did visit the same country, didn't
you?" (Full article...).
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krulak_Mendenhall_mission>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1191:
Third Crusade: Forces under Richard I of England defeated
Ayyubid troops under Saladin in Arsuf, present-day Israel.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arsuf>
1812:
Napoleonic Wars: The French Grande Armée forced the Russians
to withdraw at the Battle of Borodino.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Borodino>
1893:
British expatriates in Italy founded the Genoa Cricket &
Athletic Club, today one of Italy's oldest association football clubs.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genoa_C.F.C.>
1936:
The last thylacine died in captivity in Hobart Zoo in
Australia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine>
1986:
Desmond Tutu became the first black person to lead the Church
of the Province of Southern Africa.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu>
1996:
American rapper Tupac Shakur was fatally shot multiple times in
Las Vegas, dying from his injuries six days later.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Tupac_Shakur>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
crickets:
[…] (US, slang, humorous) Used alone or in metaphorically descriptive
phrases: absolute silence; no communication.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/crickets>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
When a nation threatens another nation the people of the latter
forget their factionalism, their local antagonisms, their political
differences, their suspicions of each other, their religious
hostilities, and band together as one unit. Leaders know that, and that
is why so many of them whip up wars during periods of national crisis,
or when the people become discontented and angry. The leaders stigmatize
the enemy with every vice they can think of, every evil and human
depravity. They stimulate their people’s natural fear of all other men
by channeling it into a defined fear of just certain men, or nations.
Attacking another nation, then, acts as a sort of catharsis,
temporarily, on men’s fear of their immediate neighbors. This is the
explanation of all wars, all racial and religious hatreds, all
massacres, and all attempts at genocide.
--Taylor Caldwell
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Taylor_Caldwell>