On January 2, 1963, South Vietnamese troops and their U.S.
military advisers engaged Vietcong forces in what became known
as the Battle of Ap Bac. Three U.S. soldiers died in the
skirmish, which received extensive coverage in the American
press. Several of those accounts were critical of the South
Vietnamese performance, generating searching editorials on the
status of the U.S. military advisory effort. Less than a week
after the engagement in South Vietnam, President Kennedy invited
legislative leaders to the White House to hear a briefing on the
campaign from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara∇. During the
course of his report, McNamara would propose that Army Chief of
Staff Gen. Earle G. Wheeler tour South Vietnam to conduct a more
intensive study of the war.