At a Cabinet meetingon September 23, 1963, Undersecretary of State George Ball commented to the President on Vietnam.
Ball: “It’s not an easy situation, but it’s one where the problem really does exist on two fronts, the military front and the domestic front. And they are closely interrelated and what we want to do is to see if we can bring the situation about where the war can continue successfully and come at some point to a conclusion, because we don’t want to be bogged down in Southeast Asia forever.
(Ball quote at 2:40 of clip)