1 The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign ...

woman from Jersey. Maria – she had red hair, an English background. They were a nice
family – we were very good friends. Harry Schwartz gave me free rein in Tehran,
actually. He said, “Go for it, you more than anybody else, keep going.” When the SIG
was created, he asked me to come as his assistant, special assistant. That was the staff,
Harry Schwartz and me.
Q: You were doing this from what, ’67 to …
MILLER: Sixty-seven, I worked flat out for about six months and then I resigned. Part of
the reason for my resignation was that the SIG in the end failed, because the secretary
didn’t support it when asked to by George Ball.
Q: Was the – Dean Rusk – the basic issue was Vietnam, wasn’t it?
MILLER: Yes.
Q: And Dean Rusk was bound and determined to put everything into Vietnam.
MILLER: He ignored the rest, yes, basically.
Q: Did you find that the undersecretary – were you sort of there as the note-taker and
all? Were they trying to take it at a different tack? George Ball was well-known for being
in opposition, loyal opposition, but how about the others?
MILLER: This was the fundamental turf issue affecting all foreign policy. The turf battle
that was fought over Vietnam affected all of the other aspects of foreign policy. This
interagency group – it was called the SIG, (Senior Interdepartmental Group, S-I-G). The
turf battle on all other foreign policy issues than Vietnam was allowed to go on without
structural discipline. The Pentagon would handle everything it thought was their concern.
Obviously, many issues were of interest to at least two or more departments or agencies.
There was a constant battle going on on Vietnam, and the secretary was too busy to
support Ball. Although the SIG was a fully empowered by Johnson, the burden of
Vietnam prevented it from being a coordinating body. The SIG did not change the
landscape.
I had been becoming increasingly despondent and pessimistic about the direction of
Vietnam. In the last trip that I took to Vietnam, with the secretary, that included a number
of people from outside of the department, including several senators, one of whom was
Senator John Sherman Cooper …
Q: The Kentucky senator.
MILLER: Yes. Senator Cooper asked me to consider joining his staff to work on
Vietnam, and I thought about this and decided that, in all conscience, I couldn’t go on
within the State Department, being so close to Vietnam policy itself. Even though, I had
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