A fact finding expedition dispatched by the Kennedy administration to South Vietnam in early September 1963 . The stated purpose of the expedition was to investigate the progress of the war by South Vietnam and the American military advisers against the Vietcong insurgency . The mission was led by U.S Marine Corps Major General Victor Krulak and Mendenhall . The four-day whirlwind trip was dispatched on the same day of a National Security Council meeting on September 6 and came in the wake of increasingly strained relations between the United States and South Vietnam . Civil unrest gripped that nation as Buddhist demonstrations against the religious discrimination of President Ngo Dinh Diem escalated . Following the raids on Buddhist pagodas on August 21 which left an estimated triple figure death toll , the US had authorised investigations into a possible coup in a cable to US Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge , Jr. as South Vietnam descended into chaos . The report of the conclusion was that Krulak presented an extremely optimistic report on the progress of the war , while Mendenhall presented an extremely bleak picture of military failure and public discontent . The divergent reports led US President John F. Kennedy to famously ask his two advisers whether they had visited the same country . The inconclusive report saw a follow-up mission sent to Vietnam , the McNamara Taylor mission , led by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Maxwell Taylor
raids on Buddhist pagodas
Xá Lợi Pagoda raids
Joseph Mendenhall