at the age of fifty-seven, general paul harkins was still in excellent physical shape. A former hockey and polo star, he had the energy and enthusiasm needed for the difficult post of senior U. S. military adviser to a country with far flung outposts facing attack. Harkins's enemies in the press corps were to accuse him of spending little time in the field and relying solely on statistical reports for information. The journalist and author Neil Sheehan later claimed that “General Paul D. Harkins and his staff sat in their air-conditioned offices in Saigon and waxed optimistic on the same kind of supposedly impressive statistics the French had comforted themselves with during the First Indochina War.” In actuality, as those who worked with him would attest, Harkins spent a great portion of time in the field. “He lived a Spartan military life in Saigon, traveling almost daily around the country in small planes to keep in touch with the war,” noted John Mecklin, the embassy counseler for public affairs. At dusty district headquarters and remote mountain militia posts, Harkins sought firsthand information on the war from South Vietnamese and American officers, and then afterwards obtained independent appraisals to make sure the officers in the field knew their stuff and were not sugarcoating anything for the boss.

General Harkins spent much of the year's second half pressing Diem to fix problems in the South Vietnamese armed forces that had not been fixed during the first half.