The guerrilla war received an endorsement from Moscow in a speech by Chairman Nikita Khrushchev. The USSR, said Khrushchev, would support wars of national liberation "wholeheartedly", and he cited the examples of Vietnam and Algeria as two such wars.

President John F. Kennedy took office two weeks later, and one of the first acts of his administration was to react to the Kremlin pronouncement by instituting studies and funding programs of counter-insurgency. Then in March, Kennedy announced that Soviet planes were operating in Laos, breaking the signed agreements that accepted the neutrality of that country. He neglected to mention that the US had been violating that neutrality for several years by then.

Two months later, Kennedy sent Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson to Saigon to talk with Diem. One of the results of those discussions was the dispatching of a mobile control and reporting post from the 507th Tactical Control Croup, Shaw AFB, SC, to Tan Son Nhut air base outside Saigon. It was operational by 5 October, and the active, overt participation of the USAF in the war in Vietnam dates from that day.

Within a week, a second detachment was authorized to go to South Vietnam. The USAF had established the Special Air Warfare Center at Eglin AFB, Florida, in the first flush of enthusiasm for counter-insurgency. It was training a group of Air Commandos under the general project name of Jungle Jim. A group was put together from the Jungle Jim roster, and sent to Bien Hoa. Detachment 2A, 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron (CCTS), moving under the codename of Farm Gate, took 151 USAF officers and men to Vietnam. With them went eight North American T-28 trainers converted for counter-insurgency use, four Douglas SC-47 transports, and four Douglas RB-26 light reconnaissance bombers, all carrying the insignia of the Republic of Vietnam.