Covert Support to Military Government in South Vietnam - CIA FOIA

C01268717
CIA, earlier the most vigorous proponent of a "one-war" strategy, now
joined the rest of the US Government in either abdicating the ideological
struggle or assuming that Saigon had won it. 58D
Polgar expanded on this point of view when Gen. Alexander Haig
visited Saigon in late June: if the North Vietnamese were defeated,
"there should be no problem with pacification.... It is not [a] question of
[a] 'tight for hearts and minds' but simply one of who controls city hall."
The COS dismissed Haig's question about the prospect of a general
uprising: there had been no uprisings or any other significant action by
the indigenous Communist organization, even where the North Vietnamese
Army had made "authentic gains," and ARVN was now fighting
well. 59D
By mid-July, Thieu aide General Quang was reassuring Polgar that
the South Vietnamese presence had not suffered serious damage in the
populated areas of the Mekong Delta, although it would take hard work
farther south, in An Xuyen and Chuong Thien Provinces, to "restore or
establish" government control. In August, with the immediate threat
largely surmounted, the hardy-unity-through-crisis theme surfaced again
in a Station meeting with Judge Tran Si Tan, a Thieu confidant and intermittent
channel to the Agency. According to Tan, Thieu still believed
that, with continued US support, South Vietnam could resist political and
military pressure from the North. To be sure, Thieu would have to rely on
relatively mediocre military and politieal leaders, but he hoped that fear
of a Communist takeover would galvanize the disparate South Vietnamese
military and political elements into an effective resistance force. 6oD
Looking for a New Political Action StrategyD
A September 1972 exchange between Bill Colby-now the
Agency's Executive Director/Comptroller-and COS Polgar revealed
continuing disagreement inside CIA about US political goals in South
Vietnam. Colby wrote to the COS urging him to develop a new political
action strategy for South Vietnam. Colby would leave specific action
proposals to the Station, but he thought it essential that they be aimed at
strengthening GVN institutions for protracted competition with the
"Saigon 51007, 2H June 1972,1 1
"Saigon5ll:ll, I July 19721 I
"'Saigon 51 8H6, 18Jnly 1972.1 IRichard Helms, DOl', Memorandum
to Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Henry A. Kissinger, "President
Thien's Reactions to His Discussions With Dr. Kissinger," 28 August 1972,1 I
I I
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