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252 THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY AND THE VIETNAM WAR 1962–1972 a military one—even though evidence from their own experience, evaluations and intelligence sources suggested otherwise. Military Assistance Command Vietnam’s headquarters was physically located at Than Son Nhut air base outside of Saigon. General Paul D. Harkins was named as the first commander of US Military Assistance Commander, Vietnam (CoMUSMACV). He officially assumed command of MACV on 8 February 1962. 14 After being appointed CoMUSMACV, Harkins, a self-declared ‘optimist’, became notorious for refusing to acknowledge any and all evidence of ARVN shortcomings. While CoMUSMACV, he tolerated no criticism of the South Vietnamese military and dispensed stiff punishment to anyone who dared to do so. 15 Harkins’ optimistic assessments of the situation in South Vietnam was a continuation of a tradition begun by former MAAGs Lieutenant General John W. o’Daniel and Lieutenant General Samuel T. Williams, both of whom ignored negative reports while steadfastly believing that things would resolve themselves. Commenting on Harkins’ view on South Vietnam, United Press International correspondent Neil Sheehan likened it an ‘impenetrable fantasy’. 16 Another author labelled Harkins’ reporting to Washington as ‘Alice-in-Wonderland[esque]’. 17 Harkins’ strategy for eliminating the VC was to draw them out in conventional battle and then overwhelm them with superior US firepower. 18 The problem with this was that the VC avoided, whenever possible, set-piece battles. If Kennedy’s intention in placing Harkins at the head of the new MACV organisation was to improve the effectiveness of the US military mission in South Vietnam, he had made an unfortunate selection. Harkins’ refusal to investigate the reported faults of the ARVN ensured that little was done to correct them. His unwillingness to adopt any strategy other than a conventional one meant that little progress would be made in successfully countering the unconventional tactics of the Viet Cong. Moreover, this meant that most of the problems that had led Kennedy to establish MACV remained largely unresolved. 14. For the MACV terms of reference see Telegram from the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff (Lemnitzer) to the Commander in Chief, Pacific (Felt), 6 January 1962, FRUS, Vietnam, 1962, vol. 2, 14-16. 15. General Harkins’ unwillingness to heed any criticism of the RVNAF was later made clear at an 11 May 1964 meeting in Saigon. Minutes of the meeting noted that on the issue of ‘setting up a reporting system on combat effectiveness and morale of RVNAF’ General Harkins ‘expressed some concern lest it involve critical reporting by the advisors upon their opposite numbers and that the substance of such reports might get back to the Vietnamese’. See Memorandum of a Meeting, Saigon, 11 May 1964, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964, vol. 1, 310. on Harkins’ cheer-leader type relationship with the South Vietnamese, David Halberstam writes that ‘although Harkins was a General, his job was not so much to command fellow soldiers, but to get along with Diem and Nhu, extraordinarily difficult and suspicious allies with most unmilitary minds’. David Halberstam, The Making of a Quagmire (New York: Ballantine Books, 1991), 179. 16. Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 542. 17. George McT. Kahin, Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam (New York: Anchor Books, 1987), 143. 18. Robert Buzzanco, Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 124.
ADVISoRS AND oPTIMISM Compounding these difficulties was the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) structuring of MACV, which created a number of problems that undermined its ability to transform the ARVN into an effective and autonomous military force. Furthermore, allowing MAAG to continue functioning after establishing MACV injected a degree of confusion into the US military’s Vietnam command structure. The establishment of MACV did enable a greater focus on counter insurgency, but its complicated and unusual command structure made its functioning problematic. That the JCS did not establish MACV as a theatre command, that they did not immediately replace MAAG with MACV and that they tolerated duplicate chains of command, suggests that a degree of ambivalence existed within the senior US military leadership’s overall approach to Vietnam. This ambivalence was to be one of the war’s permanent features. As Harkins was busy establishing himself in his new command, Admiral Harry D. Felt, commander-in-chief Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC) and Harkins’ superior, cabled the JCS laying out the situation in Vietnam as he saw it. He explained that the ‘main VC military body has not been defeated; conversely it is numerically stronger than ever before, and militarily/politically the VC is very active’. 19 He further noted that the Viet Cong’s method of operation often undercut any advantage the ARVN possessed in firepower. To counter this VC method of operation, the Kennedy administration had encouraged a greater application in training and employing counter insurgency tactics. This desired shift in strategy was undercut by the lack of interest that many US military leaders had for counter insurgency. General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1960-61), saw Kennedy as ‘oversold’ on unconventional warfare. General George Decker, Army Chief of Staff (1960-62), argued, ‘any good soldier can handle guerrillas’. An anonymous US Army officer’s statement on the subject, ‘I’m not going to destroy the traditions and doctrine of the United States Army just to win this lousy war’, perhaps best sums up the reluctance to embrace the counter insurgency strategy that Kennedy encouraged. 20 Previously the Army had expended little effort on the development or application of a counter-insurgency doctrine. This is borne out by the fact that no mention of it was made in Army Field Manuals until 1962. 21 The first official Department of Defense study on counter insurgency concluded that ‘the tactical doctrine for the employment of regular forces against insurgent guerrilla forces has not been adequately developed, and the Army does not have a clear concept of the proper scale and type of equipment 19. Telegram from Commander-in-Chief, Pacific (Felt), to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 22 February 1962, FRUS, Vietnam, 1962, vol. 2, 167. 20. See Michael Lind, Vietnam the Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America’s Most Disastrous Military Conflict (New York: The Free Press, 1999), 103-04. 21. See Department of the Army, FM 100-5: Field Service Regulations—Operations (Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army, 1962). 253
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THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY AND THE VIETNAM
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Contents Preface vii Contributors x
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Preface Vietnam was Australia’s l
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PReFACe whose behalf and alongside
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CONTRIBUTORS which he was joint edi
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CONTRIBUTORS Command and General St
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CONTRIBUTORS Barry Smith was conscr
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Introduction Lieutentant General Pe
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The Vietnam Syndrome: A Brief Histo
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THE VIETNAM SYNDROME: A BRIEF HISTO
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CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP support in
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CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP had stated
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CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP This patte
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CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP of the Fed
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CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP targeting
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CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP was intere
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CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP Between Mc
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CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP least your
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The Higher Direction of the Army in
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The hIGheR dIReCTION OF The ARMy IN
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The TrAInIng oF The AusTrAlIAn Army
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TRAININg foR SeRVIce IN SouTh VIeTN
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PRePARING ARMOuReD uNITS FOR OVeRSe
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THe deVeLoPMeNT oF THe AusTrALIAN A
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dOCTRINE, TRAININg ANd COMBAT WITH
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AUSTRAliAN TASk FORce OPeRATiONS iN
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fIGHTING AGAINST TIme Vietnam. for
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fIGHTING AGAINST TIme By 1963 the A
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fIGHTING AGAINST TIme of Staff, ‘
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fIGHTING AGAINST TIme To the south,
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fIGHTING AGAINST TIme Bewildered by
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fIGHTING AGAINST TIme the ARVN was
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fIGHTING AGAINST TIme Decreased fun
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THE mAKING OF TIGERS and under the
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THE mAKING OF TIGERS military build
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THE mAKING OF TIGERS out of America
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THE mAKING OF TIGERS was no comfort
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THE mAKING OF TIGERS Until the summ
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THE mAKING OF TIGERS Korean soldier
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THE mAKING OF TIGERS in the south.
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THE mAKING OF TIGERS children to gi
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THE mAKING OF TIGERS South Korean u
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THE mAKING OF TIGERS in the Lunar C
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THE mAKING OF TIGERS remark, which
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THE mAKING OF TIGERS estimate, he h
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THE mAKING OF TIGERS to official gu
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THE mAKING OF TIGERS the 70s, Korea
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NeW ZeALAND’S COMMITMeNT OF INFAN
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Meeting the Challenge of Training a
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Page 227 and 228: ANZAC Battalions: Australian Experi
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HoW HISToRy WoRKS: AFTERTHoUGHTS Al
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