0 - The Black Vault

THE BOM CORPORATION
r
0 Programs moved much too quickly under the personal concrol of
counselor Nhu, resulting in gross failures of implementation,
Ambiguities in assessment of the programs were created by the
gross inadequacies in their implementation,
* Vietnamese administrative support structure could not keep up
S
I A
with the needs of the programs.,
Well-integrated plans following the orinciple of building outward
gradually from areas of strength were rever developed.
failure on the part of the GVN to provide the people with a
viable political alternative to communism.
One notable expert also correctly faults the US civilian and
. military organization- in Vietnam for failing to have a common approach
toward defeating the insurgents and pacifying the countryside.
More serious at this ti'iie -- and for future years
as well -- was the lack of common appreach and direction
between American civilien and military organizadions
in Vietnam. The civilian side was committed to a
concept of counterinsurgency which focused on the
oopulation as the heart of the matter. Necessarily.
this meant that priority would go to the shaping 3f
favorable attitudes to be accomplished first oy providing
security, followed up by improved and responsive
government services, until finally the people were
committed anu fully engaged in their own defense. The
military, despite concessions - no doubt sincere - to
the importance of winning the population, was qu!ite
unshakably wedded to the idea that priority must gc to
destroying the enemy's armed force, and doing it by the
familiar means of concentrating manpower and firepower
at the right time and place. 78/
Hence, from the USOM/MAAG point of view, there were two programs
instead of one for defeating the insurgency -- the pacification program
(i.e., civic action, Agrovilles and Strategic Hamlets) on the one hand, and
I • the military effort to seek out and destroy the VC forces on the other.
The net effect of the military effort was a gradual expansion of military
firepower and available air power in ways hardly suited to the nature of
1 the war being fcght. Bombing and artillery barrages became standard
5-31I