spartans_in_darkness

TOP SE6RETr'f60MINTNX1
Chapter 4 - (U) The Burden's First Fanfare: American SIGINT Arrives
in the Republic ofVietnam, 1961-1964
(D) By early 1961, the military and political
situations in the Republic of Vietnam had deteriorated
to the point where there was serious concern
in the American embassy in Saigon that the
communists were within sight of victory. Just two
months earlier President Diem had narrowly survived
an attempted coup by dissident paratroop
units. Although the coup had been amateurishly
planned and executed, it had the effect of highlighting
Diem's lack of support in the country and
especially from the officer corps of the armed
forces of Vietnam. The professed aim of the officers
involved in the coup was to protest the failure
of Diem to effectively prosecute the war against
the communist insurgency. As part of their proposed
program, the officers also had called for
political and social reforms in South Vietnam.
(D) There were problems from the villages, as
well. About a year earlier, during January 1960,
peasants in Ben Tre Province, which is just one
hundred miles south of Saigon in the Mekong
Delta, had revolted against Saigon. They were fed
up with Diem's resettlement program, called
Agrovilles. Inspired and organized by local Viet
Cong agitators, they attacked civil guard posts
and overthrew village administrations appointed
by Diem. The peasants, even though lightly
armed, managed to stave off early counterattacks
by ARVNunits sent in to quell them.
(TS//SI) Ifthe internal, noncommunist opposition
wasn't enough of a threat to Diem, at the
same time communist guerrillas had escalated
their operations. The VC had carried out large
unit attacks against ARVN field formations and
had bested them in several battles. Trained to
fight in the conventional fashion taught to them
by their American (and earlier French) advisors,
Saigon's units remained tied to large formation
tactics and relied on the weight of their firepower
and numbers to overcome communist units.
(V) VC unit on the attack in 1961
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