spartans_in_darkness

--------------- - - - ---
TO!' SEe~fffieOMIr4fHX 1
EO 1.4. (c)
Despite an apparent mobility brought about by
wheeled and tracked vehicles, as well as the
beginnings of a heliborne capability, the ARVN
units still were sluggish and confined to the road
network. Viet Con units
"--- ..... utilizing flexible
tactics that emphasized mobility and concentration
of organic weaponry, proved to be too much
for Saigon's forces. Besides using tactics ill-suited
to counterinsurgency, the ARVN forces were
commanded largely by officers who were political
appointees, mostly Catholics like Diem, and
whose main mission was to preserve their units
so they could support Diem in case of a coup.
Loyalty to Diem and the Ngo family was paramount
to the continued promotion of these officers.
(U) Defining the Struggle: The
Counterinsurgency Plan, 1960-1961
(S//SI)
(0) In early 1960, a sense of crisis pervaded
D.S. thinking about South Vietnam as well as the
concurrent situation in Laos. In April, the CINC­
PAC sponsored a conference in Okinawa which
studied the problems in those two countries. The
completed study, "Counterinsurgency Operations
in South Vietnam and Laos," emphasized the
need to remedy the problems in South Vietnam
with military aid and administrative changes to
Diem's government. This approach largely
ignored the importance of the systemic political,
economic, nationalist, and ethnic pressures
which were pulling South Vietnam apart and
which the communists were so adept at exploiting
for their own advancement. In the same study,
the problems Diem was having with the peasants
and the ethnic minorities were downplayed; these
groups were portrayed as little more than pliant
herds, willing to follow any superior authority."
This attitude towards the internal opposition
groups also i nored or was i norant of the evidence
CD) The CINCPAC, Admiral Harry Felt, forwarded
the insurgency plan to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff in June 1960 with the recommendation that
it be the basis for any instructions developed by
the State and Defense Departments for the
American "country team," that is, the U.S. ambassador
and Commander DSMAAG, Saigon, and
their staffs."
CD) The response from Saigon to the counterinsurgency
plan merely reflected the debate in
Washington over which course of action to follow
to defeat the growing communist insurgency
threat. The commander of the MA..AG, Lieutenant
General Lionel McGarr, came down in favor of
increased military aid, which included the enlarging
of South Vietnam's military by 20,000 troops,
transferring the Civil Guard to Saigon's Ministry
of Defense, improving its intelligence capability,
beefing up border and coastal surveillance operations,
and improving the army's civil affairs and
civil action programs. In addition, it advocated
(V) Ambassador Eldridqe Durbrow
Page 120
lap SECRE1IIcaMI.HII*~