spartans_in_darkness

Tefl 3E6RETH6eMINTH)(1
1. 4. (e)
(D) The real loser of the campaign was
Cambodia, which was drawn into a war it was
never ready to fight. As if to make up for having
been neutral all of the early years of the war,
Cambodia erupted in a flash of fighting from one
border to another. Spurred on and supplied by
the Vietnamese communist troops moving westward,
the local communist guerrillas, known as
the Khmer Rouge, quickly grew from a small irritant
to a major force which would ultimately
overthrow Lon Nol's pro-American regime in
Phnom Penh and usher in the gruesome slaughter
called the "killing fields."
(D) Washington justified much ofthe expanded
fighting as necessary to cover the American
withdrawal. A new strategy for prosecuting the
war soon dominated the thinking in the Nixon
administration. As spelled out in the "Nixon
Doctrine," it was a simple one: the U.S. would
supply arms and material, but, from now on, the
fighting had to be done by the Vietnamese.
(U)Notes
1. (T8//8n Master File Sheet North Vietnamese
INCAACC# 44927.
4.
(D) Also see Herring, America's Longest War, 238­
240 and Hersh, The Price ofPower, 15~22, especially
on the role of Henry Kissinger and AnnaChenault as
the intermediaries between the South Vietnamese and
Richard Nixon.
5. (D) Allan R. Millet and Peter Maslowski,For the
Common Defense: A Military History of the United
States (New York: The Free Press, 1984),561.
6. (T8//8I)1 fOCUS on Cambodia (Fort
George G. Meade: Cryptologic History Series, 1974),
25.
7. tet Combined Intelligence Center, Vietnam,
(D) This strategy was not a completely new r--..............."""""...................""""-""""""'.......................,.........-------........,
one. The previous year, a Pentagon study group
had suggested a similar course: American forces
should be relegated to population center and military
facility security while the ARVN troops "----"""":':"....,..;"'~:------:":':"':"'-,...---------- ......
would assume a stronger role in the war.
(Ironically, this was the major role intended for
the first U.S. ground combat forces when they
were introduced into South Vietnam in 1965.)
Buried in the Pentagon report was a term that
would become the goal of all future American policy
(including that of cryptologists) in South
Vietnam: Vietnamization.
11. ('fEll/S!) 3/0/VNC/T95-62, 29 August 1819Z
1962.
12. (TS//SI) 3/0/VNG/RI5-62, 23 March 1962.
13. (TS//SnOW.
14. (TS//S!) 3/0/VNG/RI5-62, 23 March 1962;
DIRNSA MSG to SSG DIA, 310152Z March 1962,
03002/31, CCH Series XlI.B, Box 10.
15. (S//81) Department of State, "Viet Cong
Command Post," 28 March 1962, 3, CCH Series
XII NN IV A 7
i
EO 1.4. (e)
P.L. 86-36
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